NASCAR 09

Okay. I’m going to be straight up with you now. I don’t get NASCAR. I don’t see the appeal, I don’t fully appreciate the fan following that it gets, and I don’t follow (or understand) the rules.

But, it was with an open mind that I downloaded the demo of the NASCAR 09 demo, because I am, in all honesty, a racing game junkie. I was excited to be able to give this game a try, and see what it was like.

I liked what EA did with the opening sequence, having a racecar going around the 'circuit' that is the perimeter of the EA logo, and then the car wheelspinning off - that's my kinda style. Let's hope that the game lived up to this kind of standard...

Now, first impressions were good – a ‘real’ dude stood there, by the name of Jeff Gordan, presumably a real racer that is affiliated with EA’s offering, telling me that this was a demo, but not to worry because in the real game he would be there every step of the way, guiding me in all things NASCAR. Fantastic.

I found the menus hard to read – but that will be because the game is designed to be played on a HDTV, and I don’t have one. (If you want to help contribute towards an HDTV, that would be muchos appreciated).

I couldn’t change the actual car that I was using, only driver - and I ended up using a car that was sponsored by Pop Tarts. Erm, okay.... So, I just got into my car (I’m not even sure what the car was).

I tried with a three lap practice first of all, and was quite disappointed with the graphics. They weren’t refined and polished like they are in GT5 – okay, maybe I’m being a bit harsh here – who can match GT5? Even then, compare the graphics of NASCAR 09 with the graphics of RaceDriver:Grid, and it makes EA’s racer look like a Spectrum game… blocky graphics – poor. The in-car graphics weren't too hot either...

So anyway, I completed my three laps, hitting speeds in excess of 160mph, managing to stay on track and not crash. Fine.

I then tried a proper race, and discovered that it was 10 laps. 10 laps? What’s that all about then? Anyway, it didn’t feel like 10 laps. I lost it a number of time, and when I crashed into the wall, the camera shook annoyingly – obviously in a poor attempt to imitate real in car crash physics.

Then, I happened to nudge another car, and must have caused an awful pile up behind me – the replay of this was good, although I quickly got confused and wasn’t even sure what car was mine.

But then there was all this green flag/white flag malarkey, being pulled into the pit, going back onto the track and driving slowly, and suddenly the 10 laps were over, and I’d finished 17th out of 40 odd.

I then had the option to play again.

No thanks.

But, I hadn’t yet thrown in the towel.

I tried another of the games, which was crash evasion. Basically, you had to stay on track for 15 seconds without hitting another car or the wall, whilst trying to navigate a pile-up in front.

I tried this on a number of occasions, and failed miserably on each one.

Then I threw the towel in.

For some people, this game will be awesome. I am not one of them.

My rating: 4/10.

Will I be buying this game? Not at all.

But that doesn't mean that you don't need to:

Burnout Paradise

The demo of this game is absolutely fantastic. Now I’ll tell you straight: I’ve never played a Burnout game before – I was generally put off by the box art, of a burning car tumbling recklessly out of control. In hindsight, maybe I should’ve played a couple of them games…

So it was with an open mind that I downloaded the demo version of Burnout Paradise from the PlayStation Store.

The game starts wonderfully, explaining that although this is just a demo, you can still race, perform jumps, smash through billboards and even race online. Cool.

You can only drive one car in the demo, a bashed up stunt and jump car. It’s a great car to drive, and once you find a repair shop (which you are directed to anyway) it’s restored to it’s original glory. You can even find a paint shop and change the colour, but only one colour change is available in the demo. I’m not sure how this will work in the full game – do you have a choice of the colours or not? Let’s wait and see.

Handling wise, the car is superb. It’s rocket-fast, and easy to slide and drift around corners.

The demo has a fairly big map to explore, in which you need to find 34 yellow gates to smash through, which is exhilaratingly fab, 15 billboards to smash, and 6 insane jumps to find. I’ve not played on it excessively, and have therefore not found all of the above. My fave? Driving into a multi store car park, and launching off of the roof.

The graphics are phenomenal too, albeit blurred by the speed at which you travel.

To start a race is easy – pull up at a set of lights, accelerate and brake at the same time, and you’ve entered the event.

Equally, getting online is simple – just a case of using the right button on the D-pad. It’s surprisingly easy.

Two things that I’m not keen on, but could get used to: No navigational arrows – you’ve got to work out the route yourself, which isn’t a great difficulty, but I personally found the mini map hard to read at blisteringly fast speeds. There is a navigation system of sorts – road names appear at the top of the screen, indicating how close you are to a junction. But take your eyes off the road to read them, and you’re likely to wreck the car.

The second thing that I missed sorely was a speedometer. I love to be able to glance at the speedo and think, “Yeah, I’m blasting around streets at 220mph – unlikely!” But there was no speedo, which left me feeling a bit empty.

I love the slow mo effect when crashing, it’s stomach churningly realistic.

My rating: 8

Will I buy this game: Definitely.

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