Need for Speed Carbon (Wii, 2006)

After rebooting the franchise with Need for Speed Underground, EA has continued to produce some solid street racers under the Need for Speed banner. Last year's Need for Speed Most Wanted, which featured hilariously over-the-top live-action cutscenes and seriously tense police pursuits, proved to be a high watermark for the franchise. Now it's being followed up by Need for Speed Carbon, which downplays the role of the police chases, introduces some simple team-racing mechanics, and occasionally takes the action off the city streets and into the outlying canyons. The new gameplay doesn't always improve the experience, but the racing can still be quite intense and still has a pronounced sense of style.
Carbon continues the story where Most Wanted left off. For those just tuning in, Most Wanted ended with you recovering your stolen car and bailing out of the city of Rockport while the overzealous, anti-street-racing Sgt. Cross continued his pursuit. At the start of Carbon, you're making your way to Palmont City when Cross, now a bounty hunter, catches up with you and totals your car during the chase. Before he can collect his bounty on you, though, your old friend Darius steps in and pays off Cross. You are then put to work, taking over the turf of the other rival street-racing crews in Palmont City. It seems that you've got a history in this town that predates the events in Most Wanted. And during the course of the game, you'll learn more about that fateful night you skipped town. Different characters will give their takes on the night you supposedly ran off with a big red duffle bag full of cash. And by the end of the game, you'll not only find out what really happened, but you'll have taken over all of the street-racing territory in Palmont City.

Outside of the actual gameplay, one of the more endearing aspects of Most Wanted was the way it used live actors in CG environments for its story sequences. These sequences invariably featured plenty of actor/model types, trying a little too hard to talk tough and failing spectacularly at it. The technique remains the same in Carbon, though there are more story sequences now and a slightly more self-aware tone. The heavy use of flashbacks is an interesting idea, but the story ends up being kind of muddled. And none of the villains come off as particularly menacing. Although it's hard to really qualify any of it as sincerely good, it's just over-the-top enough that folks who enjoy stuff like The Fast and the Furious, ironically or otherwise, should get some enjoyment out of it.

Most Wanted had you racing to raise your visibility with the police and take on the most notorious street racers in Rockport. In Carbon, it's all about turf. Palmont City is divided into four major territories, each of which is predominantly controlled by a different street-racing crew. Each territory is then further divided into zones, and within each zone, you'll find starting points for a variety of different race events. Winning at least two events in a zone will put it under your control. And once you've taken over all the zones in a given territory, you can take on the head of that crew. As you continue to extend your reach across Palmont City, rival crews will come back and try to retake territory the same way you took it from them, forcing you to accept their challenge if you want to maintain control. Having to go back and rerace events that you've already won is kind of a pain, but the open-world structure is n

Another Need For Speed game whoop dee doo.Excuse my language but that's all you're going to get out of me with this game.This game is great. . .yeah right not on this system anyways.The driving feels very unreal,it's more like playing one of those v tech games for kids and just stare at the screen hoping for some real action.The control buttons are way to complicated for this system for example,to actually use the nitrous I had to press up on the directional pad.For my E-brake I had to press left on the directional pad.Gee whiz,and to just use my normal brakes I had to stretch my thumb over button 2 while still holding button 1 for gas.Ha give this to a kid?Yeah right,he'll be swerving out of control trying to figure out how to use this fancy Wiimote.If you're looking for a racing game more realistic this is not it.You'll be so frustrated with the control of the game and how clunky the button functions are.The graphics aren't that bad looking.I wouldn't know if they were trying to make the people look like real people,or still animated.Oh well,guess I'll never know.Please do yourself a favor and wait until they make a pure street racing game for this system only,or else your going to slap yourself trying to figure out the new way of racing and never winning.

This is a great game. I've seen some reviews that complained once again about the Wii controls. There not for everyone especially if SONY has their name tattooed across your forehead. I love Wii. Some games - this is one - are just better when you feel like you're in control. Not just moving your thumbs. Steering does take a bit to learn. You want to oversteer when it's not necessary. I thought about it and it's like a real car. You don't crank the wheel just to make a sharp turn, it's a gradual thing. Just a lot of fun and the police chases rock.

I have this game for my PC and the PC version is just plain...better. The only reason why you'd buy the Wii version is to use the motion sensor Wii-mote. But the controls are iffy, drifting is a bit awkward and just driving around is makes you just crave for a d-pad. I'm a racing game fan and I really loved this game, I think it was the best of the new NFS series. Pro Street...avoid, just...avoid. Overall, for a Wii title, this game is like the half of the title on the Wii, adapted to play on the Wii, not made for the Wii, so it's just average at the end.

I was a bit worried about getting NFSC for Wii after reading various reviews and getting the impression that there aren't really any good racing sims for the Wii. Wrong. Need for Speed: Carbon for Wii is pretty cool.

Some of you "professional" virtual racers might not find it very challenging. For ordinary folks like me, however, I think that once you find a good control setup and get used to it, the cars in this game can be a heckuva lotta fun to drive.

One thing I don't like are a few minor bugs: rare but annoying screen or sound freezes. Fortunately, the game will autosave your progress before the lockup so go ahead and hold the power button in for five or ten seconds to reboot. UPDATE: I think using cheat codes might corrupt the game save file. Saving a few times without entering any more cheat codes seems to fix the file.

For a control config, I ended up twisting the nunchuck for steering and tilting the Wii remote up and down for brake/throttle. It takes a little while to get used to but works well. Using the nunchuck joystick allows steering that's more precise, with less feeling of lag or rubberiness, but for me the joystick is too small and slippery for intense driving.

Overall, I find that NFS Carbon for Wii gives me lots of things to do: lots of cars, lots of cool upgrade appearance and performance parts, and lots of races too. It is true that all the scenery is pretty much the same. No matter where in the city you drive, you see the same downtown, suburban, and industrial details. Still, the driving is fun, control is good, sensation of speed is pretty good (IMO), and the cut-scenes are entertaining in a slightly lame sort of way.

At 10 to 20 bucks used, you get a pretty decent driving sim with NFS Carbon. TIP: once you start playing, ask someone to remind you to take a bathroom break. Yeah, I do get that involved in this game.