ome carrots are better than others. Carbon does a much better job than NFS: Most Wanted of leading you on and spurring you to master its curves. And the biggest and juiciest carrots of them all are the canyon races, which are the perfect payoff to the more routine business of acquiring and holding your territory across the city. While this new element to NFS makes Carbon worth getting, it does expose the need for growth in other areas of the series.
On the face of it, the canyon duels in Carbon are one of the few outright improvements from its predecessor, Most Wanted. That sounds like faint praise, but when you play Carbon you quickly realize how important they are to the game. Instead of your progression being tied to a menu-based Blacklist and a cheesy story like in Most Wanted, you are instead pushing the envelope on Carbon’s streets for an even bigger rush once you hit the canyons. It’s like an adrenaline-filled cherry on top of a nitrous-flavored sundae.
Despite the fact that Auto Sculpting or teammates aren’t necessarily crucial to the game, the more I tried to compare the feature sets of Carbon and Most Wanted, the more I realized how different people are going to love different things about the game. You might spend hours Auto Sculpting your very own Frankencar, while your friend is more excited about using teammates to get ahead during races. I loved the races that were all about drifting, but someone else might be consumed enough to complete the Challenge Series and get all the Reward Cards. Some racing titles focus so much on parts, customization, or physics, that having fun on the track becomes an afterthought, while others bore you with one circuit race after another. Carbon lets you dabble in various areas all you want, while still delivering some smokin’ racing action – the canyons see to that at a minimum. Of course, PS 3 players can use their controller to influence their cars around corners, but it didn’t do much for me.
Regardless of which elements of Carbon you like the best, I highly suggest you go online. Carbon has two online-only race types that you’ve got to experience: Pursuit Knockout and Pursuit Tag. The first is a circuit race where after each lap the car in last place turns into a cop who can go through the lighted barriers, while the second is a free-for-all with one fugitive car chased by the cops. The player who races as the fugitive changes each minute depending on which cop has the highest Busted meter when time is called.
As well put together as this game’s parts are, it could have been more cohesive. I didn’t feel like territory was crucial enough, and the bonuses for keeping it seemed inconsequential. The open-world aspect in general was underdeveloped. I realize EA messed it up in NFS: Underground 2, and there may be technical limitations, but how sweet would it have been to have the Boss races on the mainland seamlessly flow into the canyon duels? Furthermore, the city’s sections felt too similar to each other. I admit, I don’t have all the answers on making a perfect open-world racing title, but Carbon falls short in this area. Don’t worry though, the speed in this game is enough to outrun such criticisms.