GamersInfo.net

I am a fan of racing games, and enjoy the quick paced action and great life-like simulations that many of the companies have been producing over the past few years. The graphics were the first part of the game to catch my attention. I am still amazed at how the picture quality and sharpness continues to improve on the first generation Xbox. The actors continue to look as close to real-life video and cars and their surroundings blend in as if you were driving the streets of your nearest metropolitan at night. Watching the moon shift in the night sky as you change directions on the road and rain pouring on your windshield, just made the walls of my basement disappear into a street tough city. The three types of cars, Tuners, Muscle and Exotic give the player who really likes to be involved in the game to take part in the game. Many upgrades are available as you make money through winning races and customizing your car can be a blast (though will make getting through the game considerably longer). What was also enjoyable about playing Carbon was its unequaled soundtrack. Yes, I would like to talk about the music. For my first time playing games with soundtracks, I really liked most of the music played on my car stereo. It actually added to the excitement and I found myself not turning off the soundtrack.

Controls of Carbon were easy to use and master. There was not much of a learning curve to the game as the controls seemed to be set up like most racing games. This made getting involved in the action immediate, which helped me get immersed quicker and a reason I found the game more enjoyable than others. Though this is a video game and not a true simulation, I did enjoy how the cars preformed and felt when driving, and what is nice is, you can push these cars to the limit and know you are coming back from some head on collisions. The game's intelligence was not as high as I expected when I began playing. As you move through the many different race challenges the races do get harder, especially with the bosses, but it wasn’t difficult to win many of the races or challenges before this. This, I believe is a good thing because the City of Palmont is big, with many different crews vying for turf.

The story of the game is that you are a driver coming back to Palmont City to regain the life you left behind. Get back your street cred, get back the girl and make happy with everyone around you. As you and your crew go around challenging, or being challenged by, rival racers you have the opportunity to make money to upgrade existing cars or buying brand new ones. As you race though, you need to be careful, because as in real life the cops are always around, looking to bust illegal road racing. What makes this easier than real-life though, is the police do not have helicopters, so evading the fuzz is possible and necessary to keep the cars you own. You can use your crew in different ways as well, as they give you different rewards in winning races and also act as wingmen to help win races. Some drivers are blockers who take out other racers while others are scouts that find side roads to take you through a course quicker. Finally a drafter (which I really never used) is the third type of teammate there to help you win over the many territories in Palmont City. Also, two types of racing come into play as drifting begins to hit the mainstream of video games. Tuning your car to these types of races helps in winning as you race down winding canyon roads. Many different roads and areas leave the racer with many different looks of the road.

I found Need for Speed Carbon to be extremely entertaining. I was caught up in the story line immediately and loved the graphics and sounds as well. The game has many features and races to give the gamer numerous hours of game time. This is a game you can continually go back to and enjoy (as a matter of fact, one person I talked to already finished the game 4 times). Definitely worth spending that holiday gift certificate on that your Aunt delivered to you over the holidays.