I'm someone who has seen both the highs and the lows of consumer life... Starting a new life in Not...
I'm someone who has seen both the highs and the lows of consumer life... Starting a new life in Nottingham with Shushy, my fiancee.
Member since:16.08.2001
Reviews:90
Members who trust:8
I love the Need For Speed series. I own pretty much all the games, and I love tricking a car out so that it performs really well. So it was with great glee I got my grubby little paws on Need For Speed Carbon around Christmas time. The game basically picks up where Need For Speed Most Wanted left off.
You start the game with a cut scene with Cross (the cop from NFS Most Wanted) chasing you to get the bounty. This is basically just a prologue to the main storyline where you're accused of stealing money from rival street racers and have to 'work' for one of them, Darius, to pay it back. Predictably, most of the game revolves around illegal street racing. You basically win the races and then beat the boss and then go for the next section of the game. You get the idea... Is it decent though?
Graphically the game is impressive. When NFS Most Wanted came out the graphics engine that it used was pretty good, and it seems that NFS Carbon is using the same engine with a few tweaks and a bit of fine tuning. The whole game oozes detail, although this is likely to go missing for those of you with low-end machines. The cars are beautifully rendered and feature reflections of lights etc, the rain sticks to the windscreen as you drive, the particle system (used for smoke and flames) looks realistic for the most part, and the city has various lights twinkling and lens-flare at all the right points. As I said this will have to be bumped down if you're running the minimum specs. Processor wise the box says you can get away with a 1.7Ghz processor, but trust me you will need a really meaty graphics card.
The game has similar cut scenes to NFS Most Wanted. A lot of them are rendered on the fly and this is either a good thing or a bad thing depending on your system. They usually end up with a short video sequence that is pre-rendered, but for some of the minor cut scenes they can look appalling on low end machines. The acting in the game is kind of cheesy but this adds a kind of nice touch and makes the scenes a little more fun. As with all the games since NFS
: Underground 2 you have some nice female eye-candy in the form of Nikki (played by Emmanuelle Vaugier), although I must admit I did prefer Josie Maran who played Mia in Most Wanted. I'm not sure whether they assume that girls and gay men don't play racing games at all but there is no real eye-candy for women/gay men in this game.
Musically the game is a mixed bag. Tracks from established acts such as Gary Numan, Goldfrapp, Lady Sovereign and Pharrell are mixed in with tracks from lesser known artists. Most of the tracks are pretty good and fit the game well (especially when you're whizzing around in a race and not really paying too much attention to the music anyway) You can actually listen to the music without playing the game (although it does have to be loaded) by going to the EA Trax option in the menu.
So here's the main meat of the game - gameplay. The handling isn't too bad if you're used to the NFS games although there are little quirks here and there that you will need to get used to. It's not such a big issue though, but I tend to play using a keyboard so I can comment on gamepads.
I need to split the next bit into three sections - racing, driving about and cars.
Racing wise we have several types of race:
Circuit : Race around a track for x laps. Sprint : Race from point A to point B and be the first across the line. Drift : Basically slide around a course without hitting the walls for maximum points (think of The Fast and The Furious Tokyo Drift and you get the idea) Checkpoint : Get to the various checkpoints within the time limit. Speedtrap : Be the fastest to go through the speed cameras (don't try this in the real world folks!)
Now by far, my favourite race mode always used to be drift. I've always got something out of going around corners side ways, and I was overjoyed when I saw it return to Carbon (they'd taken it out of Most Wanted), but my joy was short lived. It's nigh on impossible to drift in the canyon races. Sliding around is all well and good until you either hit a wall (all to easy to do) or hit one of the corners that have a flimsy barrier instead of a wall and go off the edge and total your car (also too easy to do if you're really speeding). The rest of the races are pretty straight forward and fun enough, but the drift was just frustrating when it wasn't on the standard drift tracks.
Occasionally in races you will have the police show up and add an extra bit of spice to the game play and while this doesn't happen as much as it does in Most Wanted it can either make or break the race. The police tend to go after the fastest car and this can slow it down and cause all the other cars to back up. This can be useful if you're last and need to catch up, but can also be a pain when you're first and all the police are trying to take you down.
