I like the totally unique look of this game compared to the others in the series. It's like they advanced past PS1 graphics, but it still has that retro charm. There are a lot of great paint schemes that were unique to this season too, and I even like the simplicity of every driver being identified in the game by only one primary paint scheme even if that makes it inferior to the NASCAR Thunder games.
Bit of trivia...For the track maps, they did have the 3D stuff at least on the CBS broadcast at Daytona in February. Budy Baker narrated a lap around a 3D Daytona, by 2000 graphics. I don't remember if ESPN had it but CBS had the same idea, 3D model, flat textures and a virtual car going around to illustrate how Daytona was and had figurines to illustrate a pit stop. Then the coverage went to Thunder Motion and somehow gave Benny the controller, which always made me smile. I know, I know, it was pre recorded but somehow, Bob, Ned, Benny always managed to keep the idea that Benny was sat in the booth doing this live. F1 did something similar over here when ITV took over, using videogames to do a lap of the track before they switched back to a lap from qualifying or practice to give a tour of the track as well. Makes me wonder now if TNN did anything similar in their coverage as well. Now I want to go find that clip and see how well CBS's 2000 virtual Daytona has held up to the PS2 game
What's really wild about this game is that it was the first game that blackbox studios made for EA, and EA decided they'd do better making need for speed ushering in the Tiburon era in thunder 2002
@@sprinterofblack8186 and why when you dump the files from nfs undergrounds demo version you'll find cut content of a level that would've involved a ported model of Ryan Newman's 2003 car in the files
5:39 Nice to see a fellow Kansas Dustbowl enjoyer. That far & away is my favorite fantasy track in any NASCAR game. I have the PS1 version of this game so I wanted to see how the PS2 version looked.
@@ArbitraryOutcome The arcade yes, I played it many times, console offerings yes as well however there was never a collaboration between the two on consoles, only that arcade. There was never a console version of the arcade made as well.
Nascar 2001/thunder 2003 hardest when it comes to legend difficulty on tracks like Lowe’s and California and Indy when you have pit stop option on and challenge yourself
I mean from what....2000 to about 2004,2005, EA nailed both game and soundtrack across NHL, MLB, NASCAR and Maden, PS2 gen I'd argue really was the peak of gaming IMO, online and better graphics has ruined it for me. I'd love a HD remake of the early 2000s games. Don't touch the gameplay, don't ad in online, don't touch a thing but give me a modern release of these games
For real, I still have great memories of F1 2001, NHL 2001 and Fifa 3 soundtracks Sometimes I'd stay on my uncles pc on either game just idling on the menus jamming to the songs
I was playing as mark martin and Dale was in front of me with smoke and I slammed into the back of him.Then I barrel rolled from mid backstrait to turn 3
It’s a very good game. But damn they made the tire wear on this game so damn brutal! It’s the most unforgiving of any game and will just start going straight to the walls like you have a flat with just medium wear.
The fantasy tracks that was missing on ps2 version would’ve been best ps2 game for its arcade feel Black box only was teamed with ps1 so fantasy tracks couldn’t be on the ps2 version of nascar 2001
11:52: Correction: You still had to sit and wait through yellow flags in NASCAR Thunder 2002. Cautions did not get fast forward until NASCAR Thunder 2003.
