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| Reviewer | Platform | Publisher | Developer | Players |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jem Eason | PC | EA | EA Black Box | 1-6 (LAN, Online) |
| Requirements | Also on... | Buy from Amazon.co.uk | ||
| Minimum: Windows 200/XP/Vista (32-bit only), 1.7GHz Processorm, 64MB DirectX 9.0c compatible video card, 512MB RAM, DirectX compatible sound card, DVD-ROM Drive | PS3, Wii, X360, DS, PSP, PC, GC, PS2, Xbox | Click here to buy Need for Speed: Carbon. | ||
Given I loved NFS: Most Wanted I'd been looking forward to Carbon with a measure of excitement. Not the "stock up the fridge with ready meals just before release date and fake my own death to clear my schedule" kind of excitement, but certainly more than a passing interest.
Fundamentally, Carbon is a fusion the two previous NFS games; Most Wanted and Underground 2. EA have moved the focus back a bit from the excessive cop baiting of Most Wanted (which did seem to get a bit tedious) and back to the illegal street racing world from the Underground games, complete with perpetual night-time and lighting effects galore. The career mode remains roughly similar: the city being broken up into a series of regions which are locked off until you have progressed enough to move on. With each race win comes more money and further parts to add to your cars, whether that means boosting performance or another few options for ridiculously over-the-top styling.
Visually Carbon pushes the bar up from MW nicely, although the everlasting night-time doesn't help it show off some of the work that has gone in. In particular, the light reflected off the sides of your car seems excessive, leaving your car appearing to have a pair of white brackets around it. To be honest though, I can't help preferring the perpetual sunset of Most Wanted to the relentless night of Carbon. Whilst the game is undoubtedly beautiful, I'd rather be able to admire my pimped out ride in glorious sunshine.
I hung on to the first thought I had when I was reuniting myself with the - now fairly familiar - format of racing for cash and unlocks. It actually had little to do with gameplay or graphics or new features. The thought I had was "this sounds pants". Strange but true. Neither Underground 2 nor Most Wanted had soundtracks that I would have chosen if I'd been able to pick an hour of my favourite driving music. But both of them did a pretty good job and each had at least one outright awesome track. Black Betty anyone? Timo Maas' Feels Just Like It Should? I Am Rock? Carbon responds with… ummm… I don't know. And that's exactly the problem. It's not that the soundtrack is desperately bad, it's just… average. In a driving game, above all other genres, that really is a problem.
Gameplay-wise things have been tweaked further from Most Wanted and not entirely successfully. Drag races appear to have been canned, so you'll no longer get to experience the wonders of timed gear shifting and shifting lanes. Instead, drift races have made a return after being absent from MW, although the scoring for them has changed from UG2. The most notable effect here is that completing Carbon on a keyboard is much, much harder than finishing Most Wanted was. But my favourite tweak of gameplay is on the free-roaming challenges when you meet a rival cruising the streets. Instead of UG2's silly "get 1000 yards ahead" system comes what I've been waiting for; you select a finish line on the world map and race to it, first one there wins, take whatever route you like. The downside to this is a totally retarded GPS navigation system, but given the great big arrow over the car doesn't actually railroad you into a certain route it can be forgiven for giving you slightly questionable advice.
The challenge mode from MW remains, although the various cop-chase related objectives have been canned from career mode. Most of them remain in some way, linked to a new system of "reward cards"; essentially a selection of unlockables available for completing four objectives which, for the most part, aren't even slightly related. Surprisingly this actually works very well; unlocks aren't available for simply obsessing about one feature of the game as the objectives for them spread through career progression, free-roaming one-on-ones, cop chases and the challenge series.
I can't really get away without mentioning your "crew", so here goes. You can hire some lackeys to vaguely help you out on your quest to rule the streets. They fit into one of three categories based on what they can do for you in a race; blockers can take other racers out for you, drafters can help you go obscenely quickly and scouts find all the shortcuts and mark them on your minimap as they use them. You can only have one crew member along to each race (and quite often none at all), so there is some consideration for which ones are worth picking at which time, though in general I found a scout to be a safe choice as their abilities are passive and a great help in a new area. The irritation comes with AI crews; if you can take a crew member for a race you'll inevitably line up against a set of "pairs" of rivals. Except they don't have crew members in the way you do, they're just two normal bots. No aggression from blocker types, no drafting at silly speeds, no scouting every shortcut. Oh, and to make you look bad, you'll often find in the first half of the game that the 'rubber banding' on your own crew members' driving will see them beating you.
There are some notable bugs, mainly relating to cop AI; I've watched my housemate park on a cooldown spot and have a cop crash into him, apparently without spotting him and continuing the chase. Not to mention the amazingly frustrating glitch whereby the automated cutscene that appears when you activate a pursuit breaker runs you straight over a spikestrip and cripples your car mid-chase. A few people clearly broke the scoring system for drift races upon release, but hopefully EA's recent patches to the game will have solved this issue now.
So does all this add up to a game worth splashing your hard earned cash on? Fans of the series will say yes, it does press forward in every way from Most Wanted. Except drag races. And actually looking beautiful. And soundtrack. But most of the progressions seem unnecessary. Or like they haven't been completely thought through. If you played through all of Most Wanted and loved it then you'll still enjoy Carbon. But there's at least a chance you'll sit playing it and the thought will creep in a corner of your mind: "I enjoyed Most Wanted more". It did for me. If you've not played Most Wanted but want a fun racing game, buy that instead, its quite a bit cheaper now.
| Graphics | Undoubtedly beautiful, but the glorious sunshine of Most Wanted feels disappointingly missing. It does raise the bar, though you'll need a high-end system to appreciate this. | 9/10 |
|---|---|---|
| Gameplay | Tweaked from Most Wanted for better and for worse. It's enjoyable, but there are some noticeable bugs that will let you down. | 8/10 |
| Value | Whether this is worth a purchase for Most Wanted owners is questionable, and for others, that title is now a much cheaper option with not much lost from this new release. | 7/10 |
| Lifespan | The career mode and online play should give you plenty to get on with. | 9/10 |
| Audio | The sound effects are good, but the soundtrack is decidedly average. | 7/10 |
| Overall | The game does press forward, and should please fans of the series, but while it is a fun racing game, the enjoyable predecessor is now available for cheaper, and may be worth picking up instead. | 8/10 |
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