Need for Speed: Carbon

Gameplay

The gameplay is similar to Need for Speed: Most Wanted and Underground 2, but based upon rival street racing crews instead of individuals. Players run a crew and can hire specific street racers to be in their crew and the active friendly racer is known as a wingman. Each employable street racer has two skills, a racing skill (scout, blocker, and drafter) and a non-race skill (fixer, mechanic, and fabricator). Each skill has different properties from finding hidden alleys/back streets (shortcuts) to reducing police attention. Cars driven by the wingmen are also different; blockers drive muscles, drafters drive exotics and scouts drive tuners (although the first two unlockable wingmen (Neville and Sal) drive cars according to the player's chosen car class at the start of the game). Car classes are Tuners, Muscles, and Exotics, and are associated with their own borough and Boss (Tuners/Downtown/Kenji, Exotics/Fortuna/Wolf, and Muscle/Kempton/Angie).

Players must choose a class when starting Career Mode, which will be permanent throughout the career. Each choice starts in a different district, with corresponding initial car choices and unlocks as the game progresses (there is a test drive option at the beginning). Players may ultimately choose from any class of car, and can also unlock cars that are reserved for Quick Races as they earn Reward Cards.

In Career Mode, races cannot be redone for the same purse; if won, the purse is only $500. It is necessary for players to plan carefully which cars they will buy and upgrade, to avoid running out of money. There are phone calls, texts and emails to go along with the storyline. Winning races causes new races to show up on the map. All gameplay takes place at night. As in Most Wanted the player can use Nitrous and Speedbreaker, which accumulate simply from driving, not from specific skill use to earn them.

Gameplay control methods vary from console to console. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 control steering through the control pad, while acceleration, braking and other controls can be configured and mapped to the different buttons on the controllers. The Driving Force GT and G27 racing wheels can be used, and this is the first Need For Speed title to implement force-feedback and the 900 degree turning radius. On Windows, joysticks and wheel controllers are supported, as well as those that support force feedback. The Wii lacks online play, but fully supports the use of the Wii Remote.

NFS Carbon was the first NFS game to feature online exclusive game modes. Players can upload in-game screenshots to the Need for Speed website, complete with stats and modifications. The Pursuit Knockout and Pursuit Tag game modes are modes that allow the player to play as either a racer or a cop. Pursuit Knockout is essentially a lap knockout with a twist. The racers that are knocked out of the race come back as cops and it’s their job to try to stop the other racers from finishing the race through any means necessary. The player that finishes the race wins. Pursuit Tag begins with one player as a racer and the rest of the players as cops. It is the cops' job to arrest the racer. The cop that makes the arrest then turns into a racer and has to try to avoid the cops. The player who spends the most time as a racer wins.

Race modes

Unlike Need for Speed: Most Wanted and Underground, Carbon has no drag racing. However, Carbon features the return of drift racing, a mode that had been included in two previous installments Need for Speed: Underground and Underground 2, but omitted from Carbon's predecessor, Most Wanted. Other familiar race forms return, such as Sprint, Circuit, and "Tollbooth" (renamed "Checkpoint"). There are no Street X or Knockout races, and winning Outruns (renamed "Rival Crew Challenges") is not necessary to complete the game as it was in Underground 2.

Most of Carbon's focus lies through various Canyon Events, based on Japanese Touge races. There are four types of Canyon Events: Canyon Duel, Canyon Sprint, Canyon Checkpoint and Canyon Drift. Canyon Duels have two stages: In the first stage, the player chases the rival and accumulates points faster the closer they stick to the opponent. In the second stage, the roles are reversed and the player's points decline faster the closer the opponent is. If anyone falls behind or is overtaken and passed, without regaining the distance, after ten seconds they lose. Players can also lose by going off the cliff edge. Some races have destructible, lit-up guardrails players must be careful not to crash through, and some have solid walls. The Canyon Drift and Canyon Duel are similar to the 2006 film The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift.

