It’s time to leave Rockport and head for the canyons. Electronic Arts is once again attempting to take the Need for Speed franchise in a whole new direction. I recently took a trip to Vancouver to meet with EA Black Box, while there I had the privilege to get a full hands-on with their upcoming title, Need for Speed: Carbon. The first thing the producers mentioned during the presentation was that NFS: Carbon isn’t intended to be a sequel to Most Wanted or the Underground series. What in the world could EA have up its sleeve to keep the series fresh? Well, their answer lies in one mode and they hope it catches on like wildfire. What mode could this be? It’s called Canyon Racing and you better buckle up, or you may just fly off a cliff.
EA is putting all their chips on the table in anticipation that Canyon Racing is this year’s “it” mode. If it doesn’t become as popular as they had hoped, they have another mode in their back pocket for backup. EA Black Box’s other wildcard is the reintroduction to drifting. NFS: Most Wanted didn’t include drifting as EA took a year off from the mode to refine, retune, and tinker around with it – they wanted to deliver a drifting mode that fires on all cylinders. But first, let’s dig deep into Canyon Racing and what it’s all about.
The concept of Canyon Racing is that two cars will challenge each other to a race that loosely resembles chicken. Instead of two cars racing head-on for impact, one of the cars will follow the other as close as possible until the end of the canyon. You may be asking, what in the world is the point of following a car down the decline of a canyon? Well this form of racing occurs often at Carbon Canyon in California, where there’s always the risk of falling off a cliff, hitting oncoming traffic, or accidentally hitting the front car which automatically means you lose the race. EA has taken the liberty to recreate this thrilling race event for Need for Speed: Carbon (named after Carbon Canyon). The racing mode within the game plays out similar to real life without the hazard of traffic. EA removed traffic from this specific race event due to that it was too difficult to keep up with the lead car. Back on track though, one racer will follow the lead car as close as he can racking up points for being in the perimeter – the closer he is, the more points he’ll receive. If you do happen to hit the opponent, a penalty will be tacked onto your score. After the run is concluded, it’s time to switch positions - the front car becomes the tailgater, staying as close as possible, attempting to beat the opponent’s previous set score.
Time to breathe, whew! It’s a lot to take in, but Canyon Racing is the ultimate test of skill, there’s no doubts about it. EA is hoping the high risks of Canyon Racing gets the adrenaline pumping for all those NFS freaks out there. If Canyon Racing isn’t the form of racing that thrills you, EA does reintroduce drifting back into Need for Speed.
Drifting this year is a whole new animal – they reworked everything. Throughout the afternoon, many of the producers mentioned that the lead designer, Yurrie Rabinowitz, was a beast at drifting. When he was provided the chance to show us the magic of drifting, he rallied up points left and right as he drifted around corners with precision and speed. The trick for drifting this year is to maintain high speeds (represented by a speed bar on the top of the screen), while keeping your tires in the bonus zones as you drift around the corners. When speaking with Yurrie, he spoke about how he had to rework the physics engine and scoring mechanics. So, when the chance came for me to monkey around with the drifting, I figured out one thing – I was horrible at the mode. I kept on hitting the walls and wasn’t able to keep my speed up. After a few more tries, Yurrie told me to hit the NOS button to avoid the walls – when the opportune times came, the NOS assisted me from hitting the barricades.
