Days of Thunder. Better buckle up. And welcome to Nostalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. And I'm Joe. Did you guys see the Days of Thunder movie? It's a great question, Mike. I'm not going to answer it. No, this is one of my larger action movie blind spots. I've never seen it. I watched the trailer before playing. It was everything that I expected it to be. Really glad that Randy Quaid, how would be their name, is in the movie.
So, yeah, it's on my list of things to watch. We got a lot of good people in this movie. We got Randy Quaid. You obviously have Tom Cruise starring in it. Robert Duvall. Nicole Kidman. Sure. John C. Reilly. Okay. I mean, like, you know, I could keep going, but that's pretty strong. You could have stopped at Randy Quaid. Yeah, no one's going to beat that. But the most important part of Days of Thunder, which I did not know before watching the movie.
is that Days of Thunder is like the Top Gun team getting together and saying, we're going to do what we did for planes. We're going to do that for cars. We're putting cars on the map. Well, do you think they put planes on the map? Yeah, I don't think anyone really flew before. They didn't know how safe it was. Yeah. Yeah, now that's just a commercial jet now. That's what they fly like. This might be crazy to say. I don't know, but...
I have never heard of Days of Thunder until this week, the movie. Is this like a crazy cultural blind spot? I mean, I share it. Yeah, but have you heard of it? It made a lot of money. I had heard of it, yeah. But I also don't have that much interest in NASCAR, even though I have been to a NASCAR race. That was when I was very young and didn't, yeah, it wasn't really a thing for me.
The funny thing is, once you know about the whole, like, Top Gun connection thing, too, though, where it's, like, same director and all that, it's like... Tom Cruise is basically just playing Maverick, but if he was a NASCAR driver, you know, it's like the guy has no experience in NASCAR, just shows up to the track. He's like, yeah, I'll ride your car, dude. He pulls like the fastest lap ever.
He posed, like, the fastest lap. And then the guy, of course, whose car he rode is, like, pissed off at him. He's like, yeah, go find your own car, buddy. Like, this is my car. And they have, like, a, you know.
uh film's length worth of rivalry to to unpack after that opening scene but like then the rest of the movie is just like yeah tom cruise is is fucking awesome at nascar it's like i don't think that's how it works like i think everybody wishes that they were like the people in the stands watching he's got his license well well but yeah but they're just like they're just turning to the left you know it's like i could
do that get me down there and it's like I don't think it feels like that like I think what you get in the car it's a little bit of a different story yeah like if you've never like driven like this I don't think it's like yeah I don't think it's gonna be like super analogous to
like driving your car around the block it's like no i gotta imagine it's a very different experience right and and he he has driven before just not at the nascar level it's not like it's like it becomes a thing where it's like he
he's obviously like done some kind of racing at some level, but it's like, then he just starts winning. And it's like, that's what you, I guess that's what you want out of a movie, but it's also like not very realistic, but like the movie otherwise is going for like, uh, We are going to capture the excitement of NASCAR on film.
in a way that like we you know again like what we did for top gun where it's like this is gonna be like reference quality like amazing sound design like you're gonna wanna own the vhs so you can play it on your big crt and impress all your friends it's like they're doing all that but then they're also like trivializing just how freaking hard what these guys do on the track is i mean i liked i like talladega nights and i think that that that doesn't really
I think that's sort of like my Days of Thunder, you know? Sure. I think he had driven before in that one, though. Yeah, he was the NASCAR. Like, he was already at the top, right? He was at his Apex Mountain before. I did hear, though, that in Days of Thunder that Dale Earnhardt is not in it, and it's just kind of like, why? Praise hell, praise Dale, man.
Is NASCAR in general, like, is the term thunder there because the cars sound like thunder as they roll past you? Is that the idea? I believe so. Okay, because it's like Days of Thunder isn't just called that for being a pretty... you know, sexy title. It's also like, you know, I know there was like a NASCAR thunder game on like either Xbox or Dreamcast or something. So like it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a term. I just don't watch enough NASCAR to know.
Yeah, it's like you say that instead of like vroom vroom. Right. Now, NASCAR, F1, like all that stuff, like I wanna. No, I want to know all about the indie series. Like I want to watch that stuff because they all cut great promos and have great like TV specials. But when you watch the actual races.