In Career mode, players have to race tracks and win to conquer territories, and then face off against bosses to conquer the first three boroughs. To challenge Darius (Boss of the fourth borough) and win the game, players must defeat the three Bosses in two final races and defeat Darius in a Circuit race and a Canyon Duel. Throughout the game, as the player accumulates territories, the minor crews (Black Hearts and Kings, who drive exotics, Inferno and Los Colibres, who drive muscles, and Rotor 4 and Scorpios, who drive tuners), might attack the player's owned races/territories. The player can then either accept the challenge, and keep the race if they win it, or decline, in which case, the minor crew will automatically retake the race, and the territory if too many races are lost.

Carbon also features Quick Races modes (including 2 player) and Reward Cards, in which card pieces are won by achievements in and out of Career Mode. Once a card is fully won, new cars, parts, or other features are unlocked. The Challenge Series is a set of 36 events (12 categories with 3 difficulty levels). Finishing a Challenge category also unlocks features.

Pursuits

As with Most Wanted, cops are everywhere in Carbon. Police chases can break out at any time, including when in Free Roam mode, when racing, or just after a race is completed. The background music and most of the radio dialogue is the same as in Most Wanted. Canyon Races and Checkpoint Races have no risk of police pursuit. As with Most Wanted, there are 5 conditions/heat levels and players should be careful to avoid getting pursued by state or federal authorities. The Collector's Edition features three additional heat levels.

Although the pursuit system is similar to Most Wanted, this feature has been reprogrammed in Carbon to ensure that police are not too dominant in arrest tactics in high pursuit levels. Unlike in Most Wanted, it is possible to evade the police after running over a spike strip by using nitrous. At the same time, some of the police tactics (such as the spike strips) are used in ways that make pursuits much harder to escape, and the police cars are much harder to disable. Using Pursuit Breakers no longer guarantees the blockage/destruction of every pursuing vehicle. However, police can be seen patrolling the map and won't engage in a pursuit—unless the players have a warrant (evaded a previous pursuit) or committed an offence in sight of the police.

Customization features

Need for Speed: Carbon features a new car customization option called "Autosculpt", enabling players to utilize aftermarket car parts and shape/mold the parts to their liking. Players can also have multiple customized vinyls as well, which can be moved, resized, or skewed, which offers unlimited design possibilities.

Performance tuning has been redone so that players, as upgrades are purchased, can tune the car for a number of different properties, such as higher top speed or higher acceleration. Unlike Most Wanted, all of Carbon's performance tuning/enhancing and car customizing is done inside the Safe House. A new "optimize" feature has been added for players who just want the best options without spending too much time tuning and configuring.

Players can choose from many licensed cars divided into three classes as follows: Tuners, Muscles, and Exotics. Each car has its own characteristic ranging from easy cornering to well-balanced road performance. For example, Tuners are good in handling and tight corners, Exotics can rev up to very high speeds, and Muscles can accelerate fast in a short amount of time. In Career Mode, players must choose a class at the beginning, but this does not limit their later car purchases.

Own the City

For portables, the Own the City version has many differences. There are new game modes, like Escape where the player must escape from a rival crew's territory, Delivery where the players and their crew have to deliver a package to a designated area in first place to win, and Crew Takedown, where players have to eliminate a set number of rival racers to win. Crew management allows hiring of up to 5 wingmen per crew, with 2 active for racing. Players can use the crews for all races except for Lap Knockout, Escape and Crew Takedown modes. The city is also divided into many areas, some together into a district owned by one crew, with a total of 6 districts and 13 areas. Every area conquered gives new unlocks and new wingmen. Wingmen also have three different classes; a brawler that takes down racers, a drafter that drafts racers to give speed boosts, and assassins that deliver spike strips the player needs to avoid that can blow a car's tires, aimed for enemy cars. "Own the City" also allows free roaming with crates scattered throughout the whole city that when broken, give special unlocks ranging from cash to game art. Police chases are only available in free roam, and are not available in races.

