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Need for Speed Carbon - Own the City: Reviews

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Game Score: 8/10

After the recent flop of Need For Speed Most Wanted port to the DS, chances are that most will be quite weary about getting this latest Need For Speed installment for the DS. Does it have the features needed to redeem itself from Most Wanted? Let's take a look:

Storyline: well duh, its a RACING game, what kind of storyline would it have? Fortunetly (or unfortunatly), EA just had to squeeze in some storyline for its racing games nowadays.(Starting with Most Wanted).You start out by racing your brother on the streets, and suddenly, POW! an accident kills him instantly and puts you in hospital from a long peiod of time. After your discharge from the hospital your brother's girlfriend and a fellow 'hommie' of yours invite you to take the wheel again to refresh yourself while taking you to your brother's tomb.There you learn that the accident may be a set up and the streets you once own have been seized by rival gang members.With that,its time to get yourself a new ride and start your quest for revenge (again) and street takeback.

Graphics:It's on a DS, how good would you expect the graphics to be? The cars range from barely recognizable to completly not at all. (I had the most problems with the RX-7 and the RX-8) Then again, its not all that important since you'll probably spend most of your time on the bumper camera and the rear of the cars are decent enough when seen through the far-chase viewpoint. The streets seem quite well rendered though and the roads look slick, which more than makes up for the poor car detail.The graphics are a bit dark though, so it would be advised that you play in a well lit area. DS Lite owners will be able to take advantage of a special High Contrast option in the game menu which allows you adjust the brightness of the screens.(The option will still show up if you're using the regular DS but there'll be no effect on the screen brightness.)

Sound: Quite a mixed bag in this aspect.EA made a horrible mistake here. Apparently in an attempt to squeeze as much data inside the little DS card, they threw in only a handful of soundtracks.(i counted them at 5,may be wrong). Granted,they do sound nice over the DS's twin stereo speakers, but with such a limitted song library it starts to get on your nerves after about an hour or so. (i usually end up muting them after awhile, which is a real waste since they fit rather well into the furious pace of the game)The cars on the other hand, are adequaetly preped out, with each car sounding different from the others, adding a slight touch of realism to the feel,although they fail to sound like the actual car would in reality. The screech of tires are also well recorded and played out,and you can feel the thrill of smoking your tires out while negotiating a hairpin.Its a real pity that for an arcadey game like this, the tire screeching sounds outclass that of racing simulators. Its not as high pitched or shrill as the simulators but somehow it feels as if the sound is just what you'd expect from hard braking at 150+ km/h. (You hear that, GT and Forza?! :p )

Controls: err....what controls? Its an arcadey game, how much would 1 expect?Ok, i was just kidding. It seems that EA has no intention of making Need For Speed realistic ever again, so there's really nothing much to expect from the series. Howqever, there's a (quite) significant haul to the controls this time,for the cars actually feel abit like how they would actually handle out there on the roadsand they actually handle somewhat differently this time,unlike Most Wanted,where all the cars ahd the same feel and controling save for the acceleration. In the past, where it was close to impossible to actually oversteer when negotiating a tight turn,the chances of spinning out now has increased. (although still a far cry from the Underground days). The braking however, has taken a turn for the worse: all i did was to tap the L button on my DS and my car INSTANTLY slowed from 125kph to 40kph in less than a second. That was something which never happened before so it was quite an unwelcome surprise.If any, it [robably all but destroyed the usefullness of the brakes,cause 1 can make turns much faster by simply releasing the accelrator as opposed to utilising the brakes, which would slow you to a crawl instantly and give your opponents a good chance to just whiz pass you while you struggle to regain speed.

Gameplay: Need for Speed has always promised loads of fun and this game certainly delivers in that aspect. The game animates smoothly and i have yet to experience any signs of lag or slowdown.A new feature is the Wingman feature, where you can call out a crew member to help you out in a race anytime.There're 2 types of Wingmen, an Attacker who will lay the smackdown on a rival car to butt him off and slow him down while you seize the chance to get past him, and the Drafter Wingman,who will support you by constantly racing in front of you and if you stick dirently behind him,he'll support you by refilling your nitrous bottles.However due to the fact that that the roads are never straight,dont expect to get much nitrous refilled,and i cannot tell if you can get a speed boost as well by drafting behind your Drafter wingman,since NFS never implemented drafting physics into their games.The difficulty is moderatly challenging, which makes it suited for just anyone, from the complete racing newbie , to the unrealistic racing games player, and finally up to those spend most of their time on sim racing like GT/Forza etc etc. Apparently EA realised that those who engage in sim racing will find the default difficulty settings a pansy, and as such has added an intuitive option known as AI Catch Up which is basically an adaptive difficulty setting.It is off by default but those who have been owning the competition by more than 4 seconds every lap may give themselves that extra bit of challenge by tirning the AI Catch Up otion on. Once that option is activated, with every race you win, the AI gets much faster and more aggressive. The increase in difficulty is more evident if you race in the same area again multiple times.I tried out the feature and after owning the competition for 12 races, now i find it extremely tough to even catch up with the AI controlled cars at the start line.(and im a devoted sim racer too...what a shame.. >.< )

REplay:erm...what replay? There's no incentive to really replay this game after you complete it unless you're one of those really hardcore players who seeks to purchase every single upgrade and car the game has to offer.At most, a casual player would just delete his old profile and start a new one to relive the story sequences again, but other than that, there's nothing much really.

The End:While it may not have that great a replay value, this is still a game that you'll spend quite some time on. Even without the AI Catch Up turned on, the difficulty does increase with each each city you sucessfully clear out,and the 'restart' option will surely become your good friend throughout the course of your gameplay.Even if you're no hardcore player who must make every single purchase in the game, there'll surely be certain cars which you just want to add to your garage because you 'just like that car'. I personally find myself racing for points oftenly just to purchase the Lancer Evo IX which i've altready unlocked but dont have enough points to buy yet, just because i like that car.

Multiplayer:NFS Carbon supports both multi-card and single-card player for up to 4 players.Multi cad allows you to have full control over the race settings,but in single-card mode,the mosr recent unlocked track and car will be automatically selected by the system.NOt that it reduces the fun:racing head to head with the same vehicle can truely be called a test of skill (or lack thereof)

DS Exclusives: A real letdown. The 'Draw your own vinyl' sounds good in theory but the lack of detail rendering makes whatever you draw out look rather wierd.and besides, i doubt anyone will have th patience to use the stylus and take his time to sketch out an ideal icon. The dashboard however is quite an innovative feature. While most single screen consoles or handhelds would show the speedometer on the main action action screen, EA made full use of the DS's dual screens by putting the action and racing on the top screen, and filling up the bottom screen with a car dashboard.The Dashboard is fully functional too:you can tap the nitrous button with your stylus or thumb strap for a speed boost (which has a feel of really sitting in a car and fiddling with your dashboard while driving),and you can use it to call your crew out to assist by simply tapping on the wingman icon. Like all car dashboards, the bottom screen not only shows the speedometer and tachometer,but also your fuel guage,car temperature and engine oil status (which are all inactive,but they add a nice touch of realism). You can also tap the 2 mirrors on the side of the dashboard to glance at your back momentarilly.which gives an authenthic in-car feeling.

My final say?This is one gem in the Need for Speed series and anyone who has an interest in car racing,be it sim or arcadey,owns it to himself (or herself) to get it. It may not be as great as the console versions but this once definitly exceed most expectations.A decent lifespan, good gameplay, innovative new features, and most implrtantly, the DS Exclusive Dashboard makes this game a must get for the DS.