Review: Need For Speed: Carbon (Wii)

Indulge us. Pick up a nearby phone, a TV remote, stapler or even a Wiimote at one tip. Place the opposite side into the palm of your hand. Rotate the object so that its level, with the side facing the screen. Moving your right hand down will turn right, et cetera. Press ‘2’ to accelerate. This is how you drive in Need for Speed: Carbon.

And, for the moment at least, it is revolutionary. Only a handful of games are controlled like this. So imagine the first time that you play a game like this, you’ll want to be shown the subtleties of control, like the wonderful sequences in Wario Ware. And this is a key concern of Gamestyle’s. For this, or for that matter any other ported title to work on the Wii, there has to be time in development to tweak the game for this unique controller.

The opening gambit of Carbon disappointingly takes place on a winding hilltop track, leaving you highly frustrated as you cross your arms like Adam Ant, standing and delivering in an attempt to stop your car almost hopelessly career into several walls. If Gamestyle had played this in a shop, that’s all we would have known of the game, so initially frustrating this opening could appear to be.

Perseverance, whilst not being our middle name, is an attribute of Gamestyle’s playing style. So some FMV plays on, and some bird who looks like a less gobby Amy Winehouse tells us a bit about the controls and the situation in the hood. It’s gang race fare in the city, and you and the other gangs are all competing for territory, which is gained from winning races; mostly circuits, sprints and drifts.

Territory can also be lost by rival gangs ‘trying to steal your turf’, for which you must race them off. This usually happens after you enter another race, and never fails to annoy.

And after a while, the driving becomes natural. Gamestyle entered what we’ll pretentiously call the ‘lucid gaming zone’, where it’s possible to play fully whilst doing something else, like holding a conversation or thinking what to have for dinner. Whilst Gamestyle enjoys this kind of state, it does imply that that full concentration is not totally needed, and this is a reflection on the samey, dingy courses that you start off racing in the same areas of track repeatedly.

Initial progression introduces you to your crew, which starts off with a guy who will surely make his future living as a look-alike for Hurley from ‘Lost’. He’s a blocker, which means that you can get him to block your opponents in some races. Other characters are ‘scouts’, who sing campfire songs, tell you shortcuts and fix stuff. Mind you, what kind of player can’t make out the shortcuts on their own?

Gamestyle wishes that one of the crew could have a cracking big flashlight, which might be more useful. Driving at night is seemingly de rigour for the ‘ripping off The Fast and the Furious’ genre. The city that you drive in is fairly sizable, actually, and not so much living and breathing than mostly asleep, robotic drivers aside. Occasionally some Police cars will wake up, and chase you around the city until you evade them, then have to cool down. Hiding places are scattered around for such purposes. The more you see of the city, the better it looks, with a neat variety of building fronts and street furniture (which can be blissfully knocked over with ease). The music isn’t bad- any use of Goldfrapp is fine with us.

Some chases are frantic with the Wiimote. Reversing and correcting are the most tricky manoeuvres to pull off, the latter being more important as being unable to correct your direction as successfully as you can with a standard controller is frustrating. Gamestyle has suffered several ‘Austin Powers’ moments. Drift races are tricky unless you find a pivot for the Wiimote to be able to correct itself sufficiently for you to burn scorching drifts.

Aside from the ‘career’ mode- late night racing is no real career, mind, but there’s a storyline of sorts- there is a challenge mode whereby you get a specific car, track and challenge. However, playing with a different car is almost like playing the game for the first time- the Dodge Charger is especially heinous to control. Completion of challenges unlocks extras for further pimpage of your ride.

Customisation of your ride is done easily enough, with lashings of paint jobs, rim jobs, vinyls and hubs to be gained for a few bucks. The body can be lowered which is great for credit wit’ yo homeboys, but useless on the speed bumps and potholes on the roads near Gamestyle Towers.

At times, Need for Speed Carbon works wonderfully, and at others, its immensely frustrating. Gamestyle was especially cheesed off when our thumb passed over the off button on the Wiimote, cutting short our Boss Race. We also have issues with having to switch the Wiimotes D-pad in the menu screens, but this isn’t very interesting. It is possible that another game will use the Wiimote more consistently in a racer.

So this has novelty value now, never meets the heights of Burnout, though any game that enables you to drive along pushing a police car on it’s side, before it flips over and continues driving deserves some kind of consideration. Gamestyle has toiled over the decision for the score: when it’s frustrating, it’s frustrating, when it’s good, it’s good, so for the moment it gets:

Rating: 7 / 10

Words by Chris Faires