Need For Speed Carbon

If we were completely cynical, we'd tell you that NFS Carbon is little more than Most Wanted at night, with sexier cars and stylized visuals. Certainly more of an evolution than revolution, it represents a refinement of the franchise and a response to the criticisms leveled at Most Wanted's ludicrous endgame demands. The inclusion of three different car types (tuners, exotics, and muscle cars) means there's potential for its having a broader appeal than previous games, and the adaptation of EA's character-morphing wonder-tool to car part–bending "autosculpt" feature means that there's way more freedom to the customization options now. A lot of the core gameplay mechanics from the past three games are evident, but the structure is quite different. It's still driven by a storyline, but unlike last year's clichéd bad-boy nonsense, there's much more of a point this time. This is truly a narrative "sequel" rather than just another Need for Speed, but that does mean that we're forced to make an awful lot of comparisons to the previous game when reviewing it. As the hero from Most Wanted, the action kicks off with a flashback showing your fall from grace and subsequent estrangement (going some way to explaining what you were doing in Rockport in last year's game) before it drops you, quite predictably, back among your former friends who no longer want to roll with you. It's not Pulitzer-winning stuff by any stretch of the imagination, but it distinguishes itself as being strangely compelling. We've given the EA Canada team a hard time in the past for forcing story where it's not welcome, but there's sufficient intrigue in the way Carbon unfolds to give it a respectful nod. It's remarkably good-looking too. The blend of 3D car models and video of the actors has a distinctive, Sin City–like patina. It's a shame the acting is so heinously wooden. As you can imagine, winning back the respect of your buddies is a big part of what drives the narrative forward here. Core to this is the new territory-acquisition mechanic that replaces the blacklist as the central motivation. Palmont City is divided into districts that are controlled by rival racing gangs, and beating the resident crews allows you to take over the territory and start winning back your former friends. It's simple but effective and works well as a centralized user interface for the whole game. As in Most Wanted, the city is a very large, wide-open environment that can be explored however you wish, but we found that the map-based navigation meant that we always opted for warping from event to event rather than plodding through the streets. We may well have missed some of the finer nuances of the map as a result, but it meant that the pace stayed really snappy.

"Even though the wingman mechanics and canyon races don't quite pan out, it's still a stylish and enjoyable street racer."

"Need For Speed Carbon isn't a revolutionary game and it's far from a stinker. Instead, it's what EA does best, usually. It creates pretty good games with lots of features."