It doesn't ever quite get there. It kind of feels like it's like, oh, well, that's just like, that's just who had the best car that day, and they... started in the pole position and they finished in the pole position or like you know they were in second and they finished in the pole position big fucking deal right it's like it's like it just kind of feels like a foregone conclusion once you watch it where it's like oh i don't know what i was expecting i guess i was expecting crashes
Right. Like that's the other reason to watch all this stuff is like, let's see somebody die. Right. Like that's another part of this whole thing that nobody wants to unpack. But it is another reason why people watch this sport. Days of Thunder, the video game that we are playing today, goes out of its way to separate itself from the movie. Agree? Disagree?
I wouldn't know. I can't really have an opinion on it because I haven't seen the movie. No, but you know what I mean? You didn't pick up any plot beats, right? You weren't like, oh, right, right, right. This is now like I'm in the hospital. No, I figured out my name is Trickle.
And sometimes I have bad luck or rough luck or what do they say? I think it's funny that we're basing what a movie game should be by how... the uh the back to the future games did it of like trying to just like oh this scene and that scene right um and i i guess we we didn't really get a lot of like just not When we think of movie tie-in games, we think of the kind of hero action tie-in games and not a racing game. So what they're actually doing here is just like, this is a NASCAR game?
And it really doesn't have anything much to do with the movie itself, except the fact that you are that racer. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, Days of Thunder has the benefit of the movie has the benefit of having like. its story, but also revolving around this sport.
and then you can take the sport and that's perfect for gameplay. Whereas Back to the Future, it's like, well, yeah, they just do a bunch of different things in that and you got to translate all of that into gameplay or else it's not going to seem like Back to the Future. Or, you know, it'd be like if they made a Mighty Ducks...
video game you're probably just gonna be well I mean it would be cool to do other stuff in that kind of thing too but like you could make a Mighty Decks video game where you're just playing hockey you know and it's it has something in it that can be very easily gamified that people, we know people want to play already. So you don't need to, yeah, go to the hospital or whatever happens in the movie. Yeah. The best you get at like understanding.
The movie or at least like, you know, building upon it is in the manual because it's, again, another one of those very like lengthy text heavy manuals, but also doing some like. world building not just like tutorials and shit it's like you know i don't even know who it's pretending to be it it starts off with the overview
Let me drive. You build me a car and I'll win Daytona next year. That's not like in quotes or anything. That's just text. And then the next paragraph is, think so, huh? You're raw, untested. It's like, is this a conversation? This is the overview. It's a little confusing what's going on. But as Joe mentioned, yes, you're Cole Trickle, rookie driver. and you are going to try and win the Daytona 500. To do so, you have to go through various races in NASCAR, and that is where...
That's the best part to pick up into the actual discussion of the video game in this episode, because the very first level of the game, you're at Daytona Beach. And you will immediately be thrown into it with a, what, like a lap? What's that? Qualifying lap. Qualifying lap. So that's like, you know, hey, now go drive. Here's the keys. Go drive. So, how's driving? It's pretty sim, I guess. I feel like it's super simplified. Maybe too simplified. In so much that...
It's not a typical racer. We have played racers like this before where you aren't holding down an accelerator. You are holding down an accelerator to then set the point at which you want to go that fast. And then you can just let go of the controller and it'll just stick at that speed. So it does not feel like the... I have played NASCAR games before.
And most racing games feel this way too. It doesn't feel like that. Yeah, it doesn't feel like you're putting the pedal to the metal. It doesn't feel like you're pushing the car forward just by like... I don't know, there's like this... there's this feeling of when you're holding like the a button and that is the accelerator and like when you let go you decelerate that like it that makes it feel like you're driving i don't know yeah i think that this was
Maybe we've seen something like this before, but have we ever seen something where you hold until the point that you want to be accelerating at, but then pressing the decelerate just like... is like turns it completely off you know like then like that's what's weird to me i would like if you're gonna have it like hold a to to kind of like
accelerate until you want to stop and stay at that speed then it should be like hold b to decelerate and stop and stay at that speed but instead it's like press b once in like it's like you turned off cruise control and you're gonna now coast and then you have to press it again
to set it again. No, it's like you pulled the keys out of the car. Yeah, right. And then all that to say is what that really translates to is when you're taking a... taking a turn which is every every one and a half seconds of this game when you're taking a turn you have to slow down but then it's like this weird combination of button inputs where you're like
You have to hit B to slow down. They have to watch it slow down and then press A again real quick when you want to stay at that speed or else you're going to lose a ton of speed. That took a while for my brain to readjust to. It's weird that this whole thing has happened at least twice where a car has worked like this. When if you think about a car and you think about a gas pedal and a brake pedal and.
