Need for Speed Carbon Editor's Review

More of the same from the NFS franchise.

After Need for Speed Underground quickly became the best selling game of 2004, the eagerly anticipated sequel, Carbon hit the shelves and left the fans of the street racer genre with a slight feeling of déjà vu. With a street racer mode, police cars that’ll chase you and a free roaming mode the game plays very much like a lot of other games of the same genre, and if it wasn’t based in a different city to Underground you may not know you were playing a different game.

That being said, Need for Speed Carbon does come with 60 more unlockable cars, slightly improved graphics and the new ‘Wingman’ facility, a helping hand at scouting out shortcuts and someone to give you tips along the way. The addition of EAs new ‘Autosculpt’ technology allows you to customise your car in new ways and added a few extra hours of enjoyment to the car creation process.

One of the features that got our hearts racing the most was the fact that the police could end up chasing you over a race, however short, and the thrill of flying through the streets trying to lose police attention straight after a race certainly added something to the gamer experience.

Pro's: Still the same great race engine, new challenges and a different map, improved graphics. ‘Autosculpt’ mode is very good.

Con's: Wingman mode could be more intuitive, doesn’t feel like much of an update over the previous franchise release.

Conclusion: Need for Speed Carbon is a solid release and for fans of the series will be a welcome addition to their NFS collection. As a standalone game NFS Carbon has its strengths but like many EA franchise games doesn’t quite do enough to justify a new release every year.