Since it is the second installment of the NFS franchise for the 360 I have to be a tad more thorough when picking at its flaws. Make no mistake, the same great NFS racing is still intact and it’s accompanied by a new setting and a new, highly improved, story line. But sadly like many other franchises (not just EA’s) NFS: Carbon offers just a few more features and better visuals over its previous iteration.
Carbon starts you off with a tutorial that teaches you a new feature called The Wingman. This allows you to use one of three types of wingmen (blockers, drifters, scouts) to your advantage. Out of the three the only really useful one is the blocker, as you can designate which car you wish for him/her to take out. The scout is ok as far as finding alternate routes and the drifter can give you a marginal boost of speed, but nothing that will truly put you over the top. You then end up wrecking your tutorial car and have to choose from one of three classes of vehicles (tuners, muscle, exotics); each class tends to handle differently with the most advanced being the exotics.
It’s all about territory this year as you seek to control the 4 territories that are currently run by other racing crews! These 4 territories are split into zones, and you can only gain control by winning two races in every zone. Once all the zones of a territory are under control you have to face the racing crew’s leader. These battles take place on very narrow canyon courses where you can break the guardrails and careen off of the canyon walls.
Customization has also received a boost in NFS Carbon. Not only are there more parts, aftermarket products, etc. but there is also an Autosculpt feature that allows you to morph certain parts of your car, allowing for some out of this world creations… that is if you have the time to spare as it takes quite a bit of tweaking to make something great. Speaking of parts, this brings me to one of my biggest pet peeves of this franchise. Why must I unlock a part and then have to buy it? Seriously I don’t care if you make me do one or the other, but both is downright ridiculous. Maybe it’s to slow player progression through the game, as it is very easy to complete with the only real challenges being the boss battles.
