Having spent much time this past week in the company of Sega Rally, it was always going to be rather odd slipping on the highly commercial overalls and zipping around in a stock car. NASCAR 08, the first new-gen NASCAR title to slip from EA’s giant underbelly, relies on inch-perfect control, total concentration and steely nerve for victory, with anything else ending up in your car spiralling depressingly toward a concrete wall. It’s been proven in years past that EA still aren’t nailing the subject matter in any way close to what PC developer Papyrus managed back in 2003, and without wanting to beat around the bush, NASCAR 08 still falls way short of the yardstick.

Why? Well, there are a number of factors that contribute this time around. Now, I am by no means a NASCAR diehard, but having spent a good few hours watching some races and competing on NASCAR Racing 2003 (PC), it’s pretty obvious that when done properly the sport makes for excellent video game material. Look past the knee-jerk and vastly lazy observation that, yes, you are turning left most of the time and you can get yourself into some frantic, mind-draining races that are as exciting as anything you could want.

Problem is, to do this you desperately need the control system to be on your side. NASCAR is a form of motorsport that requires steady control, with your car often running side-by-side with at least one other vehicle at speeds over 170mph. As you can well imagine, skittering around like an idiot will cause all sorts of chaos at those speeds. It’s with this in mind that we arrive at the smouldering wreckage of NASCAR 08’s control system.

You know something’s up the moment you notice the control screen is suggesting you alter the sensitivity settings to allow you better control with the pad – i.e. the method of control 95% of people are going to be using. Not doing so will see your first laps in your car spent twitching horribly all over the circuit, unable to maintain a smooth, consistent line. After a bit of tweaking you finally find yourself at something more appropriate (mainly by lessening the sensitivity), but you’ll still find running in close quarters with other vehicles to be literally a hit-and-miss experience. The fact that the Six Axis controller has analogue sticks that aren’t particularly suited to the job doesn’t really help either.

Thus, before you’ve even had a chance to really explore the offerings that NASCAR 08 has, you’re already on a bit of a downer when it comes to the actual racing. This is only increased when you find that the opponents you are racing against alter their speed seemingly at random and are brutally aggressive when you’ve accidentally given them a tap as a result, leaving you in all sorts of bother. When that bother occurs, it also tends to see cars spectacularly barrel roll into the air as if they had springs on each corner, and although the damage model itself is somewhat impressive, seeing cars zoom 20ft into the air and dance around like a ballerina in a tin-man suit isn’t.

Obviously, fans of the sport will be more willing to overlook these problems in an attempt to enjoy the content within. The game’s based on this (2007) season’s NASCAR schedules and rosters, with the Nextel Cup, Busch Series and Truck Series all lumped in for good measure. Hence, Juan Pablo Montoya fans will be able to race as their slightly chubby hero in the number 42 Chip Ganassi car, Kevin Harvick fans will be able to sample his eyeball-bleeding new yellow and red scheme and Casey Mears supporters can now enjoy his new pasture of the number 25 Hendrick Motorsports vehicle. Most cars even have the appropriate special paint schemes for selected races, adding plenty of variety to the high-speed commercial snake as it travels across America.

This season’s main ‘career’ effort comes in the form of the Chase mode, which starts pretty much as soon as you load the game for the first time. The mode sees you getting your own car and being able to paint it in one of a selection of rather poor paint schemes, before being sent on a number of license tests to allow you to compete in races. Want to compete in the Daytona 500? You’ll have to complete your Super Speedway license first, comprising of ten tests ranging from drafting to pitting practice and overtaking.

As you can imagine, these are not terribly exciting and after a while get insanely dull. The fact you have to do similar tests for each type of circuit and, annoyingly, the same type of circuit with the Car of Tomorrow (NASCAR’s new chassis regulations vehicles) increases the boredom to the point where you no longer feel like gaining all the licenses to allow you to partake in a full season. This is backed up by a curious system that sees you gaining contracts from teams to use some of their vehicles – each team being appropriate to whichever manufacturer you select at the start – in races, which sounds fine until you realise what you actually gain is the particular vehicle’s grip and acceleration statistics, rather than the colour scheme or a place in the team. It’s head-smashingly disappointing.

If and when you tire of the Chase Mode, you have the option of simply choosing one of the NASCAR series and running a season in them as one of your favourite drivers. Just don’t go expecting any theatrics or the like – even if you win the title (which I somehow managed) there’s no cut scene or congratulation effort. There’s also a nice bit of product-placement with the Red Bull Toyota mode, but this seemingly offers a lot more of what the license section in the Chase mode offered. It feels horribly hollow and completely under-realised, which is something that pretty much sums up the whole game.

There are, of course, plus points. Dr Jerry Punch, long-time NASCAR analyst and reporter, adds some interesting insight and explains a few of the set up curiosities the vehicles have, whilst the thing looks very solid and runs pretty smoothly. Problem is, the problems elsewhere are so fundamental to destroying what is enjoyable about the sport in the first place – the exciting, close racing and the Hollywood glitz – that the whole thing just falls flat on its face. We can always wait for NASCAR 09 I suppose, but for this season 08 is king of nobody’s road.