Review: Need For Speed: Carbon (360)

Next to FIFA, the Need for Speed franchise is probably EA’s next most successful. With Most Wanted having provided a solid addition to 360’s range of launch titles, will the newest entry to the series stall on the grid or take first place?

Need for Speed: Carbon picks up the story where Most Wanted left off. Your faceless, street racing driver returns to his old home of Palmont City to clear his name from a crime he didn't commit. EA’s continuing obsession with shoe-horning a plot into racing games is starting to pay dividends; Gamestyle was surprised at how well the story was told; cut scenes are a mixture of in-game graphics with footage of live actors laid over the top. They are wonderfully exaggerated with bright colours over the night time locales and exaggerated facial characteristics with particularly fabulous comedy eyebrows.

In fact, Gamestyle was impressed with the presentation of Carbon as a whole. Menus are easy to navigate and visually, the game is sharp. It looks like this is the generation of consoles that can finally accurately render a neon-soaked metropolis instead of the garish mess EA offered on the last gen. Slightly worrying, however, is that the roads are almost totally deserted off-traffic, despite the processing power of the 360. The vehicle models are excellent and Carbon offers a fairly generous selection of customisation for your ride. In fact, the only slight disappointment in respect of this area is the 'autosculpt' function. Autosculpt allows the player to adjust the dimensions of parts such as bumpers, skirts and hoods. Sadly, there aren’t a massive number of parts to play with and the sculpting itself is quite limited. Sure, you can pull a lip out on the front bumper, or make an air vent bigger, but there’s no opportunity to really let you imagination run wild and come up with some off-the-wall designs of your own.

In addition to the autosculpt feature, EA have introduced a map of which control must be won, a crew who will ride with you into races and canyon duels. The map is split into 4 districts, with each district divided into smaller sub-territories containing two or three races. Races must be won in order to prise control of territory away from the incumbent gang, and when all the territories in a district are controlled, the boss of the gang will throw down the gauntlet for a race to decide who takes the district. Taking territory adds a little structure and made Gamestyle think about what race we wanted to tackle next, particularly as specific rewards are offered for winning races. The map is free roaming and it’s possible to become embroiled in police pursuits, which give a fantastic excuse to demolish scenery and other cars or challenge other street racers to a race through the city. Foolishly though, EA have provided a “jump to” option to any race, safe house or car lot, which totally bypasses the free roaming aspect of the game and will be a great boon to lazy racers.

The crew seems to be the weakest addition to the Need for Speed formula. Throughout the game you will be given the opportunity to recruit members into your gang, and even customise their car to match yours. One of you crew will then race with you and act as a wingman. Blockers will take out other cars, scouts will race ahead and map out shortcuts whilst drafters will let you tailgate them for a speed boost. In reality, only the drafting ability is of any real value and then only in the later stages of the game.

Gamestyle’s favourite addition in Carbon is the spectacular canyon racing. When racing a boss, the action relocates to one of the canyons surrounding the Palmont and the race becomes an intense one-on-one duel. Split into two runs down the winding canyon roads, the first sees the player trying to stay as close as possible to the boss car, whilst the second requires the opposite. If either car takes and retains the lead, it’s race over. Solid driving skills are required to stay close, and to stay on the road as taking corners too enthusiastically will see you smashing through the guard rail and eating canyon floor. Set to a decent piece of original music instead of the usual EA trax, the canyon races are great fun and pleasantly underused. Gamestyle was always left wanting another.

However, something’s rotten in Carbon and worryingly, it’s the racing. Palmont’s roads are wide, the corners aren’t particularly challenging and the AI is incredibly forgiving. Gamestyle happily breezed through the first three-quarters of the game, barely losing a race. It’s also not until the most powerful cars have been unlocked that the Carbon offers a real feeling of speed either with the initial selection being slow, cumbersome, jerky and unrewarding to drive. Only in the later stages of the game is there any real sense of challenge or action. And when Carbon challenges, it doesn’t pull any punches. The difficulty spike going into the last quarter of the game is very, very steep. It’s a miracle that no control pads were hurt during the reviewing of this game. Carbon’s frame rate also drops on occasion. The brakes are a little too sharp for Gamestyle’s liking and for the love of God, will someone please tell EA that tyres do not squeal when going around every corner.

The 360 version of Carbon is the only release to fully support online play. Not only was Gamestyle able to take our bright pink Renault Clio online at last, but we were also greeted by a decent array of options for customising our games and two online exclusive and highly enjoyable pursuit modes. Some lag was encountered but nothing game breaking and racing with seven other players was an enjoyable experience. Progress online is also awarded with achievements and new unlocks, as an added incentive to keep playing. However, even online Carbon is unbalanced. Completing the game unlocks a car for online play which is untouchable by virtually every other car. If you don’t cap the power of cars available in any given race, expect to be hammered by mocking American teenagers exclusively using this car. Not fun.

Carbon is a mixed bag. Every time Gamestyle wanted to stop playing it gave us another canyon duel, cut-scene or cinematic slow-mo view of our car mid-jump to hold our interest. Whilst there are some really good ideas here, Carbon feels too unbalanced as a package - too many bells and whistles attached to an average racing game. Roll on next year’s instalment.

Rating: 6 / 10

Words by Andy Lucas