For those of you who don’t know, I’m a huge fan of NASCAR and NASCAR video games, and have been playing them since they were made by Sierra and Papyrus on PCs.

I was excited when NASCAR 98 first came to the Sony PlayStation. At the time, I thought it was pretty awesome, though compared to NASCAR PC games it sucked – after all on the PC you could customize your car and the game was more complex. Still, the PS version was a fun alternative to the PC game and was much quicker to setup and play. As time went on, the games on home consoles improved, as did the complexity of the game.

When I bought a PS2, I got NASCAR Thunder 2004, which, as far as I can remember, was the first NASCAR game to have the Grudges and Alliances feature. This feature would allow drivers to remember incidents with other drivers and react accordingly. For example, if another driver had a negative rating against you, they would try to wreck you. Conversely, drivers with a positive rating would help you.

I then upgraded, or so I thought, to NASCAR 06. This version featured Total Team Control, which meant that you could control the cars of your teammates, and you could give your teammates orders. The problem was that for some reason, EA Sports slowed down the gameplay.

In the 2004 version, the cars felt much faster. In 06, they felt like they were moving in slow motion. While the other aspects of the game were pretty cool, the slowness was just unacceptable. Also, 06 allowed for more driver help, which made the career mode much easier. In 2004, you couldn’t use “brake assist” in career mode, but in 06 you could.

Not that you care, but playing 2004, I won the Daytona 500 in career mode in my first ever start. I was in an unsponsored car that was 20 mph slower than everyone else, and I used a two-tire stop to gain the lead, and blocked like hell to the finish. I believe, if memory serves me correctly, that I ran out of gas a few yards from the finish line, but I still won. I know this makes me a loser, but that victory felt as real as any driver’s first victory. I almost sprayed a Coke all over my living room in celebration.

Adding in too much driver help cheapens that experience, and makes the game too easy for people with little to no skill. Thus, it’s not as rewarding to win a race in the 06 version. That pretty much killed it for me, which is why I bought 07.

I rarely, if ever, buy back-to-back iterations of any game, but felt like I had to give EA another chance. I mean, right on the box it said that the game had been sped up. I was duped. Speeding up the gameplay didn’t actually mean speeding up gameplay. Instead, it meant blurring the background for a greater sense of speed. The blurred background did not increase the sense of speed. It did, however, increase the sense of sucky-ness.

I was bitter so I skipped the 08 version, and would have done the same for 09 had I not received a BestBuy gift card for Christmas from my girlfriend. I decided to purchase it, as it wouldn’t cost me anything, really. I was, again, disappointed. The gameplay was slow, and the racing wasn’t much fun. It was actually quite boring.

So, I decided that I would go back to playing 04. But, apparently leaving your PS2 in a closet for a few months causes the controllers to stop working. So, I thought I would buy 04 for Xbox and play it on my 360.

I looked everywhere for that game, GameStop, PlayNTrade, and eBay. I found one on eBay for $10. I ordered it, and received it two days later. I was amped up to play it when I got home from work. But, when I turned it on, I got an error message saying that the 360 does not recognize this game – apparently it is not compatible.

What the %&*& is that ^&*$? I guess I should have checked, but I just assumed that all Xbox games would be compatible with 360. They’re not. Oh well, I guess it’s back to PS2 for me until NASCAR makes another version to disappoint me, since they aren’t making one in 2010 due to slumping sales and the economy, or until I build a gaming PC and buy NASCAR 2003, arguably the best NASCAR racing simulator (game) ever made. It’s the one Dale Jr. plays.