You think, oh, there's an A button and a B button. This is why there's so many racing games. It's pretty easy to transpose this onto a controller, and yet... we've got this weird way that a card doesn't work as the controls. That said, once you get used to that, your typical... Like if you play a lot of racers, you then end up trying to do like apex turns and like decelerating into a turn and trying to accelerate out of a turn. But the problem there is that.
Once you start decelerating, it's like you can't just feather it. You immediately lose like 50 miles an hour if you just tap it. And so there's not really that smooth transition that...
always feels good when you actually hit something like that in Gran Turismo or some other game. It feels kind of jank at that point. Yeah, and speaking of losing like 50 miles per hour all at once, I think this... was more of a factor when you had other racers on the road but right away in this preliminary round like it was weird because like it takes a while for the
visual feedback of what your car is doing to catch up to that so it's like yeah i see i just lost 100 miles per hour but does not look like i'm going any slower on the car screen so like that makes it a little a little weird too that could just be the turns though too right because you're only decelerating on the turn so it could just be that now like it's it's wider and you're on the turn so it doesn't look like the same sense of speed that you were getting on the straightaways
Yeah, but even if I bumped into somebody or bumped into a wall on a straightaway for some reason, I don't know why that would happen, but even if I did it on a straightaway, I remember thinking, why does it say I'm going so much slower? When I'm accelerating, I'm not noticing... a ton of feedback that makes us like oh yeah now I'm going faster than I was a minute ago sure sure and when you bump into people too it's like well hold on a minute huge problem here no crashes
the hell's going on yeah that's the whole point people playing nascar baby like where's the crashes it's just like you bump into people and it's like bumper cars it's like oop now they now they take the lead and it's like why is it that like when i bump into them it doesn't affect them. But when they bump into me, it also doesn't affect them. They're just really good at bumping into me. I mean, if you block well enough, they end up...
You're usually bumping into the ass of somebody else. Obviously, you're going to start going slower. But you can also have them just hit your ass, and then they'll kind of drag behind you.
That's true. That's true. And everything you guys were describing about how to control this car, it all checks out. It is as confusing as it sounds. But like Sean said, it is something you kind of... learn to adapt to for this specific game it's not like all of a sudden you're gonna go play uh like an actual sim racer and be like oh i thought i was just gonna lock in there like no you know you know it's happening here
But it kind of becomes, because the tracks are small too, it becomes almost rhythmic of those extreme drops from when you press the B button to break. You start to... learn that it's like it's a very quick tap and then you're right back into accelerate mode and like you learn the turns am i wrong in thinking that like the way to do the turn is to start on the inside and drift
out to the outside, not hug the inside the entire time? Yeah. Because I tried hugging the inside the entire time, and that just actually winds up making you lose a lot of speed to be going slow enough to hang in there. In fact, what it should be...
If this game wasn't just faking 3D, which it actually does look pretty good, just to throw that in there, would you want to start on the exterior of the track, then... at the you know at the middle of the turn sort of try and kiss the left side and then as you're accelerating allow yourself to drift to the right as well anybody that plays racing games like kind of has that in their head as how you should try and take a turn
at least at the most basic level. But you can start on the interior and allow yourself to drift to the right because it's not really simulating anything there. And other than managing your speed and the apex of the turns and everything, you also have to manage your fuel. There's a big fuel gauge in the top left corner. And when that is coming close to running out, obviously you'll have to pit stop.
To pit stop, there isn't like an actual lane you have to enter. You'll just see the words pit stop written along the side of the track, usually near the checkered starting and finishing point. So you just kind of hug that and then you enter the pit stop and then you welcome to a whole nother game, baby. Welcome to a whole different game. I thought I was playing.
You know, NASCAR checkers, but I was playing NASCAR chess. Just before we get into the actual mechanics of the actual pit, my favorite thing about this is that if you try and go fast... and you don't slow down enough as you're entering the pit, you will just blow right through it and have to go back around. Yeah, it'll actually give you the little cutscene of you entering the pit, and you just keep going. You just fly through the little cutscene.
