NASCAR 08 for PlayStation 2 Reviews by Gamers

let me preface this by saying i am not a NASCAR fan but wanted to give this game a chance because the franchise has been so highly received in the past. I certainly don't fully understand the nuances of NASCAR racing, but it didn't take too long to get the hang of this game.

PROS:

1) can be fun to bully a bit on the track and sacrifice precision and making allies for aggressive driving and 1st place finishes.

2) easy to tweak the car to perform better for your individual style

3) fun to build your character and race up ladder of circuits

4)the driving controls as well as developing a driving style took only a full race to understand.

CONS:

1) umm, you drive in a circle. the entire game. i suppose i should've realized how boring that can get...

2) had DIRT for the xbox360 at the same time and found more often than not, i got tired of NASCAR and switched games

3) not enough ways to upgrade car and as you progress, upgrades get too expensive too fast

4) some of the game play features were awful. if you get spun out early in the race amidst a large group of other racers, you sometimes need to reverse and reset by that time, you can already be down too much to recover

5) i reached virtually every "medallion" yet only was credited with doing so a fraction of the time. For example, if a race calls for you to pass 20 cars (in a field of about 22) i figured i'd just skip the time trials and start last. Every time i did this and won (meaning i went from 22nd place to 1st), i never received a medallion for this accomplishment

6) if you get far enough ahead early on, you basically drive in circles by yourself for sometimes 20 laps. drove me insane and i was ready to punch a wall.

7) seems to be only about a dozen different courses. maybe it's realistic but again, it was like fingernails on a chalkboard to me:

i know many people LOVE this game and i honestly gave it a real chance, but in the end, i was just driving in circles. BORING! rent DIRT over NASCAR!!