Setting

The game is set in the fictional city of Palmont. There are three major canyons in Palmont: East, West, and Carbon Canyon. The southwestern border of the city features a sea coast. The city also includes several rivers and a lake near Carbon Canyon. It resembles very much to its predecessor Need For Speed: Most Wanted. Palmont is divided into four boroughs at the beginning of the game: Kempton (southeast industrial area), Downtown (east metropolitan area), Fortuna (west residential area) and Silverton (north casino & resort area) ; one for each of the major crews. A highway system extending through the middle of the city is the main connection between the boroughs. All boroughs except Silverton are initially accessible to the player; access to Silverton is unlocked only after beating the crews in the other three boroughs. There is an additional area named San Juan, but similar to the canyons, it's not connected to the boroughs of Palmont. Palmont is also featured in the massively multiplayer online racing game Need for Speed: World, along with Rockport of Need for Speed: Most Wanted.

Need for Speed: Carbon

After escaping from the authorities in Rockport, the player drives in a 2002 BMW M3 GTR on a canyon route to Palmont City. A flashback of what seems to be a race against Kenji, Angie, and Wolf comes to the player's mind. A police incident at the end of the race forces the player to make a hasty escape from Palmont. In the present day, the player is nearing the city limits of Palmont, when is rammed from behind by a driver in a 2006 Chevrolet Corvette Z06. The driver turns out to be former Rockport Police Sergeant Cross (played by Dean McKenzie), now a bounty hunter. After a high-speed chase down the canyon, they both run into a construction zone, where Cross then corners the player who has just totaled their car. Shortly before Cross can arrest the player, Darius (played by Tahmoh Penikett) and his crew arrive. Darius pays off Cross, and the player meets up with Nikki (played by Emmanuelle Vaugier), a former girlfriend, who is apparently outraged about the player's return.

Darius tells the player to regain control of the different territories in Palmont. Winning races one by one, the player acquires territories and ultimately districts from the major crews, before beating the bosses of those crews. The 3 major bosses are:

There are various other smaller crews, such as Rotor 4 (who use Mazdas with rotary engines), Black Hearts, and Los Colibres (The Hummingbirds). After beating each crew boss, the player meets up with a former member of that boss's crew: Yumi (Bushido; played by Melody Miyuki Ishikawa), Samson (21st Street) and Colin (T.F.K.), who want to join the player's crew and reveal their observations regarding the night the player took off from Palmont.

After gaining control of all three districts, Darius asks the player to meet up with him. He reveals that he was just using the player all along to get more territory, and that he has brought Cross along to arrest the player. Darius leaves the player at the mercy of Cross, but the player is saved by the arrival of Nikki, who tells him that she now realizes everything that happened months ago after piecing together her view of the night and the viewpoints of the other racers. When Darius finds out that Nikki is working with the player, he hires the three previous bosses (Kenji, Angie, and Wolf) into his new crew, Stacked Deck. The player then attempts to conquer Silverton, and oust Darius and his Stacked Deck crew, to exact revenge for Darius' actions.

The player begins to win races against the Stacked Deck, and gets his chance to beat Darius for control of Palmont and to accord justice. After finally defeating Darius, Darius surrenders his Audi Le Mans Quattro to the player. Before he leaves, Darius tells the player to "...enjoy it while it lasts, because there's always someone out there who's a little faster than you are, and sooner or later they're going to catch up...".

Need for Speed: Carbon – Own the City

The player flashbacks to a race where in he, his brother Mick and a couple of other racers are racing to decide who owns the city. But a terrible car crash ruins the competition, leaving the player in the hospital with amnesia and Mick dead. The city is also divided back into different crew territories. Upon waking up, the player is greeted by Mick's girlfriend, Sara and Carter, Mick's wingman, as they visit Mick and help the player return his memories.

The player is set to find out who killed Mick, and goes on different races to beat different crews, regain territory and see if they know anything about the accident, where each crew boss then describes what they know about the accident that killed Mick. The player soon find out that the crash was caused by a kid named Buddy, and after a visit to a crew boss called EX where he explains, Sara is seemingly caught in an explosion. The player is driven further to find out who caused the trouble, and soon confronts Buddy. Buddy then reveals that he was hired, and hands the player his phone. The player continues, and meets MK, an undercover police racer, after defeated by the player, who then helps with his police abilities to find out who planned the murder, through Buddy's phone.