But then you get in there and now you are all of your pit crew. And I hope there's some time dilation going on here because it's going to take you a while to do everything you need to do. Yeah. And I know that pit crew works. Yeah. I was going to say, I know pit crews like nowadays are like really like, like a second or so, maybe even like a second is too much at this point, but like,
Obviously, like in the 90s, it wasn't that fast, but it also wasn't like, I don't know, I was clocking in like 40 seconds or something. It's like it doesn't take 40 seconds either. But Joe, I think, you know, I'm not going to scoop your story, but like I think you were about to say. This isn't how pit crews work. You're right, but why? Go for it. Well, because you have to select each member of the pit crew and do their task individually. It is so nutty.
Yeah, they can't all be doing it at the same time, so you just have to like... It's weird the first time you do it. I will say the first time I did it, I was clocking like 2 minutes and 30 seconds because I was like, what is going on here? So, a big waste of time. You can almost get it to look like they're all doing it at once because once you select, like, let's say...
You've got the guy at the jack, and then you raise the jack up. Now you can quickly select both of the wheel guys, and their animation keeps playing, even if you switch to another... Oh, see, I didn't realize that. Yeah, you don't have to wait for the tire change to finish to start another task. So you can get a few going at once, but then you have to walk all the way around.
Because the guy with the wrench who works on the engine, for some reason, can't man the jack on the other side. So in order to get the other wheels up, you've got to walk all the way around, get the other jack going, and then... Also, for some reason, the guy with the fuel can't be fueling while the jack is up. So...
I guess you would want to work on the engine and gas up at the same time. I don't know. There's a lot going on. To Joe's point, though, I agree with you that at least you can get them started. that's not how a pit crew does everything all at once. No, absolutely. Yeah. So it's like, why is it, why isn't it just like,
you don't know who you're going to be on the crew this time. Right. And it's like, all of a sudden you have to like do that job. And then everybody else is working too. Like, I don't know. That doesn't sound great either. So I'm just throwing that out there on the fly, but like there has to be a better way to do this. I like that they made it interactive. That was unexpected. I wasn't actually even doing anything the first time I entered the pit. I just sat there and I was like, oh, this is me?
Maybe, like, they could abstract it a bit more and, like, make it just, like, a quick time event. But that doesn't exist yet. So, like, if you had to get, like, a couple things in the middle of, like, a...
Like a bar with a hot zone or something. But I don't know. It's weird that you do it this way. But I think that's probably one of the draws to make it more... authentic yeah i i like the idea of it and i and i think i would like the idea of it more if if you really had like more of like uh oh you're you're getting new cars as you go and you're you know you understand it
your your specific car more outside of just the pit but i i like the idea it's just hard for me to come up with a good alternative on the nes that's still fun you know it's I'm sure there's a way to do it, but I don't think this was it, but I also don't think I have a great alternative myself. I think it could have just been, though, where the individual crew members still do their thing, but then...
I'm not saying quick time events, but like all of a sudden, you know, the guy goes and he has the jack and you have to hit control pad up a few times. Right. And then like another guy comes and it's with the wrench and it's like.
hit the aaa you know and it's like maybe that's like enough whereas like you're not trying to like move all these parts at once but you're just being the active role as they're doing it this way it's like you're just clicking like the up button three times the a button three times like as as these things roll through because this isn't this isn't that kind of game like this doesn't have to be intense and it isn't intense for what it's worth but like
You want to get back to the driving. I mean, it's kind of intense because over time, you also get like that little boop every time you're passed. And you want to get this done fast enough so you don't...
get that many boops. That's why I do think there is some time dilation going on here because it takes more time to do this than it does for you to do a full lap. But then they should just time dilate the... clock too right like they should just make it this way you you know what your your actual time is compared you know it's weird that it has this other i'm not against that I meant it's not that intense as in like, it's not the world's hardest thing to do.
It's just that, unfortunately, it takes a lot of time and it takes you out of the race that you're building a rhythm for. It's not that easy. to pass people in this kind of thing either. To make up ground and everything. especially after you lose those places in the pit. It's not like, oh, well, I'll just get them right back when I start driving again. It's not like the AI is stupid.
So I know that we've been a little crass and talked about just turning left and where the crash is, but I think that when and how to pit is one of the... and this is just me guessing, is probably one of the pillars of strategy in NASCAR. So I appreciate that something that is important to the sport is more than just a... You got to do this every 10 to 15 laps and it's just going to, if you automatically lose X amount of time, there's no way for you to be better at this.
