IGN writes: "The PlayStation 2 occupies an interesting middle ground for multi-platform developers right now. It's obviously not in the same league as the HD systems and it can't hang with the Wii from a pure hardware standpoint, but it's far closer to Nintendo's system than the other next-gen offerings. Rather than trying to port down, though, some devs (like EA) are instead opting to create a slightly different version of the game for non-HD systems. It should come as no surprise that the PS2 version of NASCAR 09, then, isn't really the same game as its PS3 cousin.
Luckily, that doesn't mean it's a bad game. In fact, it's actually rather decent -- in much the same way last year's game was -- but if we dinged the game last year for being largely unchanged, then it's going to go double for this entry, which is even less improved over previous years. We bemoaned the loss of the Total Team Control mechanic that let you jump between cars and shook our heads at the game's middling four-player online offering and surprise! It's all identical."
In the economic hard times of late, many industries have been greatly effected. One, in particular, is NASCAR. Stock car racing is one of the biggest sports in the country. Now I know many people will argue with that because they might not watch NASCAR, but just look logically; the Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama holds 125,000 people, the Daytona 500 is one of the most watched single day events every year, right behind the Super Bowl, and sponsors pay millions of dollars just to get their logo on a car knowing that if that car wins, the fans buy the product. But recently, with companies not willing to shell out so much money, sponsors have gone down, ticket sales have dropped and the revenue of NASCAR in general is low. And it doesn't stop there…
I am not entirely sure how licensing works but if I recall correctly GT5 bought the Nascar license but again I don't know if that affects EA drastically or not. You would think it probably is related somehow...
Oh well, they always rehashed the same game every year. Atleast in GT5, fans of these games will be racing in 1080p glory with the most photorealistic graphics as they go round and round.
This week's "What They've Been Playing" features discussion of Splosion Man, BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger, Madden 10, Battlefield 1943, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life As a Darklord, Nascar 09, Hour of Victory, and much more. They follow that up with some gaming news including the announcement of Sam Raimi as director of the World of Warcraft movie and the record-breaking sales of Battlefield 1943.
Pictures, videos, and little notes from the event. Guests included Tiger Woods, John Cena, Derek Jeter, Reggie Bush, Denny Hamlin, Jameer Nelson Major Nelson, and a random appearance by Jimmy Kimmel's parking lot security Guillermo.
