Need for Speed: Carbon review

Carbon is all around us, it is the basis for all life on Earth, it makes up the hardest substance known to man as well as one of the softest, it is used in medicines and fuels. What does this have to do with the latest game in Electronic Arts Need for Speed series?

Absolutely nothing, the carbon of the games title has nothing to do with the element of the same name, but instead is the name of the game's opening, and closing, location, Carbon Canyon. On your way back from Most Wanted's Rockport City you are ambushed on the approach to Palmont City (last seen in NFS Underground 2) in Carbon Canyon.

Old dog, new tricks

The game's career mode follows a story, as before, but this time round you aren't just building up your reputation and taking down rivals. This time you have to form your own crew and take over the city by winning races to claim territory. The city is divided up in to four regions, with each region split into about half a dozen districts. Each district has a few race events in it and winning two out of three of these events gives you control of the district.

Once all you've laid claim to every district in the region you face off against the boss of the gang who had control of the region before you. These boss races are split into two parts, first off you have to beat them in a straight race of a couple of laps round a circuit to prove your worth before you get to face him in one of the new canyon races. In these you take turns chasing each other down a windy mountainside road, first you chase them and score points by getting as close as possible to them, the closer you get, the more points you score. Then they have to chase you, and they take points off your score the same way you earned them. If you can reach the end of the track before your points hit zero then you win.

Taken under your wing

After defeating a boss you will be approached by a member of their gang who will reveal the next section of the story before offering their services to you. You then have the option of signing them up to your crew. Your crew can have up to four members, including yourself, and whilst the other three members will have their talents to help you maintain your garage, only one of them can be your wingman. Wingmen come in three categories, blockers, who can be called on to block off your opposition.

Then there are scouts, who will find shortcuts for you to give you the upper hand that way. Finally there are drafters who, when called upon, will get in front of you and let you ride their slipstream, giving both of you a speed boost without having to waste precious nitrous. Wingmen aren't available to you in every race type, but when they are they come in handy, especially in some of the later races when you have to face all the bosses as a team in new pimped out rides.

One step forward, two steps back

Whilst the series has moved forward from the last instalment, with new race types, new careers structure and a crew to back you up, it brings back elements from the Underground games in the series, and not just in terms of setting. Drift mode is back, God knows why though, after drag racing it was the worst game type from the Underground games.

Many of these have been moved from the contained tracks they were in before to the canyon routes, which just makes them more annoying as now not only will you lose the points you've built up when you hit the sides, you also run the risk of falling over the edge. I suppose some people must have enjoyed it before for it to be making a return, but really it would have been better off all round if they hadn't brought it back. Another thing that's reminiscent of the Underground games is the lack of variety in the tracks, there's lots of different races across the city but a lot of them look very similar to each other.

Lacking staying power

To make matters worse, these rather uniform races are often too short and too easy. If you constantly upgrade or trade up your cars you won't find much of a challenge till you get to the later stages of the game. If you really hammer career mode it can easily be finished in a couple of days, there is a challenge mode in single player too, but due to lack of story it isn't very compelling.

Then we come to the issue of multiplayer, which to be quite frank is an utter disgrace, all you get is two player split screen mode, there are no system link or Xbox Live modes (on original Xbox, we'll come to the Xbox 360/PC version later), which in this day and age is unforgivable. Everything is very well presented though, with a reasonable soundtrack, great sound effects, nice graphics and some good acting in the cut scenes, which use Most Wanted's technique of using live actors on a computer generated background. But no matter how good this looked, it wouldn't disguise the games obvious shortcomings.

Style over substance

At the end of the day what you get here is a good looking racing game, but once you get to grips with it and see through its polished exterior, you'll find a game that is lacking in many areas. The gameplay itself seems quite dated, having changed little over its various incarnations.

The short career mode and appalling lack of multiplayer options means there's not much here in the longevity stakes either. Really if you're looking for a racing game for your Xbox you can do a lot better than buying Need for Speed Carbon, Project Gotham Racing 2 and any of the Burnout games would be better buys than this. If you've already got those though, and are desperate for something new to fill your racing needs then it's worth a rental.

Style over substance

At the end of the day what you get here is a good looking racing game, but once you get to grips with it and see through its polished exterior, you'll find a game that is lacking in many areas. The gameplay itself seems quite dated, having changed little over its various incarnations.

The short career mode and appalling lack of multiplayer options means there's not much here in the longevity stakes either. Really if you're looking for a racing game for your Xbox you can do a lot better than buying Need for Speed Carbon, Project Gotham Racing 2 and any of the Burnout games would be better buys than this. If you've already got those though, and are desperate for something new to fill your racing needs then it's worth a rental.

Any better on 360 or PC? Boomtown Ed. Harry writes...

I agree with everything David has said about the Xbox version, it's poor. But as Microsoft has abandoned the format we can hardly blame third party developers for not putting any effort in. So we'd expect the Xbox 360 and PC versions to be rather different, offering more of a challenge and better gameplay experience. Wouldn't we?

Of course we have more graphical fidelity thanks to PC resolutions and the similar high definition formats from Xbox 360. Sure, some aspects of the game are rather attractive. The ability to alter your car bodywork in a similar manner to EA's GameFace technology is innovative and surprisingly good fun.

But this can't hide the fact that this is an extremely lazy and cynical release from Electronic Arts. Last year's Most Wanted was a welcome if flawed attempt to move the NFS franchise back to its roots, with daylight racing and a gameplay model that wasn't entirely based on illegal street racing and the modding scene. The game had its problems, mainly the poor frame-rate, but long-term fans of Need for Speed breathed a sigh of relief that the series was back on track.

Underground 3

This has all been thrown away again as what we have here is really just Need for Speed Underground 3. Talk to many racing game developers and they'll tell you how setting a game at night can hide a multitude of graphical sins. The NFS team couldn't get Most Wanted running well with the sun shining, so one imagines that they've scampered back into the shadows and left us with a poorer offering than last year's game.

The inconsistency in EA's releases is maddening. One only has to look at the massive investment the company made in FIFA 07 on Xbox 360 and its wonderful Xbox Live play to know this is a publisher that can step up to the plate when needs be. But here this is a lazy effort. Xbox Live play is poorly implemented and those seeking online racing are better off trying the PC version.

It'll sell like hotcakes on all formats but really doesn't deserve to. However if this brand of racing action takes your fancy then turn your eyes towards the PC version. It offers a very similar experience to the Xbox 360 version but is a darn sight cheaper.