Days Of Thunder was a simulation racing game based on the Tom Cruise film of the same name. It was developed by Argonaut Software Ltd and published by Mindscape Inc in 1990.
You play the role of Cole Trickle, the character Tom Cruise played in the film, a hot rookie driver trying to make it big in the world of NASCAR (a souped up type of stock car racing in the US). As with the film the focus isn’t on the rhymes and reasons of your journey, with the story instead serving just as a bridge from one race to the next.
Days Of Thunder was a simulation racing game based on the Tom Cruise film of the same name. It was developed by Argonaut Software Ltd and published by Mindscape Inc in 1990.
You play the role of Cole Trickle, the character Tom Cruise played in the film, a hot rookie driver trying to make it big in the world of NASCAR (a souped up type of stock car racing in the US). As with the film the focus isn’t on the rhymes and reasons of your journey, with the story instead serving just as a bridge from one race to the next. These can be tackled from either a first-person or third-person top-down view point, switchable at any point
in a race with the mere press of a button. (You can also switch to a side-on view, as if you as the driver are turning your head to one side, but this has zero practical use.)
First-person puts you in the driver’s seat and is the more traditionally “sim-like” view point and, unfortunately, arguably the more flawed. The car takes a bit of time to react to your input which combines with the track looking claustrophobically packed and distances being hard to judge to make the game a lot harder when played this way. This is a shame since first-person is by far the more atmospheric and realistic option. By contrast, the third person top-down view is a lot easier, with distances to other cars and at bends far easier to judge and any adjustments needed in control or direction able to be recognized a lot sooner. The sacrifice though is you’re then playing from a removed arcade viewpoint and could be forgiven for basically thinking you’re playing a top-down arcade racer with a dog-handling car. It also seems like graphically this was a bit of an afterthought with the sparse surroundings now hardly seen and the car stuttering and shuffling (graphically, not in speed/movement).
There are 8 tracks in all to race around as the game progresses. Each is as graphically bland as the one it was preceded by and the one it’ll be succeeded by although, let’s be fair, this is to be expected of 3D race games of the time. In fact if anything by the standards of the time they’re quite good, in first-person. Distinction between the tracks instead comes from the different lengths, corner structures and track gradients (elevation) which means there is the challenge for each of finding the ideal “racing line” (the primo route around the track).
Your car has stages of damage if you hit barriers or other cars, although the damage progression is only represented by a crack in the dashboard, which extends further across from left to right as the car gets more damaged. You can repair this damage, as well as refuel and change tyres, by pulling into the pits where a little top-down sub-section opens up with you selecting what needs work and your pit crew carrying it out. Oddly the other racers never pit which gives them a bit of an unfair advantage.
If you’re approaching this for the first time, no nostalgic influence, then you’re going to find a racing game that’s not sim enough to satisfy firm race sim fans and not arcade enough to satisfy arcade race fans but... I may be getting influenced by nostalgia about the game and as a bit of a fan of the film but I’m quite fond of it. It does a fair job of evoking the feel of the film and it’s not “broken”, it’s quite playable and has fair graphics. Don’t expect anything much and you might get some enjoyment from it (particularly if you liked the film.)
