Need For Speed: Carbon

Review from Samo, Samo, Samo and Samo - Saturday, 16 December 2006 @ 12:00am

I must admit, I love quarter pounders. Especially double quarter pounders, where they make them fresh because they are a special order.

Yes, I know it’s just crappy cardboard food and I know that the magical place with the golden arches churns out thousands of them without even thinking every day. There’s just something about the onslaught being rendered on my arteries that makes me happy.

Is it worth paying $6.95 for? Hell no. But I do. And I like it.

Same with fast food fries. The chains pump them out by the millions daily and they are about as healthy as licking pure lard directly off an anvil. Hell they could be pulped up newspaper coated in fat for all I care. The fact is; they taste good. That’s all there is to it.

Let’s be honest, we all love it when we’re stuffing ourselves full of the wonderful fat-burger. We know it’s bad for us, we know it really doesn’t taste all that great. Yet we still do it and we still love it.

This all brings me very neatly to Need For Speed Carbon.

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Need For Speed Carbon casts you as a racer in Palmont City, a sprawling metropolis nestled in the middle of three canyons. There’s been a set-up, racers were caught and arrested, money changed hands and a mystical red bag was thrown onto your passenger seat just prior to your miraculous escape. On your return, no one is saying much, other than one guy – Darius. He believes you have it in you to start small and make it back up the ranks in the street racing world. However, as most protagonists usually do, he has his own hidden agenda behind the whole shebang. That is seriously about as much story as I could figure out. I played Most Wanted, and in that game one of my major obstacles was a Corvette driving cop named Cross. He’s back in this game but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what his purpose in the story is. I think he’s a bounty hunter of some kind, but I’m buggered if I know who he’s hunting or what for, nor could I figure out the sort of deal he made with the game’s leading lady, Nikki.

If you were to say there are more holes NFS Carbon’s story than Swiss cheese, you’d be right. Read: Loser (you) arrives in city, meets someone who believes in him, races for a bit, chick decides she likes his side, he races the key protagonist, he wins, baddie cries. It was great in Need for Speed Underground, now the idea is stale and overused. If they came up with a fresh story each time round, I’d be happy to excuse the cheesiness and the tackiness. But repackaging the same story over and over again is just plain irritating. I really wonder whether having a story adds to the appeal of the game now, especially when Test Drive Unlimited does so well without one.

What is appealing is the cutscenes. Done in the same Real-Life FMV meets CG style as Most Wanted, the stylised videos at least make a valiant effort to lift that story out of the dark dark place it was conceived. The acting talent is abysmal, but it actually helps the videos. They really are so bad that they’re good. I really like the style and thankfully, unlike Most Wanted where they were few and far between, EA has evenly spread a small smattering of these delightful videos throughout the game.

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The Career mode is based on owning sections of the city. Each small territory is controlled by a rival crew and you and your crew need to take over territories by winning the races therein. The city is also broken up into four large territories that are owned by the major crews who you must defeat before you get the right to take on Darius. The territory system is a valiant attempt by EA to breathe some life into a tiring series but unfortunately it falls flat and never feels like anything more than a novelty to try to push that truly awful story along. What’s even more annoying is that other crews can challenge the races you own once you’ve beaten them. You do have the option to defend your race, but if you decline you immediately lose possession of that race to the rival crew. You really don’t want to do that when one of the achievements is to hold all the races on the map. On more than one occasion I was ready to put the controller down, be it to go to bed or to work or something else and another crew decides to challenge my territory. It’s mine damn it!! I raced, I won and I don’t want to race it again! I’ve already proven that my manly buttocks of steel are better than your skinny little silicon keester!

Sorry about that outburst, service will now return to normal. Did I mention repeating races at random and without warning was frustrating?

I have mentioned crews once or twice already because that’s what the story and indeed the game tends to revolve around. In circuit and sprint race modes, you race with a crew member who has the skills of a drafter, blocker or scout, each type having its own task to perform during the race to help you out. It is novel idea but it’s far too tacky to actually lift the game in any way. It feels like an afterthought, added on at the last minute to counter Juiced and its crew type gameplay. But of course it wasn’t tacked on at the last minute to counter Juiced because that game was released last year. So who knows what EA has been smoking. Probably their instruction manuals. The worst part is the drafters and the scouts can often get in the way when you try to get around them so again; this addition is more annoying than useful or enjoyable.

One thing EA did get very right is the new ‘Canyon’ race mode. These are mano-a-mano battle races that take place in the canyons surrounding the city. If you’re a fan of Initial D, as I am, you’ll be all too familiar with the concept. Two runs down the mountain, one where you follow and then one where your opponent follows. Points are awarded for how close you can get to the car in front of you, then how big a gap you can hold over the car behind you. It really doesn’t sound like much in black and white, but the buildup, musical score, presentation and then the unique format of the race gives it a true sense of occasion. They are used sparingly in the career mode too, so the boss races feel like a momentous event, rather than just another race through the city against a tougher opponent.

