Need For Speed Carbon Comments by Kristan Reed

Need For someone to 'meh'.

EA screwing up another NFS game ??... chock!!

(but it will still sell shitloads to motivate EA to produce even more shitty NFS games)

No.1 in the chart. Guaranteed.

I'd go as far as to say Christmas number one,it tends to be the case doesn't it?Unless of course that Eragon crap has an almighty following.

I'll be a happy camper when the "next-gen" stops using each and every effect the graphics hardware has to offer in every game every time. It's cool the first time, but not every scene needs depth-of-field effects, HDR, reflective surfaces and whatnot.

I won't bother getting worked up because of stupid microtransactions anymore - but I still wish they were never invented.

fuck me, if thats all it takes to get a 7, I might learn to code over the weekend and release something next week.
Its about time EA got a grip of themselves and stopped churning out the same old shit with little or no improvement year in year out. Most of us played the demo, and I give that 4/10

going on that review, GoW will go up to 11!

I'm with you there MadMirko. HDR actually annoys me but I have no idea why. 0.o

Cheapest cash in I've ever taken notice of.

There's nothing wrong with hdr, it the total overuse of specular bloom that annoys me about 360 titles - it should be a subtle effect on super-white objects like lights, instead it seems applied to everything (even non-white objects). Makes the high def irrelevant as everything's a white blurry mess.

Looks rubbish, no, it looks shit.

Not sure why they'd want to make an easier game - NFS:MW still wasn't the hardest game in existance. As soon as you learned how the AI worked, you could beat the police up for hours.

Happy it's not anything to get excited about - because it makes it that much easier to not buy EA products.

Does anyone know how to unlock the 'Head Start' Achievement? It says 'visit NeedForSpeed.com' for details but I can't find jack!

And yes, I know it's a bit average, but I'm bored and I'll be damned if I just sit and twiddle my thumbs until FEAR.

Heh. I've been saying "Need For Speed: Carbon Copy" since I played the demo... seems like I was right.

Who needs original games when shit like this sells so many.


:(

Need for a true successor to NFS: Porsche Unlimited.

Until then, don't come calling.

They've been too lazy to implement support for widescreen resolutions unfortunately - something pretty much every new game has now.
The best I could get was 1280x1024 on my 1440x900 monitor, and it doesn't appear like there are any more or less tricky work arounds like ini file modifications.

On the other hand, I haven't actually been able to play the game, because for some reason I still haven't been able to figure out, the game has completely and utterly refused to start up again after the first time upon installation completion.
I've tried the DVD in both my drives, but absolutely nothing happens whether I hit the executable directly or use the autorun file on the DVD. No processes appear in the task manager.

But what the hell, it was just a spur of the moment purchase anyway (I did enjoy Underground 1 though) - I should probably know enough by now to stay away from arcade racers and stick to sims like GTR2, rFactor etc.

how can they make the sequel have worse graphics?
MW was quite good but Carbon is crap but it will sell to casual gamers who buy anything EA and the ones that love games were you mod the cars

Need for Speed 3 Hot purisuit FTW.

Wow it's been over 10 years since that launched and there STILL isn't a better Need for Speed than that. o_O

YAY!!! Another racer!

It surely must be that the framerate is improved over the demo? Drastically? If most reviews are saying occasional dips? The demo was terrible, utter rubbish and ran like shit. Anyone at Eurogamer care to comment if there is a big difference?

It looks kinda good to me though, my friend just bought it. I'll check it out tomorrow :D

i think EA went with that evo off the canyon cliff......

and the original was so enjoyable...


What ever happened to those FMVs showcasing the cars? I MISS THAT SO MUCH!

Are your peers using EA?
Do you feel the need to use EA, just to fit in?

Call our 24 hour help line today. Pick up our free leaflets at all good libraries and health centres!

EA - Just say No!

"this is most definitely EA going Carbon neutral."

You *must* have high-fived yourself when you thought of that line ! :-D

Is 7 the minimum score here? I'm starting to doubt EG. Hows about you start reviewing honestly?

7 seems a little high after a relatively negative review. Assuming 5 is average, the text implies it is very much average.

Doesn't matter a bit anyway, Number 1 for Christmas without even trying (again)

>"Hows about you start reviewing honestly?"

As supposed to lying and saying carbon is good?

You already know you don't want it, so why the moan?
U sure know I don't want it, and no review in the world would have made me buy this travesty of a money-milker.

Sounds like a game crying out for a Hard difficulty mode. And a 6.

I still don't own one single game with the words 'Need For Speed' in the title.

I realise I'm in the minority, but I really enjoyed NFS Underground 2 but couldn't get along with last year's game at all.

Most Wanted hoiked out my three favourite race-types (Drift, Circuit and the lovely, lovely, ever-so-technical Street-X) and replaced them with the stupid police chases that were far too easy for the first half of the game and far too long and teeth-grindingly annoying for the second half. Plus, it lost Underground 2's replay mode, although I accept I might be the only human being on the planet who really cared about that.

More importantly, I'm not sure whether it was down to a change in the handling model, the track design or just my reflexes being another year older and slower, but the cars in Most Wanted felt as twitchy as Stephen Hawking on coke. Just getting them to go in a straight line was a challenge most of the time.

Anyway. I've got Outrun 2006 to fill the Arcadey-Racer-shaped gap in my life, now.

