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."