So I appreciate that it's there in the form that it's in. It's just, it is goofy. Yeah, I wonder how much of our experience with it is that we're, one, we're amateurs at this video game. But as an amateur of this video game, I do feel like when I go into the pit, like I get that this is something that all racers are dealing with. Yes, I'm going to lose time, but so is everybody else. And yeah, you got to strategize about like when and how to do that.
But I do feel like the computer is just so much better at it than me and better at keeping its place that I feel like it's just... If this was a game against other people, it would feel a little better to me. What's funny, too, is as we watch... As I watched a Let's Play while we were talking, I just saw the person that recorded this do it in 20 seconds. Yeah.
And it's funny that you mentioned like, you know, the strategy of it all, because, yes, there's absolutely like a winning strategy to all these different.
tracks too like you you do have to know them well and like just like you would in real life and everything but it's kind of funny how like modern nascar games have also like reduced a lot of this to just like make it faster make make you like race more often like you don't do like you know 80 laps or anything like you usually just do like five laps it's all like streamlined and it's like everything's going much faster and it's just like did this game
capture nascar a little better than like some games do now like on a on like a not on a sim scale but just on like a strategy point of view like i think this game is the right balance of like, if you know NASCAR and you're good at it, you'll be good at this game. And if you don't know NASCAR, but you're willing to like, you know.
Learn the driving system, the complicated driving system that they've laid out here. You can also play this game. And I say play this game because I'll be honest, like I wasn't. placing first I wasn't getting anywhere but like I was enjoying like myself racing right like like getting better at making the turns learning how the pit crew thing worked like I can't say I'll sink
like a hundred hours into this game or whatever, but like, it's not, it's not very friendly at first and it does get friendly, which means that somehow they, they have designed something right. Yeah. I'll agree that it is more intuitive. after flutzing around with it for a bit than one would think. I was expecting this to not really have any intensity. The sense of speed is definitely debatable, but I like your use of the word friendly there. It's something you can get into.
I'm torn because I do think, yeah, the more I played it, the more I got it. It felt a little smoother. I think the sense of speed is middle of the road from what we've seen on the NES, which is not a bad thing, not a good thing. I just, I don't know. I mean, I don't know if I needed music. I needed something, but I don't know. Yeah, there's no music. I just found these races just kind of boring. Like, it was just, I mean, I didn't feel the excitement really at any point.
it's a good point though joe about the about the music like maybe they were trying to make it sound like the roar of the car but they can't do that on the nes yeah and hey i was impressed with that sound effect at first and i was like oh yeah it does sound like a car and i was like all right Maybe if there was just smaller gaps between the checkerboard pattern that they got to even have there be any sense of speed. Maybe if that was a little faster, this would feel more intense.
Yeah, I get it. And then, you know, not to like, again, I feel like I've often lately I'm just like really scooping my own Essential Games list vote, but like... the when i'm on like the second race and it's like and this race is 35 laps i'm like i'm like i cringe at that idea i'm just like that's not a good sign for me
Well, that's actually an order of magnitude fewer than there would be in a real race, Joe. Oh, I know, yeah. But, like, it's still much more than we've seen in most NES races. And it's not particularly... other than from like a, there isn't a story, but like from a progression point of view, there isn't any like reward for moving on to the next race. You know, like it's not.
You don't like get a power up or a faster car. It's just like, okay, cool. You did that. Now do this. It's like, oh, that's. It's not very friendly, you know, to the opposite of what I was saying earlier. It's like, okay, like new track, something new to learn and everything. Maybe if you win or at least place in the race. Like Nicole Kidman comes up and gives you a hug or something. That would be pretty cool. Oh, hell yeah. Or she tells you how great it is to be at the movies. God.
What else do I have here? No, because this is all... Well, I guess I should mention that even though I said that it wasn't tied to the movie, I meant by the video game. standards at least tom cruise is on the box art of the game as well which would be confusing because you might think oh he'll be in the game as well but you'll never see like a detail he's in the car yeah he's in the car take our word for it
And that's Tom Cruise. He drives the car. Days of Thunder 2, the movie, is actually coming out. Why now? They're just following... Well, Top Gun 2. Yeah. Yeah, well, apparently there's also another... Top Gun 3 is happening as well. I don't know if I'm going to get in trouble for saying that. What do you mean? No, you know, like, because...
