Need for Speed: Carbon Review


GAME INFO publisher: EA developer: EA genre: Racing MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS PIV 1700, 512MB RAM, 5.3GB HDD, 64MB video card	ESRB rating: E homepage: www.ea.com/nfs/carbon/us/index.jsp release date: Nov 01, 06 (released)

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EA was relentless in trying to force me to play in multiplayer (this game keeps sending information to the EA master server, even though it never asked for my permission), so I guess jumping online for a couple of matches with your buddies does sound like a fun pastime. (Un)fortunately for EA, the new Fight Night is taking up all my free multiplayer time (in between WoW raids that is).

They do accelerate like space ships a bit.

Aircraft carrier... or not?

In regards to the graphics and sound, Need for Speed: Carbon continues a somewhat questionable tradition of looking too damn dark and monotonous after a while. The nighttime urban settings are cool at first, but get boring really fast. I understand that all the hip kids like to street race at night (once they've done their homework and brushed their teeth), but while the dynamic car reflections look insanely good, the surroundings (although detailed) get very old, very fast.

The sound effects are top-notch, but the soundtrack was a little underwhelming (and surprising in a way). The designers have gone for more subdued and almost cinematic tracks, which are atypical for the series. I'm not sure that's helping my adrenaline levels any. It's less intrusive, but it's also not Need for Speed, if you know what I mean.

Lastly, performance-wise, this game was quite harsh on my hardware at max visual settings. My home Core Duo set up (with a 7900 GTX) had no problems with it, but I suspect mid range rigs won't fare as well (my slightly less powerful office rig would drop to around 20 FPS at times).

EA tries to do a lot with NFS: Carbon, but that still doesn't help me shake the feeling that the accelerated pace of NFS releases is in many ways pointless and counter-productive. It dilutes the overall impression of the franchise, rather than make it more appealing to the fans. Now if I had a penny for every time I said this exact same thing about an EA franchise, I'd probably have a lot of pennies by now.

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25 post(s)

Reader Comments

	mwmorph	[mail] Nov 07 2006, 10:51 am EST
	Reply Does the game still use the rubberband ai like in NFS:Most wanted? It's so annyong that when I find a shortcut and driving perfectly that puts me 15seconds ahead of the competition, the competition can catch up still by driving 350mph.
	Zimbo: I'm not totally sure, but I don't think there's any rubberba...

	MrBored	[mail] Nov 07 2006, 11:10 am EST
	Reply You guys are churning out the reviews faster than EA releases Sims expansions, but in a good way of course.

	DarkKnight	[mail] Nov 07 2006, 11:14 am EST
	Reply As much as i want to excited about NFS:C I just can't as far as i'm concerned the game has lost its appeal, My favourite NFS was and always will be Hot pursuit, sure NFS:MW was good but i hated the cooldown period

	ukjadoon	[mail] Nov 07 2006, 11:25 am EST
	Reply The last good nfs games were high stakes, porsche and most wanted. The rest sucked big time. I would rather play Flatout 2, thats more fun than this crap, fully destructable cars and tons of wicked racing. I also miss the Carmageddon games, part 3 sucked though, but part 2 is a classic and I still play it sometimes. I wonder what is SCi doing with part 4 and when is it going to come out finally! =(
	blitsie: ahh,nfs porche. For me,it is the best in the series

	Sword Fight	[mail] Nov 07 2006, 12:28 pm EST
	Reply NFS is dead.

	Little Beaver	[mail] Nov 07 2006, 12:29 pm EST
	Reply Customizing rims is more detailed than Spore.

	PHAT_ASS	[mail] Nov 07 2006, 01:55 pm EST
	Reply performance wise, does the game run equal to Most Wanted? i'm a bit scared for my graphic card :\
	Sleepy_Foot_Rulz: despite EA's claims, the motion blur effect does not work on...

	l(rAzYIvAn	[mail] Nov 07 2006, 02:24 pm EST
	Reply OMG IM GONNA BUY IT NOW!!!!!!! j/k thnx

	daver18qc	[mail] Nov 07 2006, 02:53 pm EST
	Reply Carbon runs better than MW on my computer with equal settings
	PHAT_ASS: aight thx.... its a bit like UG2 i guess....they optimissed ...

