Need For Speed: Carbon

Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: Electronic Arts
Release Date: October 31, 06 [North America]
Also Available On: PC XBOX360 Xbox PS3 PS2 Wii PSP DS
Perspective(s): First Person,Third Person

Info:
Need for Speed Carbon is the newest adrenalin-packed racing game in the Need for Speed series, the new aged street racing game now presents the hardest and most dangerous racing challenge ever, Canyon racing. In Carbon the player most make a crew from scratch and challenge rival crews for their turf, and by taking each gang's terratory, piece by piece, you can ultamatly take over the city. With more gameplay comes new option, so now you can choose to between 3 car types for your specific racing needs. Choose between pure brute American Muscle, specialised superpowered Foreign Tuners or speedy and expencive Exotics to your flavour, each ready n' raring to hit the streets. And to make your ride look out of the crowds, EA has given a new Autosclupt feature to tune your car to look unique, now no 2 cars look alike.

The Story:
You're cruising in Carbon Canyon on route to the city when you're having a flash back on what happened a while back. Even before Rockport (Most Wanted).
Palmont city, an epic battleground of street racing where gangs battle it our for terratories and the city itself! Just imagine..... The 4 big bosses of the city coming for one final race with cash, turf, cars and rep on the line, its a big prize and you also up for it! Your lightning fast Toyata Supra is unmatched against the other gangs, but just before you cross the finish line, the police strike all the cars with an EMP rifle. Instantly stopping them, everyone.....except you. You were given the bag of cash during the confusion and your pal Darius, says you have to make a run for it. So you speed off to the nearest place you can find..... Rockport.
Present day: Its time to fix our rep in Palmont, but before you can reach the city, you meet an old friend who trashes your BMW M3 (again) and leaves you in trouble. Untill your old bud Darius arrives to save ur ass. He tells you that you must earn your place place back in Palmont and pay him back for that race you (apparantly) cheated. He leaves you with your ex-girlfriend Nikki, and a new ride to undo your mistake and also learn what really happened that night.

Features:
Canyon Racing: Now race in the canyons with 50 feet drops and dangerous curves. One mistake and you're done for.
Car classes: Race with either Muscle, Tunes or Exotics and over a million ways to modify them to stike fear in all your opponents.
Over 50 real-life cars: Hit the roads with cars like the Mazda Mazdaspeed 3, Lotus Europa 2007, Dodge Charger R/T 1963 etc etc.
Autosculpt: Tune your looks with loads of new rims, body kits & hoods that can be altered to suite your exclusive taste.
Bring-back-classics: Welcome back Drift racing & Car-2-Car challenge. Also enjoy the new Carbon Drift, Carbon Sprint & Carbon Checkpoint.
Build your crew: Build your crew to help overcome the enemy gangs. Choose between missleproned Blockers, sneaky Scouts or speed-demon Drafters. All itching to be on your side.
Evade the police: Beware! The Palmont PD is ten times more determent, aggresive and stragetic than Rockport, so be on your guard!
New Online races: New race types only available for online gaming.

Screenshots:
[attachment=9966:117289156.jpg] Cutscene of a boss
[attachment=9967:117307953.jpg] Tuners
[attachment=9968:117309031.jpg] Muscles
[attachment=9969:117310375.jpg] Exotics
[attachment=9970:117339812.jpg] Canyon Race
[attachment=9971:117483312.jpg] Autosclupt allows you to customize your appearance
[attachment=9972:117803500.jpg][attachment=9974:117834109.jpg][attachment=9975:1
17819203.jpg]A few possibilities for your crew....
[attachment=9976:121908906.jpg] Nothin like a good 'ol Camaro
[attachment=9977:122505359.jpg] One Supra not to be messed with



My comment:

The ups:
- Good storyline, brilliant plot and even better result.
- The new car classes makes the game more challenging, restarting the game as a different class makes the game fun to play over and over.
- Autosculpt just rocks, designing to make even the ugliest car awesome.
- Graphix are just as good as Most Wanted.
- Love the whole Crew idea.
- Yay Drift is back!
- Cops are trickier and makes the game more fun (or irritating)

The downs:
- Not alot creative on the different cars. You get the top car, you still just win win win.
- Sound Trax suck, no shuffle so you hear the same old songs in the same old order.
- Loads of graphic glitches.
- NO MORE DRAG RACING

Final score:
Story: 4/5
Gameplay: 4/5
Graphix: 4/5
Originality: 3/5
Total: 75%

"Good entertaining game, 3 thumbs up to EA"

-Legendof Max out.

I quite enjoyed this game. I like the idea of the Canyon race.

The storyline was good, but they didn't finish it off very well. I was very let down by how it ended. The cops were trickier? I must be getting better, cause I never got caught.


