Best in series !
When it was announced that EA was releasing a new edition of Need for Speed, I was excited. I've been a long time fan of the series, taking the good with the bad when its come to the progression of the game play. Need for Speed Carbon is a good solid addition to the long lasting series. Let me give a rundown of the games features and what I think of them.
Career Mode: The territories give you a goal to work towards. You don't feel like you're racing the same races over and over again. The difficulty ramps up as you play so the races end up being fairly balanced. No longer are you able to take the first car you buy and race it against the super cars, making it more realistic. The only problem with it is that its relatively short.
Challenge Mode: Provides a nice set of challenges to unlock extra gear and cars. It seems like there could be more challenges though.
Teammates: I have a love and hate relationship with my team. Sometimes they're really great to have in the race, assisting you in your wins. Other times it feels like they are getting in the way, and have actually caused me to lose a couple of races because they've wiped me out.
Races:
Circuit and Sprint - These races are pretty much the way they've been since the debut of the Underground games. Your goal is to be the first across the finish line. Its pretty much classic NFS Arcade style Racing.
Drift - This mode makes a return from the Underground games after a hiatus in Most Wanted. The mechanics have changed so that you can actually get some nice long drifts going around the corners. I actually prefer this version over the drifting in Underground 2
Checkpoint - You race alone against the clock, given a limited allotment of time to get to the next checkpoint. These races can be hard towards the end if you haven't upgraded your car because you simply wont be able to get down the track fast enough before time runs out.
Speed trap - These pretty much work the same way they did in Most Wanted. The advantage this time is that you have a teammate who can help you win the race, since they are usually pretty good at keeping good speeds around the track.
Canyon - A welcome new edition to the series. They can be very challenging at times, and its very exciting to hurtle down the side of the mountain without knowing if the next curve is going to send you flying off the edge of the canyon. The only problem with these is that there aren't very many of them in the game.
Online: I haven't played the online mode very much at this point, but the couple of races I have played it was a good time. You're limited to the cars you've been able to unlock with the Career and Challenge modes, but since the career mode is fairly short, it shouldn't take too long to get enough cars unlocked for it to be enjoyable.
To sum everything up, I've had a lot of fun playing this game since I got it on launch day. If you're a fan of the Need for Speed series, you should enjoy this game quite a bit.