Need For Speed Carbon : Review

Introduction

Need for speed carbon is a sequel of NFS Most Wanted, it took place after you escaped the cops on Need For Speed Most Wanted (more on the story later)

Let�s start with the first part:

Graphics 9/10

The graphics looks better than Most Wanted for the most part, the car models are pretty detailed, lighting effects are good too, but since this game took place at night time, there�s no shadow effect at all, but it still look good nonetheless.
However, there are some flaws, first is the motion blur, it requires a video card that support shader model 3.0, yet it looks much inferior than MW�s motion blur, basically, when you turn on the motion blur, you can�t see the roads clearly, everything is blurred when you�re moving, also, if you turn it on, you will miss some of the eye candy in the game, like the road textures (they�re pretty detailed)

Gameplay 7/10

Soon after you complete your intro run, you will be able to choose from 3 car classes, first is tuner, they have very good handling, but have low top speed and acceleration.
Second is exotic, they have the highest top speed in the game, and have mediocre handling and acceleration, but they�re a bit difficult to handle and expensive.
The last is muscle; they have very high acceleration and good top speed, but have very bad handling.
Depending on what car classes you use, you will start at different territories (more on that latter)

New to NFS series, you can hire a crew member to help you in races, there are 3 types : blockers can ram opponent�s car, give you time to catch up or gain more lead, drafters will give you speed boost by slipstreaming behind them, scouts will look for every shortcuts in the races and mark them on your map.
However the crew member isn�t really as good as it sounds, blockers for most of the time can�t catch up to the opponents in front of them effectively, drafters suffer from AI problems, they often ramming into wall and forcing you to go with them, scouts is the most useful crew member in my opinion, they always try to stay ahead of you, although they sometimes brake when you�re right behind them, which can be annoying.

Once you pick your car, you will be thrown immediately into Palmont City, you can explore the city freely and you may also encounter cops on the street, they�re pretty much same as NFS mw�s cops, but in carbon, cops are not required to finish the game, so you can just avoid them entirely jumping into the races right away from the world map.
The main objective of this game is to conquer all of the Palmont City�s territories, after you take over all of the crew�s territories, the boss will challenge you into �canyon battle� in this type of race, you will be racing on the mountains with a lot of sharp curves, 1 wrong move can cost you, because you can get thrown off to the cliff, this is pretty fun mode, although there are only few of them in this game, which is unfortunate.

Overall the game is pretty short, I�d say about 18 hours of game time, after you finished it there�s nothing much to look at, this game have very little replay value, so I give it a 7.

Story 7/10

Your main character return to Palmont City after he escaped from the cops in MW, it turns out that he have some history in this place and people don�t like it, it�s nothing spectacular, some plot twist and a familiar face, but for a racing game, it�s good enough.

Overall 7.5/10

Nice and fun NFS game, if not better than Most Wanted.

Rent/buy?

I�d say buy it, but if you�re not NFS or racing game fan, I suggest renting it first.

Note: I didn�t mention about multiplayer mode since I don�t play it, and don�t have access to it.