The boss races aren't much fun either. They usually involve a specific type of race followed by a sort of 'follow the leader' race in Carbon Canyon. The idea is to stay as close to the car in front or overtake it for 10 seconds and then you swap places after the first lap and it has to do the same with you. The main problem is you have the problem of going over the side of the road and totalling your car if you go too fast so this is also frustrating.
Driving around the city is a pretty mundane affair and I only usually bother with it when I've bought a new car and want to test drive it on it's default settings or have time to kill. As with Most Wanted you have a heat level though and you can go out to cause havoc. You can basically whizz around the city forcing cars off the road, smashing up bit of destructible street furniture and other things to raise your heat level. Sooner or later you get spotted by the police and they start a chase with you. As your heat level rises so does the amount of police that give chase and their tactics to stop you change too. You can end up with 20 cars chasing after you and spike strips in the road ahead. What to do? Well how about kicking in the speedbreaker? The speedbreaker is kind of the anti-nitrous. It slows all the action down and has a nice bullet time effect (think Matrix) so you can control the car more precisely and aim for that weak spot in the road block.
I've always complained that damage was never done to the cars in the NFS series and this was implemented in Most Wanted, but it's only graphical. You end up with scratches on the paintwork and the odd smashed effect on car windows, but thats about it. The police cars can get beaten up so why can't our cars. They have damage in Juiced so why not NFS?
So lets look at the cars. You have three types - exotic, muscle and tuner. DO NOT BOTHER WITH THE MUSCLE CARS. The muscle cars are really fast but if you need to steer then forget it. You have the same effect that you have with the 4x4s in Underground 2 where you turn and keep going in a straight line. Stick with the exotic or tuner cars as they're more fun. Having said that the range of cars is quite good with 54 cars available in the Collectors Edition (there are two flavours of this game - the straight forward edition and the Collectors Edition which contains around 10 bonus cars and a few more tracks - you can find a patch for this online though so you don't need to buy the collectors edition). The handling of the cars isn't too bad (with the exception of the muscle cars) and racing them usually a joy.
The cars aren't as customisable as they were in Underground 2, although they are more customisable than in Most Wanted. You have the addition of AutoSculpt which allows you to take parts like bumpers and wheels etc and make your own parts that can look nothing like they originally started out as. This requires certain crew members (more on this in a moment) and only really comes in later in the game, but can be fun to make a distinctive car.
A nice touch is the inclusion of crew members (if you've played Juiced you'll get the idea). Basically, in most races you have a computer controlled friend who races alongside you. These are either blockers (crash into other cars to slow them down), drafters (get behind them for a slingshot effect) and scouts (they find all the short cuts. The crew are like nitrous in the way that they only work for a set period of time before they drop back and have to 'recharge'. The other advantage they have is some of their special abilities. Some can get parts cheaper, get more money for when you win races and allow various AutoSculpt parts. The only real use in a race is the blocker as they do work, but having a few around for the AutoSculpt parts is handy. They can also come first in some races you may have difficulty with so you can win the races without actually winning them :-).
As well as the standard career mode you also have a challenge mode where you have to win races of various types which unlock certain cars or parts. These are usually pick up and put down races and good to kill time without having to indulge in career mode.
As for the multiplayer? I can't comment as I don't play games online so I can't comment on how good the experience is.
Would I recommend this game? If you have Most Wanted then no. It's too samey and feels slightly recycled. If you haven't got Most Wanted or you're a die-hard collector of NFS games like me then yes. I'll be honest this game does have it's faults, and I hope that the next in the NFS series is an improvement on this one.
I am going to recommend it, but heed my warnings.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Very good, balanced review. I remember playing Need For Speed 2 years ago on the PSOne, as well as the rather excellent NFS: Porsche Challenge. Played a little it of the first Underground game (which was fun), and will maybe look into this in the future :) tom
perfectlypolished 26.02.2007 12:14
I think my son would enjoy this game. Lin
gaunts 26.02.2007 11:43
super review, quality great detail and fantastic information. gaunty
Advantages: cool music, graphics, effects, tunable cars, many modes and race type, user friendly Disadvantages: simple line of story, rapid map of another NFS, rather difficult to gain money.
Advantages: cool music, graphics, effects, tunable cars, many modes and race type, user friendly Disadvantages: simple line of story, rapid map of another NFS, rather difficult to gain money.
Feb 26th, 2007
very helpful by (100%):
