The Other Thunder 2004, The Closing Chapter

It's late 2003, and your family's gamble on the SEGA Dreamcast as the next game console for the house following the original Sony Playstation didn't pan out. You had your fun with Sonic Adventure and Metropolis Street Racer, but they nor the Dreamcast itself had the staying power that was hoped. Eventually the old classics from before 9/9/99 were getting more game time again, while looking on in awe at everything that was being made for the true next generation. The call that finally a Playstation 2 or a Nintendo Gamecube will be under the Christmas tree hasn't come in yet, but Santa does work in mysterious ways. There are still new games being released for the Playstation at this time, but you could tell that hourglass was running dry.

A jaunt into Electonics Boutique as a reprieve during a shopping trip to the mall after you already grew out of some clothes before photo day brought a surprise: there's a new NASCAR Thunder game for the original Playstation. EA Sports were still making PS1 games in 2003? It's been some time since you got a new Playstation game, and Crazy Mike's Video stock of rentals for the consoles you have has all but evaporated. You ask your mom if they can buy it for you while you're there, but get rejected off the back of needing a good result on your upcoming math test. That math test comes and goes, you got an 89/100, and your mom kept her promise you didn't realize she had made. Friday night comes, and NASCAR Thunder 2004 for the Playstation 1 is waiting for you on your bed: your weekends until Christmas are set in stone... somewhat.

You don't own any of the other NASCAR games on PS1, but they were regular choices when you did rent a video game for a week at a time. Your save of NASCAR Thunder 2002 is packed to the brim: a full thunder card binder, all the custom tracks including 4th From The Sun unlocked, and multiple Cup Series championships to your name in the Dodge Intrepid you made for yourself. But you've seen what changes and improvements have been made for the next generation, what possibly could there be that sets this game apart from the one you already played?

You're not given much optimism once you fire up the game; everything almost feels the same from when you lasted rented NT2002. The font in the menu is a little different, but everything else is where you left it prior. You do have an actual licensed soundtrack now at least, and not just the same two generic rock songs playing on loop that you eventually had to mute. The songs on offer are all very good, and sometimes you'd just turn on the jukebox in the options menu if you had a chore to do before it was time to race. Thunder cards are now thunder plates, but the feeling of déjà vu started to creep in upon looking at the thunder challenges. You've done these before, you've done all of these before. Sure the cars you use might be different, but otherwise they are the exact same as what the challenges were in NASCAR Thunder 2002. Nevertheless, there were still some incredible custom tracks to unlock and plenty of time to do it; you didn't have to return the game next week after all.

Getting past that initial shock of how similar the two games are, you get to see that there is a bit more going on than just switching the year to say 2004. You are greeted by Joe Moore and Barney Hall from MRN during the race weekends, through you didn't know they were also included in Thunder 2003. A lot of the Cup Series drivers have second paint scheme options, and now there's a vast amount of Busch Series and historic drivers to use at your leisure. Curiously, none of them have driver portraits even as there's a couple Cup drivers within the Busch Series roster; their buschwhacking entries still have a blank driver portrait that says "Busch" on it.

Come to driving, there's now driver aids that assist under braking and with lateral stability. They're helping on the road courses, where it was always a struggle in the slow speed corners or in heavy braking zones. On the bigger ovals though, it's still the same game as it was previously and you won't be needing those assistants there. But the same grind and same racing that you previously rented still remains, with the season schedules nearly the same as they were years prior. You feel that weight and experience of the past; it looms heavy as you see what the next generation NASCAR Thunder 2004 has given the world that you aren't a part of yet.

You're going to try to make it through NASCAR Thunder 2004 on the PS1 as much as you can, but you're hoping Santa does deliver what you asked for on your Christmas list. You don't want to feel like you have to complete the same game twice.

We fast forward twenty-two years, and to me buying a copy of NASCAR Thunder 2004 for the original Playstation at the Vancouver Games Expo. There was one used games vendor at the convention, and it was my last stop before bidding adieu to the event. You never know what such a vendor thinks might sell at such an event, and at the same time there's always a chance you'll find something that you just haven't seen back home. I couldn't remember a time when I saw a PS1 copy of NT2004 back home and the thought passed my mind of: well, when are you going to see another one after this?

A game released on previous generation hardware while the successor console has been out for three and a half years feels like it's own form of purgatory. The graphics on the disc itself are in black and white with just the game logo, company logos and necessary documentation on the disc label. The barest minimum was done to justify another release, but that snails pace was not unusual for sports games from that generation of consoles before EA Sports and 2K were able to better focus on gameplay and modes come the new hardware. Even then, these PS1 NASCAR Thunder games maximized what they could have done given the hardware and limited storage space before Tiburon really showed what is possible with a license that gave you a little bit of freedom. While this was happening, we have a game that quietly accepted it's fate as the end of the line on the Playstation and did so with as much grace as it could. The development team responsible, Budcat Creations, was just four people before help on the production and audio side came from EA directly.

With the slim PSOne still selling at a pace through the first half of the 2000s, it made sense for yearly sports titles to keep being made available. It isn't at all surprising that the last game sold during the lifetime of the original Playstation in North America would be FIFA 2005, and that EA Sports's rising star in their NASCAR titles would be along for that ride too. It was changing of the guard happening in real time; as EA Sports entered their golden age while still releasing games that reminded players the world over the unremarkable nature and growth that contemporary sports games had the prior decade.

And while it wasn't the last racing game released on the original Playstation, NASCAR Thunder 2004 is a quiet closing of this chapter of the story of the licensed racing game. And for some people, this was the last new game they ever bought in this console generation.