In NASCAR Thunder 2004, there are 70 drivers to choose from, all the coolest cars from the sport and all the actual NASCAR tracks to race those cars on. For the customization junkies out there, EA’s been kind enough to throw in 170 different paint jobs for the cars.

Along with all these great offerings in the driver and vehicle departments, EA has added a new twist to this year’s game: rivalries and alliances. Your on-track performance and driving etiquette will either make you a lot of friends, or you’ll end up with a whole lot of enemies just waiting to block you or smash you into a wall. For example, if you are a courteous driver and allow your fellow racers to draft behind you or pass cleanly, then those drivers will return the favor whenever they get the chance. If you decide to drive like a maniac and try to spin out everyone that gets close to you (the way I do), then you’re going to have a lot of angry racers chasing you down and slamming you into every wall available.

This rivals/alliances system works great and adds a lot of excitement and tension to the gameplay. While slamming into other cars and sending them into uncontrollable spins at 150mph is a lot of fun, it will make your later races more difficult because those guys don’t forgive and forget, and they’ll surely want revenge. On the other hand, if you can control your evil urges to create massive pileups, you’ll find that having allies can be much more helpful in winning races. The drivers you’re allied with will let you draft behind them, block other drivers from passing you and are much better sports than those bearing a grudge against you. Put simply, it pays to have friends in Thunder 2004.

The cars in NASCAR Thunder 2004 can be set up and tweaked to your heart’s content. You can adjust practically everything on your car to shave those few extra seconds off your lap times. Adjusting the suspension, gear ratios, spoiler angles and tire pressures are just a few of the options available to you. And after tweaking your car, you can take it out on the track for a few laps to see how it handles before risking your life in the big races.

For Thunder 2004, EA has included a career mode that spans a whopping 20 years (that’s in videogame years by the way), an arcade mode that lets you jump right into the action, and a lightning challenge mode that let’s you relive some of the most exciting racing moments from the 2002 NASCAR season. If you’re a total newbie to NASCAR racing, there’s no need to worry, there is a very helpful tutorial mode that gives you driving lessons from the professional driver of your choice. You will learn the proper way to take corners, the best lines around the track and the techniques for drafting other cars. You will find the tutorials to be very helpful and enjoyable to boot.

Overall the gameplay elements of NASCAR Thunder 2004 gel together nicely, though I do have one major gripe… the Xbox version of the game is has no online multiplayer component like the PS2 version has. But this is true with all current EA Xbox titles, which leads me to ask of EA, where’s the love?

Thunder 2004 is no slouch in the graphics department, and although it’s not as impressive as games like Project Gotham Racing 2 or Midtown Madness 3, it still looks fairly nice. All the car models are true to their real-life counterparts, though the tracks and the grandstands show some of the game’s PS2 roots. The scrape marks on the walls, tire marks on the tracks and other small touches add a great sense of the realism to the races. Vehicle damage is very realistic and will not only affect the looks of your car but will drastically affect its handling and speed, sending you running to the pits after one fender-bender too many.

It wouldn’t be NASCAR without a few fiery crashes, and you’ll see some cool particle and smoke effects whenever there’s a pileup. You’ll see pieces of cars flying through the air, sparks from bumpers scraping the road and blinding smoke clouds rising from the crashes. The instant replay feature will let you check out the mangled mess of metal that you may (or may not have) caused by driving the wrong way on the track just to see how many cars you could take out (psst…hey, EA, that would be a cool mini-game to add next year). Although there were a couple of slow-downs when all the smoke and parts where flying around, it was nothing so bad as to make the game less enjoyable.

NASCAR Thunder 2004 is a treat for the ears, especially for those of us lucky enough to have 5.1 surround sound. The engine sounds are loud and growling, the crowds in the grandstands cheer as you pass by; the sounds of metal scraping the walls and crunching when you crash into other cars makes you feel as though you are right there in the action. The music soundtrack is made up of 16 popular rock and alternative bands, including Iggy Pop and Rancid (hey where’s Hank Jr?).

Put on your racing gloves, sit down in your recliner, position a fan to blow the wind into your face and crank up your surround sound. NASCAR Thunder 2004 will give you the sensation of being a real NASCAR driver…well, other than the being rich and famous part.

The bottom line is that if you are a true fan of NASCAR racing you will be in racing heaven with NASCAR Thunder 2004. If you are a casual fan of the sport and enjoy racing games, you may find the whole "going around in circles" thing a bit repetitive, however. If you would rather have your teeth drilled than to watch a NASCAR race, you’re not only weird but should buy an arcade racer instead.