Need for Speed Carbon
EA adds canyon drift racing to the free-roaming formula, but is it enough?
Published: November 28, 2006
The new addition is the canyon battles, a two-part race where one car races down the mountain and another tries to stay on their tail as much as possible, then the roles are reversed. Your ability to stay on someone's tail constantly is rewarded with more points in a constantly running tally. The points build faster as you stay close, but you'll get dinged if you actually ram them. If someone sailing over the edge of the mountain patch or the chaser car pulls ahead for 10 seconds, then it's an instant game over. When the roles are flipped, the points built up during the first run down the mountain slowly drain as the new chaser tries to stay on their prey's tail.
These battles are used primarily in final boss battles after you've taken over enough of their turf. See, the city portions work something like Risk, forking over control of an area once enough races in a certain part of the city are completed. Dominate all portions, and you'll eventually unlock the boss duels. There's another caveat, though: as you continue to race in a certain part of the city, you'll draw attention from the cops, and this is where the Most Wanted influence shines the strongest.
Cops will eventually pick up on the races and give chase, and this persists even after the race is over, necessitating either a quick escape until you get to a cooldown phase of the chase. If you happen to find a hiding spot, the meter will cool off much faster, and the heat will die down. If a particular area heats up too much, you can pop into your safe house and throw some customizations on your car to make it look different to throw the pigs off the scent.
The idea isn't terribly new, but it's executed well here, and aside from the increasingly frequent challenges to defend your turf (you have race or control of that area instantly reverts to the challenger), the progression makes you feel like you're steadily taking over the city. Along the way, frequent live-acted segments help string along the basic (but effective) story of you leaving the city after being framed for stealing money from the city's most powerful bosses. The story never really gets in the way of the gameplay, but it is an excuse to introduce the other new feature of the game: wingmen.
As you take over the city, you'll start to gain the services of wingmen, racers with three distinct skill sets; Scouts drive ahead and call out shortcuts, taking them themselves and marking them permanently on the map (useful in circuit races), Blockers will happily risk totaling their rides to cause rival racers to spin out and Drafters let you tuck in behind them to slingshot past cars in order to take the lead. Though the roles are common, the bonuses each rider provides -- from discounts on parts or upgrades to keeping the heat off your back to earning you more money per race -- are totally unique, and are entirely welcome ways to further tweak your crew.
It won't take long to barrel through the city (I did it just after cracking the double-digit hour mark), but the Need for Speed games of late have had a fairly strong online component to help bolster the longevity of the games, and Carbon is no different. Though our sessions were wildly varied (some were quite laggy, others smooth as silk), the core experience was a lot of fun. Two online-exclusive modes make up for the lack of cop-focused single-player goodies from Most Wanted by introducing Pursuit Tag and Pursuit Knockout where one racer is "it" and the player that takes them shift from cop to "it" or a per-lap elimination where the last player becomes a cop and must stop the other racers, respectively. Throughout online battles, you'll gain experience and levels that unlock more customization rewards.
Outside the career modes and between online sessions, you can also participate in Challenge Series races, one-off trios of race types found in the career mode that help unlock more goodies for your rides and exclusive rides themselves. Completing both Challenges and Career requirements will net you Reward Cards, which unlock -- you guessed it -- more goodies. There are even online-exclusive Rewards, which is a nice touch, and helps further extend the life of the game.
