Need for Speed Carbon

Nice, strong cars, beautiful girls and life full of adrenalin.

So, it’s your life, your car and a nice opportunity to give all your enemies hot. A new version of Need for Speed, called Carbon, is ready to give it to you. Actually, it’s a new product of EA company that is much alike to its previous version. The same night city, the same street racing (only if it is possible to say so about this way of life).  In Carbon you have your own life and your own history (actually it is the history of the racer, whom all the NFS-fans helped to return his car in the Most Wanted). You’re back to the Palmont city after some dim events but no one is happy to see you again. The thing is that, you’ve lost a bag with a large sum of money and, of course, you’re to return it. Your friend Darius is ready to help so he gives you a car to race for some money.

Things are changed now in town. It is devided into some territories. The city is like a battleground – crews fight for the territories. It’s really hard to survive. But you also have your own crew. Crew members can be divided into three groups: blockers, drafters and scouts. Blockers are to prevent your enemies from running you over so that you have a nice opportunity to gather speed and leave them all behind. Scouts show you all the shortcuts on your way. It’s quite convenient, but lack of reaction usually runs to the collision. In my point of view, the most useless member of your crew is a drafter. He is supposed to slipstream behind other racers, giving you some extra speed from the reduced drag, and from there you can pull aside and slingshot your way past them. You can form your crew yourself: there are three members you should choose, all the others must be fired. By the way, each new member of your team sheds the light on the events of that damned night.

Sometimes it turns out, that a member of your crew drives faster and defter so he wins the race. It’s Ok, because the victory of your crew means your victory. You’re allowed to use only one member to help you during the race. You can discharge his obligations if you want, just to let him finish first. For each type of races it’s always better to use its type of the crew-member.

Actually, there are several types of races: sprints, speedtraps, drifts, checkpoints, circuit, race wars, duels and boss races. Most of them you perfectly know from the previous versions. You’d better use the help of the blocker, drafter or scout during sprints, speedtraps and circuits; scout and drafter during checkpoints. But drifts, race wars, boss races and duels run without any support from the crew.

Some of the events end in a police chasing. You are to escape from the police and the more problems you give them, the hotter the chasing is. You can destroy some filling stations, towers and so on to hamper the police. First, you schould evade from the chasing and then wait a bit in a safe place before the turmoil calms down. If you do your crew an ill, you’ll be given a marker – three markers lead to seizure of your car. Besides, you’re to pay some money just to compensate the property damage. If you don’t have enough money, you will have to start your career again.

The whole city is divided into some great parts or territories. Each territory consists of several zones. Each zone includes 3 races, if you win 2 of them, the zone is considered to be under control of your crew. When you are about to fight for the territory you’re to go through race wars, where the strongest racers fight for their leadership. To completely occupy the territory you’re to throw its leader down. Boss races are not really difficult, but passing through the duels will cost you a lot of nerves. First you are to chase your opponent, driving as close as it possible, then you exchange the roles. The road of the canyon is rather meandering, so it’s quite easy to fall down from the canyon. If you win, you can upgrade your car or even get the car of your opponent and, of course, you open a new territory. But other crews can’t let you live long and happily – they try to recover their ownerships and fight for some new territories. In such case you get a message, that the territory is under attack. The only way to prevent them from doing it is racing. The winner gets money and the zone.

By the way, all the cars are divided into three groups: tuners (Mazda RX-8, Mitsubishi Eclipse, Reno Clio, Volkswagen Golf), muscles (Ford Mustang, Chrysler 300C, Chevrolet Camaro SS) and exotics (Alfa Romeo Brera, Mercedes-Benz). So, you can choose a car to your taste. You can buy them, tune them and, crush them and, of course, sell them. The more events are successfully completed, the more cars you can try. Cars differ like tastes: some of them are easy to control, some of them provide great acceleration.

Customization includes performance, autosculpt, aftermarket and visuals. You can, as usual, change and upgrade both outside appearance of your car and all the stuffing, including engine, transmission, suspension, nitrous, tires, brakes and turbo. Each event is supposed to give you a sum of money and open a new device. It will never do to pass through the game, using the only car. To use the newest devices you’re to buy a modern one.

A nice view of the night city seems to be taken completely from the previous version. Actually, the city looks like an extinct one. A pair of cars, minivans of the News Channel 22, a plane and a lot of police cars. The city isn’t real, different districts have too much in common. There are a lot of different buildings and parks, adverses and neon signs but it resembles an extinct city from the chiller. Steven Spielberg is jealous.

The music is quite ok, anyway, it could be nice to listen to it while driving the car somewhere far and fast. I believe, fans of Fast and Furious should be pleased.

There are a lot of different and contradictory opinions of the game. I must say, it’ll be rather interesting for those, who play NFS for the first time in their lives. The game is rather dynamic and ...customary. This version (by the way, it’s the tenth anniversary version of Need for Speed) resembles much the previous one. We have a kind of a plot, though, it’s quite blurred, our own crew and some new cars and types of races.

A lot of people got much money for the scenery, but their work seems to be rather poor. It looks like they don’t have any good ideas any more. One more game with such a gray city and such a light traffic and the game will loose its fans. The second thing is that the game is rather short. Were EA obliged to produce a new version of the game as soon as it was possible? Well, who knows.

In the end I can say, that Electronic Arts knew their better times. But if you’re fond of races, so, just try it!

In your real life drive safe, obey the laws of the road and always wear your seat belt.