	Roboman	[mail] Nov 07 2006, 02:56 pm EST
	Reply umm, i thought Jessica Simpsons boobs were real?
	2lions: nope. McSwifty: does she know??? skribb: Is tuna the same as chicken?

	Roboman	[mail] Nov 07 2006, 02:59 pm EST
	Reply woops, double post.

	Zilor	[mail] Nov 07 2006, 08:19 pm EST
	Reply I played through and beat it with Muscle cars, holy shit, made it a lot more difficult. Played with my cousins Tuners and it was so easy I couldn't believe it. Anyhow, the Scout is cool, and the most usful of the bunch, the blockers i never had a greta deal of use for, and the drafters were rarely usful as it was a very rare occurence for the road to be really straight enough to get much of a boost and if you followed there assi nto a turn they were prone to slowing down more than you wanted to and you went into there ass.

	nickfx2	[mail] Nov 07 2006, 08:37 pm EST
	Reply when will they fuckin' make hot pursuit 3?

	craigww_22	[mail] Nov 07 2006, 11:59 pm EST
	Reply You know when you mix a bunch of different soft drinks together - coke, tango, whatever, and the mixture looks and tastes like brown? That's what this game is like. They somehow managed to stuff more crap into it and dumb it down even more than Underground 2, what with the stupid "acceleration/top speed" sliders and the idiotic safe-for-kiddies drift physics that actually require you to turn in during a drift! I've been playing with the Mazda RX-8 and the gay "japanese" guy's RX-7, and they both seem to oversteer a lot less than in Underground 2. What's more, changing their tuning settings to full drift/oversteer actually seems to make them MORE stable than full grip/understeer. Not that the difference is particularly noticable though. Perhaps that's how they "improved" the AI in this one - lessen the effect of customization and use static AI. Oh, and I hate the city layout. too many winding streets and not enough intersections. Oh well, at least you don't get that "HEY HOMES! GOT SOME WICKED RACIN' GOIN' DOWN! CATCH YA LATER DAWG!" bullshit over the radio every 5 minutes. Small mercies... Wow, that's a lot of text.

	Papa	[mail] Nov 08 2006, 01:20 am EST
	Reply I love this game, every graphic setting on max runs so nice on my 7950GX2 :D
	Vader: Bastard! craigww_22: Wasting all that graphics power on this pile of pish...

	pavarotti	[mail] Nov 08 2006, 02:04 am EST
	Reply need for speed is worse then FIFA
	McSwifty: how many soccer games does it take to make it fun? i can't s... pavarotti: yeah , i agree with you , but nfs is worser :)

	Vodoo	[mail] Nov 08 2006, 06:04 am EST
	Reply bought it, saw it, burned it (and that aint tech talk). waste of $. PS. max details and it still looked like crap.

	PHAT_ASS	[mail] Nov 09 2006, 04:52 pm EST
	Reply it manages to look worse than most wanted and underground 2...wtf

	Hot_Nissan_r31	[mail] Nov 10 2006, 01:26 am EST
	Reply Gidday all, Well i got my copy of Need For Speed Carbon on the 09/11/06 with much waiting as i have most of the NFS games from Electronic Arts and have spent some 6hrs playing the game. I own some 12 different games form EA and I thought Most Wanted was exellent but NFS:C is much better than it predesessor. One of the things that was said in its features was that Carbon was not so "FULLON" with the cops like M/W was, well i can say from experience thats not the case at all. I had a cop chase lasting 40+ mins after beating the 2nd Boss and all i had was a very mildly worked RX8 Mazda and got so frustrated not being able to get away from tons of cops chasing me at 4 heat level that i hit the RESET button on my system to end it. My young son loves all the NFS Underground,Underground 2, Most Wanted, and now Carbon the rest he didn't like so much and even he said if EA was to make Underground,Underground2,M/W, and Carbon into one game it would be a really kickass racing game. After all we all play games for one reason don't we ? Who said Jessica Simpson was nice looking anyway? I have seen her with out makeup and what a horror.

