NASCAR 09
Final EA Sports NASCAR simulation before license expiration.
NASCAR 09, a sim racing title released in 2008, is the twelfth simulation game in the EA Sports NASCAR series and follows NASCAR 08. It was the final official NASCAR game from EA Sports for the original consoles before their exclusive license ended. Jeff Gordon is the cover driver, his first time since NASCAR 06: Total Team Control.
Quick Facts
- Series
- EA Sports NASCAR
- Engine
- EAGL 4
- Modes
- Single-player, multiplayer
- Genre
- Racing
- Platforms
- PlayStation 2
- PlayStation 3
- Xbox 360
- mobile phone
Facts from the source article.
Features
Jeff Gordon acts as a mentor in the "Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup" career mode, which includes a fully redesigned 3D menu. Under his guidance, the player signs contracts, builds their reputation, and gains performance points by winning races across the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour (available only on PS2), the Craftsman Truck Series, the Nationwide Series, and the Sprint Cup Series. The "Own The Track" feature lets players compete against friends or others to claim ownership of all 22 Sprint Cup tracks. The "Sprint Driver Challenge" offers a series of tasks in different scenarios to earn reputation and performance points. Players can choose between Normal and Pro driving styles, with Pro designed for veterans and Normal for newcomers. Building a custom car from scratch is possible, with over one million setup combinations to improve handling and speed. The Paint Booth Customization Feature, similar to that in Papyrus' NASCAR games, marks only the second time in franchise history that an online car customization template has been offered. Players could download a template from the EA Sports website, edit it in software like Adobe Photoshop, and upload the finished design into the game. Custom car skins were visible only to friends during online races, not to other players. After EA lost the NASCAR license, the Paint Booth application was removed from the EA Sports website.
Development and release
For the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of NASCAR 09, Electronic Arts set up shop at a new North Carolina studio to get closer to the teams and improve the game. The PlayStation 2 edition, however, stayed with the original development team. Because the crew focused their efforts on key gameplay features, no car manufacturers appear in the game at all. The title hit North American stores on June 10, 2008. It launched in the UK for PlayStation 2 and Xbox 360 on June 13, with the PlayStation 3 version following on June 27. Australian gamers could buy it starting June 26. A mobile phone version from EA Mobile arrived on September 25, 2008. Best Buy offered a special cover featuring Elliott Sadler, who had also been on the cover of NASCAR 07. In July 2008, downloadable content arrived, including the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve road course for the Nationwide Series, new paint schemes for both the Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series, plus three packs of special paint schemes for cars already in the game. These new schemes work just like the other cars, with no manufacturer branding.
Reception
NASCAR 09 received "mixed or average" reviews according to review aggregator Metacritic. IGN gave the PlayStation 3 version a score of 5.9/10 and the PlayStation 2 version a score of 5/10, noting that overall presentation was lacking except for Jeff Gordon's green screen mentoring. The reviewer found the controls decent and the Sprint Driver Challenges fun, but described the racing as a tepid, repetitive experience with no flair. The PlayStation 3 version suffered from texture rips, clipping, and slowdown, while the Xbox 360 version had a smoother framerate. X-Play gave the game a positive 4/5, praising the graphics, racing, and career mode, but noted a clumsy interface and that EA's online policies needed work. Their video review described the AI as "fairly fair, nothing crazy, just alright."
Legacy and series future
NASCAR 09 marked the end of EA Sports' line of simulation NASCAR games. Citing declining sales, waning interest, and challenges with adding new features, Electronic Arts decided against producing another title. For the 2009 season, the company instead released only NASCAR Kart Racing. EA's exclusive licensing deal with NASCAR ended in 2010. The following September, Activision took over as the distributor, partnering with developer Eutechnyx and NASCAR directly. Their first release, NASCAR The Game: 2011, arrived on March 29, 2011, for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. On August 11, 2011, EA permanently shut down the online servers for NASCAR 09 along with many of its other games. The NASCAR video game license later passed to 704Games, which revived the series under the NASCAR Heat name. The first title in that revival, NASCAR Heat Evolution, was released in 2016 by Monster Games and Dusenberry Martin Racing.
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