Need for Speed Carbon: Own the City
However, Most Wanted was clearly about as far as EA could take that iteration of the game, and it's to their credit that they saw the need for a change. It's less to their credit that they felt the best way to recreate the series would be to borrow heavily from The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift. Still, it is a Need For Speed game, so it's not all bad.
This version of the game happens to be on the DS. I'm used to playing these games on a console, so this was definitely a bit of a change for me. The game does try to cram in something of a storyline. You play as a street racer whose brother is "the boss" of a large territory. It's never really explained what he's the boss of, though. Street racing? How can you the boss of street racing? Maybe it's some kind of organized crime racket? The local Polo league? That's not really the point. Right at the beginning, your brother dies in a crash involving an 18-wheeler and you're partially responsible. You're also put out of commission for six months, and the game starts when you return. You want to take your brother's place as the boss of the local Polo league, but very few people trust you or respect you, so you have to race your way to the top. It's nothing amazing, but it gets the ball rolling.
Gameplay:
And rolling is a good term to use to describe the game. Actually, "careening" would probably be better, as that is what you will spend most of the game doing. You use the D-pad to control your car, while the L and R shoulder pads on the DS make you accelerate and brake/reverse. Now I know previous NFS games didn't exactly have Gran Turismo-esque control schemes, they did respond a little more realistically than this one does. Apply anything more than the slightest amount of pressure on the D-pad and your car will go sliding across the screen like a drunken kangaroo on an ice field. Eventually you learn to adjust, but in the heat of a race, it's hard sometimes to not jam down in the direction you need to go.
One thing they included that I really liked was that you could make your car automatic or manual. Switching the car to manual added an extra level of gameplay. In fact, a good portion of the game centers around customizing your car. There's a lot you can do with it. There's the color, of course, but you can change the hood, the spoiler, even add a neon light under the car. When you play, you see the race on the top screen and a dashboard with your MPH and other important data on the bottom. You can actually change the looks of the dials, the texture of the board itself, and whether you have a radio or toy on the dash. The game even lets you create your own custom vinyls. And those are just the looks. The car's performance is upgraded in ways that by now are surely familiar to NFS players: brakes, chassis, suspension, turbo, nitrous, etc. The way you make your car look and handle can get you more points when you win a race, which you can then use to further customize your vehicle.
The big change in gameplay from the previous games comes in the form of your crew. Before, you might have had people who give you advice(various mechanics or female drivers, for example), but in this one, you have a team that helps you out during the race. There are two different types of wingmen, as they are called. The first is an attack wingman, who, when you call on him, dashes back and forth across the track, trying to collide with your opponents. If he does, it knocks the opponents over, setting them back and giving you a chance to zip by. The second is called a Drafter, who drives ahead of you when summoned and refills your nitrous. Sadly, he doesn't drive directly in front of you, but you can only replace your nitrous if you are directly behind him, which makes him less useful than EA might have intended.
There are four different race types in Need For Speed Carbon. The first is a classic Circuit, where the only objective is to finish first. The next is Sprint, which has the same objective, but it's only for one lap or less. The second two are more interesting. There's Eliminiation, where the last person to finish a lap is taken out of the race even before it ends, so you can't be a straggler. And my personal favorite is called Hunter. In this one, you have a life meter that fills up during the course of the race. There are two ways to fill it up. The first is to be in the lead. The second is to hang back and bump cars that are ahead of you. If you get bumped from behind, you lose life points. I enjoyed this the most, as it involved a little more strategy than just staying in the front all of the time.
The game also offers single-card and multi-card multiplayer modes (no wi-fi kids, sorry). The single-player mode only offers a single track and limited options, while the multi-card mode offers the full range of gameplay options, just as if you were playing single player. It's a good thing they added this, too, because the single player mode quickly gets tiresome.
Graphics:
I've always had a bit of a problem with handheld versions of console games. 99 times out of a 100, it's a watered down version that makes no changes to compensate for the abilities of the handheld system. And this is even worse for the DS, which is capable of 3-D graphics, but only at an N64 level. Most of the time you see games that have the most limited touch screen functionality while they try and downsize console level graphics into something two or three generations behind. Every so often, a designer will break out and actually design a game from the ground up to take full advantage of what the DS has to offer, but those releases are few and far between, and Need For Speed Carbon is not one of them.
The most pleasing graphics in the game are actually those of the dashboard on the touchscreen. This is an element that is entirely unique to the DS, and it's clear, easy to read, and pleasant on the eyes. If only the same could be said about the rest of the game. Blocky textures and a lack of creativity dominate the races themselves. The edge of the streets always have red and white striped curbs so you know where you can and cannot drive, and every so often there is a tunnel or archway, but for the most part, the tracks look very similar to one another. And considering there are a very small amount of tracks to begin with, the problem is just compounded.
The cars fare a little better. You can see the differences between makes and models, and the customization comes across well. The color scheme is a little rudimentary, but not so underwhelming as to be awful. The different parts you can swap on the car show up quickly and neatly, with the only bad-looking alterations being chromed hoods and neon underlighting. Seeing as this is a racing game, it was important for them to make the cars look good, and for the most part, they succeed.
Audio:
The audio is generally laughable. When you rev your engine, it sounds like an RC car, not a performance vehicle. I know the DS doesn't have the sound capabilities of an Xbox 360, but at least put the hum of the engine in a lower register. The sounds of the race don't come across all that well, leaving you to rely on your eyes far more than your ears.
On the plus side, this game features some of the best music I've heard in any EA title. I couldn't name the bands or the songs, but I do know I found them infinitely less annoying than the bands they get for games like Madden. The only problem here is that there aren't nearly enough songs to keep things interesting, so you're hearing the same three or four tunes over and over again.
Conclusion:
Need For Speed is a good racing series...on the consoles. On the Nintendo DS, it's simply workmanlike, and not up to the caliber of something like Mario Kart. But I could live with the humdrum graphics and pitiful sound effects if the gameplay were tight and enthralling. Instead, this game has some of the loosest controlling I've seen. Fans of the series may want to give it a whirl, but everyone else can Skip It.