The Good: Enjoyable game play, nice amount of cars to select from, customization is still diverse. The Ba
Having a bunch of racing modes like quick race, some unique challenge modes, the biggest part of NFS Carbon is obviously the career mode.
For those who played Most Wanted (and completed it), the opening of NFS Carbon has you cruising down the road in that famous blue and white BMW from Most Wanted, only to be ambushed by (ex) Sergeant Cross, your nemesis from Most Wanted. We discover that he’s hung up his badge to now become a bounty hunter, and right now, the bounty is you. Just as he’s about to haul you away (to wherever), some souped up cars turn up and the apparent leader of the pack, Darius, pays off Cross and you’re free again. All this is shown quite nicely in cool cut scenes (that were first deplored in Most Wanted). To make a long story short, Darius helps you to get you started, with the help of a former (girlfriend?), Nikki.
Nikki seems pretty mad at you, but reluctantly agrees to show you how things work in the new underground racing world of Need For Speed Carbon.
The cars you’re allowed to choose from now are specifically divided into 3 classes – Tuners, Muscles and Exotics. Choosing a specific class will (apparently) have an effect on your career mode. Each class has 3 different tiers, each tier unlocked as you progress through the game. Furthermore, each car handles quite differently.
Tuners can be tweaked for better speed and acceleration as you progress and unlock more and more customizable parts, but its negotiating around tight corners where this class excels. Exotics and Muscles are more designed for speed, but are not quite so easy to handle around corners. In the end, it’s all up to personal choice. Unlike previous installments where you it’s you against the underground world, this time around it’s your team against the underground world. That’s right, you now have the ability to form a team, design a logo and hire / fire a crew member! You’ll need to have a minimum of at least 1 crew member on board, and a maximum of 3 at any given time. As you progress, you are given the option of hiring newer crew members (3 being the maximum).
There are 3 types of crew members you can hire, though on a personal note, they’re all useless and you’re better off going it alone (about 98% of the time). Nevertheless, the types of crew members at your disposal are Blockers, Drafters and Scouts.
Blockers are as the name says – they block your opponents from overtaking you or just get in the way of an opponent to slow them down a smidge. They’re a great help sometimes, but can be a nuisance a lot of times, as in the course blocking a rival in front of you, they can blotch up the attempt and end up blocking you! However, when you’re leading a race and find an opponent getting a little too close for comfort, they can help create a little breathing space for you. Of the 3, Blockers are probably the most helpful.
Drafters are usually speed demons. What they do is get in front of your car, which (theoretically) kills off the wind drag against your car and thus allow your car to pick up speed, and when you get out from behind the drafter, you get a short speed burst. However, a lot of times, the Drafter is trailing behind you, and you’d need a pretty long straightaway road to generate enough ‘draft’ to pull out in front, which is rare as most of the roads are full of curves. By the time you do generate enough ‘draft’ and pull out to ‘burst away’, you’ll probably need to slow down and take that hairpin turn ahead of you! Also, you already have your car stocked with Nos, hence the need for a drafter is just pointless.
The final types of crew members you can hire are Scouts. What they do is find hidden shortcuts within a track. This is done when they’re in front of you and they set a trail blaze for you to follow their lead. Again, another useless option, as a lot of times they’re either way behind you or way ahead of you. Also, it’s not like every corner has a secret shortcut. To be totally honest, the best scouts in the game are usually your opponents. Just follow them in a race, and 8 out of 10 times, they’ll pick a shortcut then using the normal route. If you lose the first time and restart, you’ll already know where the shortcuts are – thanks to the opponent that just beat you!
These crew members race alongside you in a sprint or circuit race. Unfortunately, you can only choose 1 crew member at a time to race with you (even if you have 3!), which is a shame. It would have been fun if you could have more then just 4 cars (2 your team, 2 opposite team). In fact, it would’ve been so much cooler if a sprint or circuit race comprised of you and your 3 crew members against the 4 opponents! After all, you could have up to 8 cars in NFS Hot Pursuit 2.
The types of races available include circuit, sprint, speedtrap, checkpoint and drift. Drifts are the hardest, and fortunately unlike NFS Underground 1 and 2, these can be avoided if you don’t like them!
The playing field in NFS Carbon is now divided into 4 large territories, each ‘owned’ by a specific racing team that drive specific car classes. One is owned by a tuner class of drivers, another by a muscle class. The 3rd area is owned by an exotics class and the final territory by a mixed class! Each territory is divided into 4 or 5 different areas, and each area will have 2 to 3 different challenges. Usually, winning 2 out of the 3 challenges will suffice for your team to own that particular area.
Once you’ve taken over an entire territory, you’re challenged by the boss of that territory. You’ll first have a circuit race against him or her, and should you win, you go for the ultimate boss match in the canyons!
This canyon race is a 2 leg sprint race. The first leg has you following the boss racer as he tries to increase his distance from you. All this is tallied by a points system that is accumulated according to the distance your car is with the opponent (the closer you are, the faster you rake up points). However, should you overtake your opponent and stay in front for more then 10 seconds, you win the race, and your opponent forfeits the 2nd leg. If not, the 2nd leg starts, again on the same windy canyon, with you in front and trying stay that way for the entire race. It’s again a points system based on distance, with the opponent trying to oust the points you achieved in the 1st leg. Again, should the opponent overtake you and stay in front for 10 seconds, the race is over! All the boss matches are like this, and though similar they are quite unique in the sense that each (boss) car handles differently. Also, should you go over the ledge, the race is over!
The graphics in Carbon seem to have taken a dip compared to the previous games. In fact, starting with NFS Hot Pursuit 2 (the first PS2 NFS game), the graphics seem to be getting worse with each game! Why is this?
Gameplay wise, the mechanics are similar to Most Wanted – even the speedbreaker option is back, together with the inability to switch camera angles whenever you want. There are a diverse amount of cars, and all of them handle quite uniquely. The racing tracks are plenty too, and the canyon races are actually pretty fun. Even the cops are back too, as well as the accumulated heat levels from Most Wanted. Customization is exactly like it was from Most Wanted, unfortunately, and not as diverse as Underground. For instance, the cool under carriage neon lights are still missing. Bring them back, EA!
With regards to the soundtrack, alongside hip hop and rock in the previous games, it was great for EA to include ‘electro’ genre as well. Otherwise, the tracks are, once again, largely forgettable.
In conclusion, NFS Carbon is still very fun game to play with a very forgettable storyline. The graphics could do with improvements, and the soundtrack……..sigh. Hopefully, the next Need for Speed will be Hot Pursuit 3, if not, then it would be fun if we could race in the day and in the night or even weather modes, like Hot Pursuit 2, as it’d definitely add to the replay value.