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The police chases are back, which is where Need For Speed Carbon truly shines. The police are smart and they get progressively more aggressive as your ‘heat’ increases, which means you’ll have to step twice as fast to counter their tactics as the pursuit progresses. It’s challenging and fast paced. On numerous occasions I found myself yelling with delight when I broke free of an aggressive box formation. It’s even more compelling when you factor in the good dose of achievements that are police chase based. The only real criticism I can level at the police chases, is that in the lower levels, they do seem to be a little too slow and too dumb that you may find yourself escaping from them, even when you’re trying to prolong a chase. It’s nary a worry though, because the early heat levels advance reasonably quickly and once the police cars get upgraded to the faster Pontiac GTO police cars at heat level 3, you’ll really need your wits about you to get away.

The breadth of the car selection has broadened once again. The return to the series roots of exotic cars that was undertaken in Most Wanted is, thankfully, intact. Tuner cars are par for the course now, but the most notable addition this time around is the inclusion of classic muscle cars such as the Dodge Charger 447 and Shelby GT500 which everyone knows as Eleanor. Every taste in cars really is catered for. The modification side of things is almost unchanged from Most Wanted aside from the new ‘autosculpt’ feature, which EA claims is ‘revolutionary’ and allows you to customise your car in ‘every way imaginable’. In reality, it’s just a way to tweak standard bodykits a little. Slightly larger intake here, extrude the rear bumper a little more there. It’s hardly revolutionary and you definitely can’t customise your car in every way imaginable. In its defense, I did like being able to put my own personal touch on the shape of the car, rather than the usual over-the-top rubbish.

The presentation of Need For Speed Carbon is just as we’ve come to expect from NFS, incredibly polished and shiny. The graphics are not really any step forward from Most Wanted, except that the series has reverted to continual night time. Sure, most illegal street racing tends to be held at night, but the golden day lit visual style of Most Wanted was exceptionally pretty and the game just isn’t the same at night. It has lost some of its magic.

Unfortunately the music is still the same old EATrax garbage that we all know and hate. Fortunately, it is slightly less annoying than it usually is. I only noticed the word ‘EATrax’ once in the game; in the options menu. The music selection is your regular EATrax sort of fare; a wide range of licensed music that no one has ever heard of, most if it rubbish. There are a couple of exceptions to that rule, with Wolfmother – Joker and the Thief in the mix, a very pleasant surprise. What was even more of a surprise was the inclusion of Steamworks by an Australian group called Presets. Presets are awesome. This made me all happy and warm and fuzzy inside.

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The Xbox live modes have the capability to grant this game exceptional longevity, something that is absolutely necessary to make this game stand up once you’ve finished the alarmingly short career mode. Along with the standard circuit, sprint and speedtrap modes, two pursuit modes have been added. One where a team of police try to catch one racer, the position of racer floats through all players and the player who spends the longest time as the racer for the duration of the game is the winner. The other is a knockout type race, where the last person on each lap is turned into a police car. The police then try to bust the remaining racers and the last man standing wins. Both are innovative and immensely good fun, but I did find it difficult to get a game of either of the pursuit modes online. It seemed the few players who were online were too busy playing the classic speedtrap or sprint modes. I admit this is a minor gripe and it should improve as proliferation of the game increases.

I’ve played every single NFS since day 1 in 1996, so many years ago. Since then EA has only missed one year, 2001 is the only year that didn’t see a Need For Speed release. Sometimes I wonder where the Need For Speed series would be if EA hadn’t reinvented it in the tuner mould four years ago. Something a lot like Test Drive Unlimited would be the answer I suspect, which is a truly amazing game. TDU is a game that I’ll remember for years to come as something outstanding, breathtaking, vast and mould-breaking.

Conversely, the Underground revolution of Need For Speed has turned the series into something of a McGame. It is a bad, cardboard game that gets recycled and pumped out year after year after year.

I’m not going to sugar-coat it; Need For Speed Carbon has its plus points, but ultimately it is a bad game. I know this. I’ve played the same game three times before. The thing is though; it’s just like the quarter pounder I had for lunch today: I enjoyed every single bit.

Summary

A cardboard cookie cutter McGame that, like the burgers, is rubbish yet incredibly enjoyable. The name should really be ‘Need For Speed Carbon Copy of Most Wanted’. It really isn’t any different. If you haven’t played MW, this is worth a look. If you have, wait until next year for your next dose of Need For Speed.

Pros

The police chases, superb polish, presentation and sound, stylised FMV meets CG cutscenes, canyon duels, the police chases, broad array of cars, autosculpt feature isn’t revolutionary but is innovative, online modes have huge potential for increasing the longevity of the game if you can find the players, did I mention the police chases?

Cons

Truly abysmal story, territory ownership type career progression is novel but silly, crew wingman is tacky and annoying, rival crew challenges make the game repetitive, career mode is fairly short, longevity of the game may not stack up as it can be hard to find online games for the newer game