First things first - if you didn' t like the 2 ' Underground' entries in the series then it' s likely that you won' t like Carbon either.
Last years Need For Speed: Most Wanted made a couple of welcome changes to the Fast and the Furious-usque tuner direction the series has been taken in. After 2 games set at night, the washed out, dusty, HDR illuminated daylight setting of Most Wanted was like a breath of fresh air. It wasn' t perfect and it certainly wasn' t for everybody but it was a marked improvement over the 2 preceding games.
It' s a shame then that EA found need to take the series back to the stylings of the Underground games. Daylight has gone and the neon city night lights are back in force. Depending on who you ask that' s either a great thing or EA running the once awesome series back into the ground.
For me, Most Wanted is the superior game. The autumn setting, wide highways and insane police chases are much more appealing than what Carbon offers. Not that Carbon is completely sub-par, there are new additions and certain aspects are improved over last years release.
Graphically it' s a matter of preference. Most Wanted was at times stunning, mainly due to heavy use of the high dynamic range lighting and washed out colour palette. Carbon makes up for it' s lack of HDR powered daylight with excessive neon lights and some seriously cool special effects. Stylistically i prefer Most Wanted' s mid-Western industrial vibe over Carbons East Coast flavoured urban environments. It looks gorgeous but i think i' d have preferred a Most Wanted 2 over this.
The progression system has been changed from the cool-ish Black List setup to working your way up through the ranks by capturing territory. Win enough races in each area and you' ll capture it, capture enough areas within a city sector and your challenged by a boss. Now, the multi-stage boss races from last year are back but this time around they' re much more infuriating.
Win an initial street race against a boss and you' ll be instantly transported to the canyons where you' ll need to win by either overtaking your opponent and staying ahead of him/her for 10 seconds, or by staying closer to him/her on the way down than he/she stays to you the 2nd time around. If you overtake and stay ahead for 10 consecutive seconds then it' s an instant win. If not the race becomes a 2 stage event where you chase them and they chase you.
The canyon events are annoying. They are the worst parts of the game. The tightest turns have barriers that you' ll smash through if you misjudge the corner. It looks cool as the colour bleeds out and the screen goes all sepia but you fall to your doom and have to restart. The fact that the canyon races are super hard doesn' t help and just scraping the car against the canyon wall can be enough to make you lose. The idea is great, it' s just been porely executed.
Also changed are some of the even types. Speedtrap is back along with curcuit and sprint, but last years career challenges that pitted you against the police to build up the required bounty needed to challenge a boss have been taken out of the career mode and now have a mode of their own. Taking their place are the drift and race wars events. Drift racing is fairly self explanatory but is much more user friendly than before with a large emphasis on speed, and race wars events are curcuit races against 19 other vehicles. Race wars is a nice addition, drift isn' t.
A ' crew' mechanic has been added but it' s seriously retarded and an obvious attempt to flesh out the story. The characters are boring and don' t help much in the races at all, they even get in your way more often than not. That being said, the story itself is better than in Most Wanted. The gorgeous FMV cutscenes return and there ae a lot more of them. Dialogue is pretty good but the characters are really dull and way too cliched to take seriously.
Strangely some of the world most popular tuner cars are missing from the game. You can choose from muscle, tuner and exotic car types, selecting one at the beginning and having to stick with it as it' s that class that you unlock parts for throughout the rest of the game. The muscle cars generally suck and the exotics are an aquired taste. The past 3 NFS games have been all about tuners and that' s where Carbon gets things right, the cars, parts and handling etc are all spot on, it' s just s shame that cars like the Fiat Punto, Ford Focus, Honda Civic etc are all missing. The Skyline is back though so that more than makes up for the absent hatchbacks.
The last new addition is the autosculpting mode. You select your parts and then can manually scult then to just how you want them by moving a multitude of sliders from left to right. It' s kinda cool but also kinda useless. If you like bodykits then you may get a kick out of it, and it allows you to take a unique car online but it' s not as great as it probably could have been.
There are a much wider selection of parts available for your cars and evey part is adjustable making this probably the racing game with the most visual customization options. Impressed? Not really. It' s nice enough but vinyls don' t really do anything for me and 6 types of paint? C' mon...
What' s lacking most is the sense of freedom that Most Wanted granted the player. There are no long wide highways, no underground carparks and no golfcourses to rampage across when you' re being chased by the cops. Carbon feels chlostrophibic and that' s not a good thing. The darkness doesn' t help as the draw distance is much closer and the taller buildings and narrower roads add insult to injury.
In closing, this is far from a bad game and there are many improvements over Most Wanted, and Carbon will undoubtedly sell through the roof but i feel EA has reverted back to the Underground formula for financial reasons. Underground and Underground 2 sold millions, Underground 2 selling in excess of 7.5 million copies worldwide. It' s just a shame as i feel Most Wanted was the " better" game overall and Carbon has a lot of wasted potential. I guess i' ll be happy when they manage to impliment a proper night/day cycle complete with a host of impressive weather effects.
If you like this kind of game and in particular enjoyed he Underground games then you' ll love Carbon. If you didn' t like the Underground games but enjoyed Most Wanted then there' s a possibiity that you will actually like this game and it' s worth checking the *retail build to see for yourself. If you have never liked the series or have hate it since the move into tuner territory then you should steer well clear and stick to the awesomeness of PGR3.
* I say the retail version because the demo on XBLM is a really bad representation of the final game. In fact, if i didn' t know any better i' d probably think it was a completely different game.