NASCAR 25

is beter on wheel but lots of fun

I understand both the concerns about the actual depth of the career mode as well as some gameplay bugs. The menu can be a little difficult especially without the ability to use the mouse. I still recommend this for a few reasons. First coming from iRacing the tracks are literally lifted straight out of them, every bump and angle carries over which was fantastic to see. As well with the driving I do think they do a good job of replicating how each car makes it speed from iRacing and their characteristics well while softening all the hard edges to make it playable on controller. As someone with over 1000 races in iRacing I find this enjoyable on a controller and it scratches the racing itch better than most other sims and holds my attention for longer periods of time than say Automobilista 2. I think the AI is better than people give it credit for, it definitely has some overgrip situations like on starts however in the race I think they can pull off pretty impressive moves and the strategies are significantly more varied if you have cautions, without cautions I can see how they all do the exactly same thing. In multiplayer you have no control over their settings and as such I think they are overly erratic, although I have had some chase me down in different stages of a race at Dover, had some correctly move me without spinning me and make the move at Martinsville, and run multiple lines at Michigan. I see them routinely taking different lines to each other on regular settings at 100 difficulty so I wonder about the settings of those who report them running in a single file line. Many others say the same thing, the off track mechanic on road courses is probably the worst implementation of it I've found in a game in recent memory. They aren't lying when they say it actually stops you at 0mph lol. The good news is that its only road courses, the bad news is you're going to cut the track at some point. The pit requiring you to confirm and choose your settings while on track is pretty annoying as well but thats much more liveable. Again as an iRacer, you do not understand what you're asking for asking to drive caution laps. I cannot tell you how many 30 lap races at Indy have taken me over an hour to an hour and a half in iRacing due to caution laps. I wish that it gave a replay of what caused the caution but I am happy with how it is implemented. As it sits I recommend it, I think at this point there arent going to be any major changes to this title but I think this is a great first step. It is a very good racing game on its own aside from how good it is versus recent Nascar and officially licensed games have been. The hard parts in this game have already been figured out, if the next release is focused on fleshing out the career and single player mode this will end up being the Thunder 2000 to the Thunder 2003 or thereabouts in the lineage. At this point of release its only really going to be worth it on sale. I do think on the current market of racing games this is worth it over a lot of other games especially ones that are going to throw a lot of content DLC at you if you are looking for something to fill time with or if you find yourself needing something to race while away from your actual sim.