	bronsonite	[mail] Nov 10 2006, 05:54 am EST
	Reply has anyone else finished this yet? it's pathetically short..

	blitsie	[mail] Nov 14 2006, 05:05 am EST
	Reply only got it on mobile but will try getting it on pc nfs is going on for quite some time.How many games of nfs are there?

	logantaft	[mail] May 02 2007, 12:38 am EDT
	Reply I love Need for Speed Games. All of them are cool. But, compared to other Need for Speed games, its story is kinda short. All in all, it is a good game. Maybe above satisfactory level, but below excellent. In fact, this game inspired me to modify my own ride, a 350Z. I usually buy parts online. I am trying to imitate the 350Z of DK of Tokyo D3ift. If I got a skyline, I'll imitate Paul Walker's skyline in 2 fast 2 furious. By the, this is the website where I bought most of parts for my Z. I got my money's worth. In the mean time, I'll race with Z Need for Speed style. Burn Rubber. (http://www.shopnisparts.com/nissan-pcv-valve/) (http://www.shopnisparts.com/nissan-oxygen-sensor/)

	TruthTeller	[mail] Sep 17 2007, 01:59 am EDT
	Reply Here we go again... 78 points?! Looks like someone forgot dot between digits. EA dudes doesn't seem to get it, well they sure get it when it comes to infinite cheating by computer and oh, making interface and usage of the game the best crap I've ever tasted, YAM. So the story goes as it has been always with EA games, you try, computer cheats, you try more, computer cheats more, you play so good, that you've never played before and computer cheats and drops you down from the clouds. So more inbound missile-cars (though not as many are driving in the middle of the lanes or parked there as in Most Wanted), but still they have a nice time trying to hit you, especially when you are winning the race clearly (never understood that logic by EA...). Also the rubber-band technique is still going strong, why bother drive fast, when computer cars catch you anyway, sounds like a honest race, yeah right... About police techniques then.... if someone knows where did they get those transporter devices to their cars, please tell me, also I'd like to know why they always turn to right direction from the corners, when they didn't even see you turning there... well I guess that sophisticated tech of theirs and of course mind reading is basic training. Sounds like little things, yeah maybe, but when you lose some 20 cops from your tail and next notice that 5 cars are somehow beside you, you get to wonder isn't there any limit to these cheats. Actually if you cheated on this game, it would be more even then. Physics of the cars are also very lame, for example when drifting your car is sliding, right? but when you push gas pedal car gets more speed, but not to the direction you're facing, but to either side, WHAT?!? So the wheels turn like 90 degrees now?!? Car is moving sideways? That's just great EA guys, you really deserve reward for that :) What it comes to cars, great that there is so many, so go ahead grab a ... let's say RX-8 (my favorite btw) - but oh! what happens? You have to change to another car, since you can't use only it and beat the game. Why? Ask EA. You find a nice car which suits you and EA denies it - yeah that's how it goes practically. EA also invented a nice new way to put for example decals to your cars, nice. Someone should have told them that people want at least some quality, not some pixel-crap. Straight stripe lines aren't even straight lool. Well, could live with that, but the cheating of the program is way over the line. If you're looking for a nice racer go for it (and be frustrated), if you're looking for a nice fair racer, forget EA games. As I said they doesn't seem to see the difference between making game hard and making game cheating as much as possible..... or perhaps they do..... Anyway, there are much more of these kind of negatives in the game, but I think I stop now..... write a book or sum..... ;) points 20/100

	TruthTeller	[mail] Sep 17 2007, 06:10 pm EDT
	Reply You can beat the game by NOT bying any performance parts, just pick a tier 2 ride and drive it, i recommend RX-7 - You don't need to spend your money so much then, and btw , looks like this whole site is crap, because my last comment was deleted, loosers as EA I say. That's what you get, when telling the truth, so long fellas...

	TruthTeller	[mail] Sep 17 2007, 06:14 pm EDT
	Reply hmmm.... to be more precise, looks like I just blamed 'this' site lol, nope, that's not the case, just the typing... after writing book I need to take sum english typing lessons....

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