I got to agree with you there. Why can't they make it that you can link the soundtrack to your folder that holds all your MP3's, with a button that allows you to skip ahead? That would rock.

great review sir.

i do enjoy the game, it's fun to drive around recklessly or so

Ye I also thought it was the same but i actually found out that the heat ranks up faster than MW and the cars are better.
In MW the Heat 3/4 cars were Lancers, and in Carbon they are GTO's.
So statisticly they are better.

ahhh. That would explain it. Oh yes. I forgot to congratulate you on the review. Very good. Keep 'em coming.

I'm bummed because (like in MW) car's looks have no real effect on the game. You can lower your "heat" What shit. In Underground 2 (the best so far) you used to get Stars etc, and have to go through searching to unlock shit etc. Now they've removed all that part of the game, and ALL you do is race

I quite like the idea that you can lower your heat by doing things to your car, but do agree that the starst thing in Underground 2 was pretty kewl. They should implement both. i.e. You get starts, but then you can make other changes to your car to lower your heat, but by doing that you could get less stars, or more stars, depending on what changes you make.

precisely - it opens up a whole new aspect of the game. As well as that you shouldn't just "get" upgrades by beating people. In NFSU2 you had to find the places, and then the modding part was also way more in depth. Here you apply "Stage 3" or whatever Previously you had to choose all the separate things and they actually effected either acceleration or speed etc

I have to agree, the whole popularity thing is very well thought up for NFSU2. If they'd combined that + heat bar it would make a killer challenge to over come.
Another good idea would be a reputation bar. Like eg. when you lose a race or restart for like 3rd time or something, you would start to lose rep, and the more you lose the fewer new races will unlock untill eventually, you have to redo every race untill you can rebuild your rep.

Damn EA should hire me

This game was rubbish compared to Most Wanted. They rehashed elements from previous games and made a new one, which was fortunately short enough that I wouldn't have to suffer very long through it. Game dynamics were also weak: the Canyon mode just didn't pack enough punch to justify its huge role in the game.

Technically speaking, performance is terrible on most nVidia cards, and the damn thing crashes every 5 minutes. (Have a look at the official forums to see what a mess they are.) EA seems hardly concerned to help people, which only makes them look guilty regarding all the accusations of the game being rushed and poorly tested.

I hope they get their act together for the next in the series.

Excellent review - I cant wait to play this when i get a pc that can handle it

obviously you just need an xbox 360

Pity this game DOES not work on a HP NW8440 laptop with the firegl GPU freaking 23k laptop and it doesn't work

I have a GeForce 6600 128MB, not the best card in the world, but able to handle most games adequately!
NFSMW looked beautiful on my system. Carbon, on the other hand looks like the dog's backside.

I've tryed various drivers, and enhancements to get the game looking like what its supposed to and still, no luck.

Incidentally, a system I recently sold to a friend (with onboard graphics - Radeon X300), runs the game about 250 million times better than on my PC. I must stress that apart from the GFX card, I have 1GB more RAM and a superior processor and motherboard to him.

If you have an NVidia card and Carbon looks even half-decent, consider yourself lucky!

I hope a patch is released to correct this issue!

I also cant play NFSC on my new laptop - its a HP NC8430 with 1gig of ram, core 2 duo processors, and a 256 radeon x1600 card

lolol, mine works fine

It is sad that you guys can't enjoy it as it should be enjoyed. It is even worse that they don't seem to be concerned with helping. I hope that someone does something about it, so that you can all enjoy it, as I did.

Did you manage to finish the game?

This is crazy talk guys! I have a standard P4 3gig (with HT, but its no core 2 duo); 2gig of ddr2; and a 7900 GTX and I run it on max quality and its fine? All my kit is at least a year or so old... especially CrEati0n - surely your laptop can play if you put it on like "medium" quality?

CyberStorm - maybe you are right, and there is some kind of nvidia based problem? (although I'm running nvidia)

Yeah I did. Didn't take me too long. Was bit let down by the ending of the game.

I have an Athlon 64 3500+, 1.5GB RAM, Chantech VNF4 mobo, GF 6600 128MB.
I'm probably going to sell my GFX card and get a Radeon just so I can play Carbon or borrow your 7900 GTX creation!!! :

There is most definitely a problem with nVidia cards, just take a look at the official forum.

I can't believe they still haven't released another patch despite all the complaints they've received.

I have a radeon 9700 Pro at home not being used currently. It may work better than your Nvidia....

Thats EA for you!


Is it PCI-X??

LOL, no. That card is old. AGP all the way for that baby.

I guess I'll have to twist creations arm!

Im lost Twist my arm for what?

ur 7900...

its built into my laptop

Thats okay, I'll just borrow the laptop then.

I do agree the ending is boring, but i just loved the game plot.
Oh btw, for those who want to play with a different beginning, race against the Carbon Canyon Gold Medal (Challenge Series, Challenge 1 Gold). You get to race as Cross and chase the all famous BMW. Fot the record I have spent 2 days trying, but still havent beaten this challenge. So i take my hat off to someone who can beat this challenge

hmm.... maybe I must re-install and revive my saved game and give this a bash....

Worth a try