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Xbox 360 | Driving | Need for Speed Carbon

Publisher: EA Games
Developer: EA Canada
Release Date: 11/01/2006
Genre: Driving
Number of Players:
ESRB Rating: Everyone 10 and Older
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83 screen shots

GRAPHICS: 4.50
SOUND: 4.00
CONTROL: 4.50
FUN FACTOR 4.75
AVG USER SCORE 4.3
AVG CRITIC SCORE 4.8

Winner of the GamePro Editor's Choice Award

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Review: Need for Speed Carbon

Review by Ouroboros | 10/31/2006 | 14:54:02 PM PST

Real-life driving can be so filled with aggravation and boredom, and who hasn't had some primitive part itch with the desire to lead police on a high-speed chase? Screw commuting, let's cause some trouble!

Carbon effectively combines the night-racing thrills of Underground 2 with the manic police encounters of Most Wanted, keeping all the best parts of each, and ditching chaff like magazine covers, drag races, pointless stereo equipment, and bounty requirements. Cross is back on your tale after your death-defying getaway from Rockport, but he's left the dress blues behind: this time, he's out solely for the bounty that rests on your head.

On the Run Again

PROTIP: If you go for the tuner ride, you should be able to beat the first batch of territories without even upgrading.

After a car-destroying encounter with your nemesis, you'll pick a new ride, and get a proper introduction to the scintillating next-generation effects on display. Every inch of the large city's five rival-infested boroughs is filled with exaggerated colored lighting, minor structures like bus stops and construction sites to plow through, and tons of little side-street shortcuts.

The motion blur that streaks everything across the screen is heavy-handed, sure, but coupled with some camera-shake effects it certainly imparts a wonderful sense of velocity, and a cool "photo mode" lets you capture memorable moments and post them to an official website. In the spirit of Most Wanted, there's also a smorgasbord of "pursuit breaker" accidents waiting to happen and nooks to hide in. We still miss the collectible pickups that hid in Underground 2's back alleys, but one can't have everything.

Local Customs

PROTIP: Don't be afraid to play bumper cars: the worst you'll do is scratch the paint.

Cars are now divided into three groups: muscle cars that accelerate like rockets, exotics that boast the highest top speeds, and tuner rides that can out-corner anything on wheels. The handling of the cars in each group feels tweaked to fall in line with this template, but it's a great way to allow every type of gear-head to race in his or her own way without a lot of fuss. As you'd expect by now, winning races progressively unlocks better equipment to pop in your whip, from engines and transmissions to new body kits and spoilers.

You're free to choose from the usual lineup of side skirts, bumpers, vinyls, paint jobs, and the like, but the coolest new visual customization feature is AutoSculpt, which lets you start with an outline template of metal cuts, and then raise, lower, shrink, or grow them to your own personal taste. Whether you want an understated speed demon, or a ludicrous spoiler that would get you laughed out of even the Bay Area, chances are good you can create it, and the seams rarely show. There's still room for more freedom, and the slapped-on paint scrapes and cracked glass textures that pass for a damage model are a bit lame, but Carbon gives you more meaningful options than ever before.