I haven't seen a trailer for it or anything, but they're making it. You just know because you're an insider. Yeah, I'm an insider, right. No NDAs? I'm not on any NDAs, so it should be good there. But Days of Thunder 2, apparently no Nicole Kidman. That's unfortunate. Margot Robbie. Wow. Okay. Is Tom Cruise in it? Tom Cruise is in it. Tom Cruise was like, I'll do it. Yeah, he's like, I'll do it, but I don't want... I don't want anybody my age to be sharing scenes with me.
And it should be mentioned that that is Tom's car from the movie in the game as well, that green and yellow car. He did drive that. You know, one thing I got to talk about with the movie, and I'm sorry if it sounds like now I don't want to talk about the game, but like. The movie has this one scene where... You watched the movie. I did, yeah. Okay. Tom Cruise's arch rival, whose name escapes me right now because it's been a while. Ricky Bobby?
No, stop it. He does a move during one of the races to screw Tom Cruise over. And it's like, hey, that was pretty dirty play. But it wasn't like he slashed his tires or anything. You know what I mean? It was just like the creative way to screw you over and the NASCAR gods wouldn't be happy about it. I'm sure there will be an article.
You know, in the you know, in the NASCAR Times about it and people will read about it and Stephen A. Smith will have a hot take about it. But like it wasn't that controversial, you know, like it's just going to be something people talk about. He takes the checkered flag. And does his victory lap. Tom Cruise gets back in the car. That is now like you know. Pretty beat to shit. Gets back in the car. And just drives at the guy. And fucking like you know.
Tries to kill him? Yeah. He T-bones him. And it's just like, wait a minute. You would be immediately banned. You're the bad guy. But you would be immediately banned from NASCAR and probably on trial. for doing something like that. You know what I mean? It was just kind of rubbed off. It wasn't brushed aside, but it was kind of weird that that's not the end of the movie. Yeah.
I don't know. I wonder, does that happen? I don't know. I haven't really watched much NASCAR. It's like charging the plate, or charging the mound, rather. Yeah. I know that during F1 races, because they occasionally will, like... have their team radios come up, they will play dirty during the race to purposely box out specific people. Yeah, but this is post-race. Right, that's what I'm saying. This has never happened.
post-race this is nobody's ever been t-boned after a race or even just like taking a shot at somebody right like what the hell is going on here like he was actually driving home after the race he was like pulling into his driveway and then tom cruise t-boned him from the yard yeah tom cruise it would have been better if he just like
drove all over his lawn right like that would have made more sense it's like oh he's angry and i'm angry about that scene i'm so fired up that i think we should do the essential games list Days of Thunder is a movie I would recommend, actually. Yeah, you guys should watch it. But you have to watch it on a huge screen.
Honestly, I know back in the day they had a VHS and a 32-inch CRT, but I think this thing requires 77 inches or more. And I don't know if it's just because— Some of us don't have that much wall, Mike. That's what I was going to say, though. 77 inches or more, it sounds like I'm at the Caveman Olympics again. I'm fucking horny, right? It's like, let's go. You were the only one thinking that. Okay.
Yeah, probably true. I got to get offline. I am so online right now. Back to the review of the game itself. Nah, nah. It's not even the best driving game we've played. on the nes so it's not gonna get it for that i wish that the pit stop thing was fun though i gotta say i wish it was actually fun because when i realized it was like oh
that's me. That's my turn. Like I was like, hell yeah. And then I realized I don't even really know what I would be doing. So then I went to the manual. I was like, okay, I get it now. And it wasn't fun. It should be like. Should be fun to work on cars, right? Like they, they kind of screwed that up a little bit, but maybe it's because you also like have to pit like more than once a race. Like maybe you shouldn't.
do that like maybe i'm just bad at my fuel or whatever but like make that make that like more rare don't make that like part of it because the the game is sold because we're racing and i want to make sure that Like the racing is the best it can be. And it's not. So it's not on the essential games list. Joe. Yeah. Just to add to your, your pit stop suggestions there too. Like I wonder, and I don't know, I I'm assuming this is accurate to, to real NASCAR, but like.
