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Need for Speed Carbon

Published: Sun 28 Oct, 2007 | On:

There are a few things I do not like about Need For Speed: Carbon but luckily there are more things that I do like.

Lets start with the don’ts. The biggest is that there is no real damage to your car when involved in a smash. Sure you get a few scratches on your paintwork but why even bother with that? It does not make any difference to your cars performance so adding a few scratches that disappear at the end of a race anyway, is just eye candy and not good eye candy at that. If I ram my way through a police roadblock I don’t expect to drive away scot-free, I believe this is an addition to the next version, Pro-Street, but it is sadly lacking in the game.

The next complaint is a double-edged sword. I do not like that after losing a race I can just click a button and the race starts from the beginning again with no consequences on the game, even if it takes me twenty restarts to eventually come out on top. But on the other hand if something out of my control occurs that causes me to lose the race, such as my computer teammate running me off the road, then I can just start the race again. After going to all the trouble of adding a storyline, race restarts seem like a bad option for the game, it just makes it too easy to take over territory.

I also don’t like that in free roam mode you are limited to driving on the roads, sure there are some shortcuts down a few alleys and behind a few buildings but this is not what I would call free roaming. For instance there is at least one car park building that you can drive past, but try driving into the building and a super-strong wooden barrier arm blocks you. I know this would have been more work for the developers to map out a few more areas but it would have given true meaning to free roam.

But that is enough of the complaints, there is still enough here to make an enjoyable game. The best of the things that I do like are the controls. EA have done a great job of providing the player with as many control options as possible. On the Wii I think every developer should aspire to this. The Wii controls are so unique that individuals will have preferences for how they would like to use the controls to play a game and Need For Speed provides for that. In one layout you can use the remote on its side tilting it to steer left and right using the ‘2’ button to accelerate and the ‘1’ button to brake, the ‘A’ button is used for oversteer. Whereas another control scheme uses the nunchuk to steer left and right with the remote used to accelerate and brake by tilting up and down. Before buying this game I read a few reviews all of which had complaints about the controls not being responsive enough, requiring continual use of the ‘A’ button for oversteer. So when I first started to play the game I was using the ‘A’ button all the time. Then about an hour into the game I decided to stop using oversteer, and my driving improved. The fact is, oversteer is not necessary, the controls work just fine as they are, it is just that the cars that are available early in the game just don’t steer all that well, when driving the more expensive cars later on, the controls are pretty much perfect.

Graphically Need For Speed looks great, I guess if you were to compare it so the PS 3 version the graphics may pale but I certainly have no complaints, lets face it, when driving at 160 mph who cares how good the surrounding city looks, all I can do is concentrate on the road.

As for the difficulty level it certainly ramped up at the right speed for my skills, as I got better at the game so the game got harder. Police chases got tougher to evade, and the speed/skill of the opposition in races improved, however as I pointed out before being able to restart any race kind of negates this a bit.

Another good thing about the game is the ability to customise your ride to the nth degree. I didn’t think that I would make much use of this feature; especially as modifications need cash and I was spending all the money I had on the next best car. However once I had lots of money in the bank and some great cars in the garage I started to experiment with the customisations. Personalising your best car with body kits, paint jobs and the like adds an extra touch to the game, and the way the modifications in the garage translate to the look of the car on the road is perfect.

But this brings me to one more point that I do not like about the game, a complaint I have with several other games, unlocking. Hey, I paid money for this, I want ALL the options available to me from the start, thank you very much. I want to be able to choose the car that I like the best as soon as possible in the game. Why should I have to go most of the way through the game driving cars that don’t suit me, to finally unlock the car that I wanted to drive and there be only 10 races left to finish off the game? Sure make use of the cash for cars option but make them all available for a price, that way I can simply buy the car that I like by saving all my cash, simple.

Wow, this ended up sounding more than a little negative, but don’t get me wrong, I enjoy playing this game, if you enjoy racing games there is no reason why you should not try this one, its just that its faults mean that it will not be the best racing game for the Wii, unfortunately at the moment it is the only racing game currently worthwhile playing on the Wii but that is soon to change. The fact that it can be bought for only $60 makes this good game better than good.

JRI.