NASCAR 98 Collector's Edition

Overview

EA Sports and Wal-Mart have teamed up and released a special edition of the popular NASCAR 98. This edition was released to celebrate the 50 years of NASCAR racing and is available only at Wal-Mart stores. Since the game basics have not changed, please check out the full review of NASCAR 98. Think of this as a mini-review that just addresses the changes between the Special Collector's Edition and the original.

Gameplay

Like I said, there were not very many changes in this edition and just about every change that was made required a sacrifice from some other area in the game. The graphics, physics, and gameplay are completely the same so if you did not like the first game, you won't like this either and vice versa. The first difference you will encounter is the intro. As with most PSX games, you have a cool introduction video, only this time you get to see the evolution of the cars and races. The video takes you from the old days of racing on the beaches to the high speed arenas of today.

The biggest thing that you will find different is that car #7, Jeff Bodine, has been removed and car #43, Richard Petty, has been added. Since Bodine is not one of the better racers, he was a logical choice to remove and since Richard Petty is one of the best NASCAR racers ever, he was a logical choice to represent the earlier years of NASCAR. Since you now have Petty, you also get his car, which is an older style car. It is cool because he only retired a few years back but it really shows how far the cars have come.

The only other change is in the tracks. They removed the Belmont, which is a road course and added Darlington which is an oval. This did not really make much of a difference to me but I will say that I prefer driving on the ovals versus the turny road courses. Like I said, it is really just a matter of preference.

Bottom Line

If you are looking for something new, you are not going to find it here. This is basically the same game with a new driver and a new track with a Collector's Edition stamped on the box. Since the game is only available at Wal-Mart and I assume has been produced in limited numbers, it is in fact a collectors game. For those of you who are really into NASCAR or if you dig collector's stuff, it may be worth the purchase. If you already have NASCAR 98, you really have no reason to go out and buy this also. If you don't have NASCAR 98, you may as well drop the money on this collectors edition.