It is revealed that EX was the one who planned the crash, and the player goes after him, with MK's police forces in the end apprehending EX after defeated by the player. Sara appears, and tells the racer to race her, which she in the end reveals the truth: the player hired EX to get rid of Mick due to Mick's monstrous personality that hurt Sara and the player, which EX hired Buddy to crash Mick's car, the "accident" resulting in Mick's death. It was indeed, all along the player's plan, where Sara was promised to be freed from Mick by the player. Sara then hands the player Mick's watch, saying that he is different from Mick, and that she is free, now together with the player.

Soundtrack

By default, hip hop/grime songs are played when the player is driving an exotic car, electronic songs are played when the player is driving a tuner car, and rock music is played when the player is driving a muscle car, though this setting can be turned off. These songs were released by EA in very limited quantities on a special edition disc. The songs played within the safe house and other game menus, as well as a small number of races were composed by London electronic act Ekstrak, and was released widely by EA, and is available from online retailers such as iTunes, as well as hard copies. Other music, most played in major races, such as Race Wars and Canyon Battles have been widely released akin to the Ekstrak release. This actual soundtrack consists of music composed by Trevor Morris, who has gone on to work with Steve Jablonsky for the 2007 EA RTS game, Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars.

Development

Need for Speed: Carbon was first shown in EA's montage at Nintendo's E3 2006 conference and booth and was the cover story in the Game Informer magazine issue of July 2006. In the early development stages, the graphics had more detail and the city was planned to be bigger. Also found in the game's files show that many of the game's features were scrapped such as being able to drift with other A.I. players, similar to Underground 2. What may appear to be an entire crew called "LeSamurai" was found in the game's files. "LeSamurai" may have taken a huge part in the game's plot as their crew logo is found in many various places in the city. However, the crew logo is not found Downtown. "LeSamurai" may not be the official crew name, but it's the name of some of the contents in one of the game's files. Carbon is the first in the Need for Speed series to be released for all seventh generation consoles. Carbon features some of cars of its predecessors; namely Need for Speed: Underground 2 and Need for Speed: Most Wanted, but also incorporates many new additions including the Audi Le Mans quattro, the Chrysler 300C SRT 8, Chevrolet's Chevelle SS and the Alfa Romeo Brera. Carbon features the Canadian actress and model Emmanuelle Vaugier as Nikki, the player's main source of help and ally in the Career storyline. The game is available for use with Mac OS X. Need for Speed: Carbon debuted at number one on the UK All Format Gaming Chart on its first week of release, beating Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer.

The Need for Speed: Carbon – Collector's Edition features 4 exclusive cars, 10 pre-tuned cars, 6 new races, 3 unique challenge events, 10 unique vinyls and a Bonus DVD showing the making of Carbon and showcasing all the cars used in the game. The Collector's Edition also features alternate box art and a metallic-finish sleeve encasing the case of the game. Although the Mac edition doesn't display the Collector's Edition title, it contains all Collector's Edition features. The downloaded version of the game features the Ultimate Performance Kit, 2006 Pagani Zonda F and the 1971 Dodge Challenger. An arcade version of the same name was released by EA Arcades in 2008. The Collector's Edition is not available for PS3.

Reception

Need for Speed: Carbon was met with generally positive reviews. IGN gave the PC version an 8.2 out of 10 and the PlayStation 3 version a 7.9 out of 10 citing "It's not revolutionary, it's not brilliant, but it's good, deep racing,". GameSpot gave praise for adding more movie clips, customization and solid gameplay but was critical about frustrating boss battles and under utilizing police chases.

Electronic Gaming Monthly gave the game an average score of 8.0. Hyper's Daniel Wilks commends the game for its "large gameworld" but criticises it for its "easy, drift course mechanics suck [and] cutscene 'actors'". The Australian video game talk show Good Game gave the game a 5/10.

Need for Speed: Carbon has sold 3.2 million copies in the United States.