Race wars and pursuit knockout (or whatever it's called) are not 360 exclusive, they're in the PC version too. And whoever says there's not enough emphasis on cops needs their heads examined.

Why no Tiger Woods '07 review?

Dammit, this hollow crap is going to outsell good games like Gears of War and Kingdom Hearts II and deep games like Dirge of Cerberus. Damn you EA, stop ripping of your customers!

Morriss "Why no Tiger Woods '07 review?"

See Tiger Woods 06 review...

@CitizenGeek It really does make you worry about the future for gaming...

(after years of waiting nothing came
and as your life flashed before your eyes you realise
i'm a reasonable man)

Get off my case

10 years later and they STILL haven't worked out a way to put the virtual cockpits back in.

I've played the demo (on the PC)... and I'm really disappointed!
NFSMW was a good game. This, however, isn't.

7 is too high.

I've finished 50% of the full game in one day. And I'm also very disappointed. Difficulity is realy low, i've won all canyon duels in first try, and im not very good nfs drivers. Cop chases are exactly the same as in most wanted. Drive model is very easy, on most of the courses you dont even need to brake. Chase cameras are unplayable. This game is by far the worst NFS since they went into tunning. It is never 7/10 more like 5/10 compared to other ones. Still, if you borrow it from somewhere, youll have fun for couple of days.

Actually NFS:MW was a little to challenging for my taste. So if it gets a bit easier... good for me.

Hey I never even finished MW, those cop chases were too frustrating for me on later stages, but here your just crusing to victories. Actually on most races you dont even need to win, your crew members win counts for you.

Yep and in the demo of Carbon there was framerate issues, which also appears in the FULL game - poor showing EA....

Bring back NFS pursuit series, Road Rash and Desert series, now we're talking!

And here we have it - another lame, boring, unoriginal game churned out year after year by EA to pander to the mass market that is just so easily pleased. Why do people buy these games? Why does it get a decent score? Why doesn't it get a score it deserves - like 3 or 4 out of 10? I tried the demo, got bored after 2 minutes and deleted it, same old shit as usual, in fact worse by a mile than NFS Most Wanted and that wasn't all that great either.

EA it's time to actually do something creative with the NFS franchise, like try and recapture the magic of the early games or put the franchise to bed as all it appeals to now is your average boy racer with an IQ less than his age.

Sad

I've been playing NFS Carbon on the 360 since last Wednesday and I think it's very good. After the so-so demo with its iffy framerate I almost cancelled my pre-order but fortunately I decided to stick with it.

It's more like Underground 3 than Most Wanted 2 which is a shame but despite the fact that it is easy for the most part, I still found it great fun to play. The fast neon-lit races coupled with the amazing cutscenes really help keep this game exciting to play. Also the autosculpt, while being a cosmetic extra, is superbly done. Shame that the developers forget to include a replay mode for some inexplicable reason - you try and name a racing game besides NFS Most Wanted and Burnout 3 (both published by EA) without a replay mode. There abscense really is odd considering the customisation aspects of the game. Yes, you see your car briefly in the cutscenes but I'd love to be able to watch and save replays of some of the races.

The framerate doesn't seem as bad as in the demo, more notably the Drift races are not playable, but there is more than a few instances of judder when playing it (while cornering and in a few of the cutscenes). Still it's more consistent than Most Wanted and doesn't have any v-sync issues like that game so I'm happy with that.

Shame about the permanent night-time setting which makes most of the tracks look the same plus it might be my imagination but the size of the map and length of the Career mode seems smaller and shorter respectively than Most Wanted. Also the police chases ARE annoying; I've had them one out of three times while I've been playing and it's virtually impossible to get ahead of them despite you having a souped up nitro-boosted car. What is even more annoying is that my crew member, a scouter, was quite often the one leading the race (in fact, more often than not it was them that won the races for me!!!) yet the police conveniently ignored them.

Despite the flaws, the game is as fun as it always was but it's not quite as good as Most Wanted in terms of design.

The framerate is much better in the retail release than it is in the demo. It's significantly improved over Most Wanted's framerate.

mmm its chavtastic

The handling for me was atrocious, completed the demo, but it felt like i was using a digital pad rather than a joystick. It was easy to win, but no fun as there was no subtlety in the car handling...

Forget everything. Get Trackmania Sunrise Extreme - surely the most fun you will have on your PC - ALMOST. ;-)

Bought. Played. Unimpressed. Got bored towards 70% completion. NFS is dead, sad as it may be.

I didn't bother with Most Wanted but I found this similar to Underground 2, in that at about 70%-80% in, the difficulty curve goes vertical.

You get a spiffy car, you eventually fit it out with the best stuff, you start to be able to hit 210mph on fast bits, and then suddenly a point comes where most of the cars ram you at the start, while MAGIC Corvettes and Lamborghinis streak past you, gain an unassailable lead, catching up is nigh-on impossible, if you do you can't pass them because they unfailingly happen to find another 30mph in their back pockets, and you can't drive agressively and nudge them off the rails they're patently running on, and they basically win automatically.

Meanwhile the police can easily outpace your top-spec car in their saloons, and suddenly my 428cc V8 is incapable of bulling its way through them, as they all seem to be made of concrete. Either you wait for luck to rescue you, or you get busted because they keep spawning in front of you and you end up mobbed to death, concrete police cars in front of, behind, beside and usually on top of you, Blues Brothers style. How are you meant to escape that?

It's fun until that point, but after that it's just unplayable.