What if you had to do something that is actually different based on the condition of your car? Like, you know, I know that like, I don't know. I know that you can go in there with like. not all of your tires are screwed up but like you have to just do all everything right before you know you don't you can you don't you can just fuel up if you want no i didn't even realize that but like but still i wish that there was like
Oh, now I have to do... I don't know how many other things there are to do other than change tires, fuel up, but like... Oh, because of this one thing I got... You know, something that connects you to the car a little more. I think I would... appreciate more but again maybe I don't know how that would work but just a thought but the pit stop aside I think I think I just don't get this game I don't know I don't really have
much fun with any of it i'm not like saying it's a train wreck i just i don't know even the actual racing is just very dull to me so this this is definitely not my cup of tea And I'm certainly not going to vote it essential. Sean. Yeah. I mean, I think that there's, I was charmed by this game just from the things that they do.
simulate and the the visuals look good and like one thing that i didn't really mention is that like you can actually like you can actually keep track of the other racers kind of like it seems like In a lot of racing games that we've played, it's just like, oh, you're going to run into this every two seconds. You're going to have to pass somebody. But even if you sort of look ahead on a turn, you can see. Like that guy is that far ahead of you. And just that idea of persistence, I appreciate.
I'd say that the actual feel of racing is a little wonky just because of the way that the gas pedal works. I don't think there was any real way that they were going to get past that for me. But what they did do, I think they did well. It's just, yeah, it's just, it feels weird. Not the best racing game we've played, but this is way better than I thought it was going to be, but still not essential.
Listing off some of the other racing games we've played, and I'm going to be a little liberal here with what a racing game is, but we have Excitebike. So let's start there. Would you put Days of Thunder above or below Excitebike? Below. I would put below as well. I didn't even really like Excitebike that much. I would put this below Excitebike. Rad Racer.
Gotta look it up real quick. Oh, no, you don't. Come on. Rad Racer's great. I gotta look it up. But yeah, this also below. Rad Racer. Okay, cool. Yeah, we're not doing the whole thing. We're not comparing Rad Racer to Excitebike right now. Are you going to go through all of them? Yeah, yeah. RC Pro-Am. Oh, we can't go through all of these. What do you mean? We got six more.
How much longer would it take? RC Pro-Am, I think it's a no doubt that RC Pro-Am is better than Days of Thunder. Yeah, I actually quite liked RC Pro-Am. Cobra Triangle. I'd say below. That's the water one, right? Yeah, Cobra Triangle was fun. Yeah, that was kind of cool. I did not say that this was...
A great game. Wait a minute. This isn't an attack on you. I just was curious. I was just curious where this would fall in the racing catalog. I was wondering why you weren't answering. Al Unser Jr.'s Turbo Racing. worse than this. I gotta look it up. I remember the name. I can't, I don't really remember my experience with this. Well, then you're gonna be overruled. Honestly, probably still below, just by looking at it.
But I don't know. Alancer Jr.'s was hard. That's the difference. At least I felt like I could drive these laps. I don't know if I could actually do a lot of what Alancer Jr.'s Turbo Racing wanted me to do. So I will agree with Sean. And so we have figured it out where it's going. But just to list off the other two, there's Rad Racer 2, which is actually worse than Rad Racer 1. Yeah, it was.
Yeah, I'm not sure. Maybe I'd put Days of Thunder over Rad Racer 2. Maybe it'd be like middle. Maybe it'd be like equal to each other. Yeah, I think I might put it over too. I remember Rad Racer 2 being also very bland. And then there's the final one, Bigfoot. I think Days of Thunder is better than Bigfoot. I agree. I also think that Rad Racer 2 is the other game that accelerated in the same way, if I'm not mistaken. Oh, interesting. Yeah, you might be right.
I'll put this game above Bigfoot only because I remember on the Bigfoot episode you invited Sean to a monster truck rally and didn't invite me. That's true. We didn't go if it means anything. Unapologetically. My offer still stands, Sean, whenever you want. But actually watching this footage of Bigfoot, yeah, I think I actually would put it below this game. Here's a question I should have asked on the main show. Does...
Does Days of Thunder's Pit Stop have any relationship to Top Gun, the video game's carrier landing sequence? Is there a shared point of frustration there for both? Is it the same developer? No, but it's the same. It's a Tom Cruise movie. I mean, I don't remember being... I remember being much more frustrated with the landing than I was with the pit stop, although I don't like the pit stop either. But yeah, it is weird that they both have this. All right, well. Okie dokie. Thank you. Outro Music