Need For Speed Carbon Review

[Lucian]

October 27, 2006 - After Need for Speed Underground outsold all other games in 2004, the largest independent game publisher in the world adroitly kept the series coming without a hitch. Last year's Most Wanted shipped at Microsoft's Xbox 360 launch and introduced a creative take on story-telling by using filtered customized FMV to give the familiar racer a fresh presentation. The police were back with a ferocious vengeance. And it offered a particularly North-West vibe to it.

This year's version, Need for Speed Carbon, which refers to Carbon Canyon where racers duel for territory in the city below, is a minor shake-up for the series, shifting in new features, shifting out others, while continuing the FMV-heavy story-telling from Most Wanted. Carbon, in other words, is a decent update to last year's game with improved graphics, excellent Autosculpt customization, a different progression system, and an all-around solid take on the game. It's not revolutionary, it's not brilliant, but it's good, deep racing.



Meet your former girl friend. Hah!Near Carbon Copy
Carbon is an arcade-style racer that plays, in general, a lot like other Need for Speed games. It provides four camera perspectives (two in-car, two over-the-shoulder), a 10-14 hour single-player campaign, and a series of mini-challenges based on collecting racing cards. The Career mode is the meat and potatoes of the game, comprising a city split into four territories plus hilly canyon races outside the city. Players can pick from three different car classes, exotics, tuners, and muscles (the muscles being the new addition), which broadens the game's middle-of-the-road feel in a smart, controlled manner. The four new features offered in Carbon comprise a crew, a unique autosculpt customization, drifting races and additional car classes. One of the bigger additions is the online functionality. It enables from 1-8 players to vie online on Xbox 360, PS3, and PC, whereas the Xbox, PS2 and GameCube versions don't offer online compatibility.

The Career mode follows last year's trippy FMV-based narrative. Because of the addition of crews or because EA wanted to go even heavier into its presentation (which it often does at the expense of improving gameplay), the game is filled with cutscenes and pasty, well-coiffed well-dressed gearheads. Last year's game was basic. Razor was your enemy, he was a first-class dick, and he rigged your car. You had to seek revenge and it felt good because he was a no-good bully. This year's narrative is watered down, with more forced mystery behind a rather simple premise. The novelty of the specialized FMV cutscenes is still moderately entertaining, but because of EA's excesses it comes across as strained, and there are simply too many dudes with perfect eyebrows and mullets for my tastes. Clearly Emmanuelle Vaugier needs a little more direction and some more meat to reach her potential. Meanwhile Josie Maran had far more fun and showed far more skin in her role in Most Wanted.

The boss races in the canyons are neither great nor horrible, they just are.Hot girls aside (and let's just be honest here, they're all great looking women), the game drives differently than before. Sure, it's still an accessible arcade game in which cars don't take any damage; it's still Need for Speed. But the addition of muscle cars and high-end tuners really alter the normal feel that's common in the NFS series. (See Real Muscle below for more details.) The game starts out at a normal pace and it gradually enables you to more earn enhancements. Cars are split into classes, but also tiers. There are three tiers, staring with tier one. The second tier is faster, and the third tier is insanely fast. You won't believe how powerful and quickly these final-tier cars drive. NFS still runs at a modest 30 FPS with some framerate variation, though the game doesn't hitch like Most Wanted.

Progress
Carbon's progression system is similar to THQ's Saint's Row. This is a good thing for the most part. You start off as a nobody who once had it all but lost it, and you must start all over again. You begin by choosing a car class. Since I've played this series for like eight years now, to experience NFS in a different light I choose a muscle car, a Camaro SS. Muscle cars tend to be classic American cars, thus they have big, fat V8s, they drive like dragsters with great acceleration and top speeds. But they handle like merde. No difference here, at least at first. If you decide the first car you chose was a bad decision, win races and beat bosses, and you'll earn money to buy new cars. Or, like last year, after you beat a boss you can pick from a set of random cards, one of which is the boss's pink slip.

There are 40-plus cars to earn or unlock. Other muscle cars include the new Mustang GT, the Dodge Charger SRT8, and the old Dodge Charger RT. While we're on the subject, the tuners feature the Mazda Speed3, RX-7, RX-8, Eclipse GT, and Lotus Elise for starters. The tuners comprise the Alpha Brera and Mercedes CLK 500, and a variety of Porsches.