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More fun than sim, NASCAR Thunder has both tastes of authentic NASCAR life along with plenty of arcade action. This year, alongside the standard assortment of real NASCAR drivers and tracks, the game sports a number of fictional tracks that are reminiscent of those seen in Sega's Daytona series. Could this be a taste of an upcoming NASCAR series to come from EA? Time will tell.

There are many ways to play NASCAR Thunder, more this year than ever before. SpeedZone mode is a focused set of training runs designed to help you work on your drafting, passing, blocking and overall speed. Lightning Challenge lets you re-live 40 memorable NASCAR racing moments, and in Thunder License mode, one of a number of drivers talk you through the fastest way around all of the tracks in

Graphically, there's nothing to get too excited about. The visuals aren't bad overall, especially considering the number of cars on-screen, but jagged edges everywhere provide a generally lackluster look. And even with these average visuals, the game fails to maintain a stable framerate. Replays are limited to short "highlight reel" style clips after each race, invariably showing you a few five or six second shots of your car driving around the track doing nothing particularly exciting. If you're lucky, you'll see some tire smoke in the replay because the new smoke effects are about the only thing that visually impresses here.

On the track, the game feels a bit simplistic. Making your way through traffic is a rush, but with the driving aids off, cars are still easy to drive and difficult to spin, even when tearing through the grass. Yes, finding consistent lap times can be a challenge, but that's mostly thanks to touchy controls with the standard controller, so a wheel is a very good idea here. Tuning options for the cars are also simplistic - you have just a few settings to tweak, like downforce

Some topics in this essay:
Winston Cup, NASCAR Thunder, They've NASCAR, Thunder SpeedZone, Sega's Daytona, Lightning Challenge, Thunder License, nascar thunder, shop upgrades,