NASCAR 06: Total Team Control

I picked up NASCAR 06: Total Team Control yesterday for $40, which I thought was pretty reasonable. Being the NASCAR fan that I am, I just had to pick it up -- not only it's a newer, rehashed version of last year's game -- but this year, it's got voice recognition technology in which you can "ask" your crew chief about the race your in, or "speak" commands to your teammates on the racetrack.

As of right now, I don't have a USB headset, but I'll probably pick one of these up later. Instead, a player can use the right analog stick to order your commands to your teammates.

What I like about this game is the whole teamwork aspect. Everybody who knows NASCAR knows that there is no such thing as a single-car team (with a few exceptions). Teams in NASCAR now consist of 2, 3, 4, and even 5 car teams. So while you're on the track, you can switch between your teammate's cars. If you run one guy up to the front, you can select another car ("car-swapping") and charge him to the front. It's pretty cool, especially once you get your pack of teammates in one spot on the track and you start barking out orders to block, "follow me", "work with me", "move over", and so on.

The interface is basically the same as last year's, so there is not much improvement there. The big set-back is the graphics. It looks a lot more "grain-ier" this year, or maybe they're just out-dated (plus the fact that I've been playing NASCAR SimRacing on the PC more and more).

At first, the controls were a little difficult. The car is a lot more responsive than in past year's versions, plus they've switched the buttons around a little bit. I can see the reason in this, because the programmers were probably thinking that us players would need our right thumbs freed up a bit, due to the commands that we would be barking out.

If I were to make a great NASCAR game on the PS2: take the R&D aspects of '04, the Grudge and Alliance system, the graphics of '05, and the teamwork aspects of '06. Simple as that.