Nascar Thunder 2003

Here is a game that doesn't convince me. Nascar Racing 2003 (NT2003) looks polished, comes from Electronic Arts, tries to flip from arcade to simulation, and it leaps from its 2002 incarnation, but still remains an inferior product, if compared to Papyrus' Nascar Racing 2002 (NR2002).

NT2003 is clearly more serious than the previous Thunder, but feels like unfinished in many ways. For example, you are supposed to press 'R' and have a replay, but that never worked for me. The screenshots available on this page, were only possible from the inside of the car or from scripted sequences, like the starting grid just before the warm up lap.

A very nice progress on NT2003, is allowing separate axes for throttle and brake pedals, thus establishing the grounds for a true simulator. Unfortunately the default track for a quickrace - Daytona near the beach - isn't a true championship track, having sand all over the place, and this just doesn't seem coherent. But it is fun!

If you are a serious simulator racer, the #1 thing to do is turn off all the controller helps, like braking assistance and automatic gear shifting; then (#2) you should set the adversaries to 100% on skill, and then you should be able to draw some conclusions on how the car handles and on how believable are your competitors.

The car handles fine and feels good except at slow turns, where it tends not to react promptly on full throttle, or - on the opposite - to overreact, spinning. I just couldn't find the right balance.

I think that the default track is sandy Daytona, because the user immediately gets the chance to fight the car on every left turn, a tad like if this was a Rally game. Soon you'll understand that, no matter how spectacular that may be, it simply won't deliver good times, as your adversaries will be lapping on low 00:48.xxx and you'll probably be sweating not to kiss the 01:00.xxx. With some practice you'll be lapping on 00:51.xxx, but never on the 48s, unless you are a setup magician.

I have a very decent PC, but NT2003 never was as fluid as NR2002, on complex tracks, like Watkins Glenn. One other thing that pops to the eye of the experienced sim-racer, is that NT2003's tracks are slightly different from what you previously found on Nascar software. Since I don't have "real world" Nascar experience, I can't really tell if these differences are realistic, or not, but the overall feeling is that the road is narrower and has considerable more banking than it should, at least on road circuits like Sears Point.

It isn't easy to blow the engine, and you can control most rear-end slides just by sneezing on the brakes and immediately letting go. This is usually true for light single seaters, but I don't think it is faithful to the heavy Nascar physics.

However, the only true problem for NT2003, is that if the player ever tried Nascar Racing 2002, then it simply won't buy Electronic Arts' proposal, since it has inferior graphics, inferior handling, and much inferior physics. The audio is nearly as good as Papyrus', if not better! Yes, great engine audio!

My advise is wait for Nascar Racing 2003...