Just because a game is advertised more than anything else, it does not make it a great game.
In the Career mode, have to race in Palmont City while taking over the parts of land that you win two or three races on. For me, this is a brilliant idea, except there is not enough land to race on or races to win. The game should be much longer. In Need For Speed: Most Wanted, the average sprint or circuit races was around seven to eight miles long. In Need For Speed Carbon, they are around three or four miles long. In NFS: Most Wanted, there are about six or seven races per blacklist racer and there are fifteen blacklist racers and you need to complete milestones and rack up bounty, while in NFS Carbon, there are two or three races per piece of land and about twenty pieces of land and bounty and milestones mean absolutely nothing. It is so annoying.
However, one thing I do like is the choice of cars and their category. I love the fact that there is three categories: exotic, muscle and tuner. One of the reasons that I wanted the game was because I heard that there was going to be a Koenigsegg available. This amazed me: that would be the fastest road car ever to be made on a racing game. But... I have not managed to unlock it yet. Can anyone mail it to me? Thanks.
As this is a new game, new things have been added such as the crew members. I love this idea too and, although it did not work for other people, it did for me. I advise anyone starting the game to use the drafters because they are the only ones who can improve your performance as an individual racer. If the next game is going to include the same type of crew members, I would expect more than on this game and more ideas of how they can help you in a race. There is also a lot more to choose from when it comes to customising, this time you can actually set you (e.g.) engine to more torque or horsepower and things like that to improve handling, top speed and acceleration. You can also customise ready made body parts to make them look how you want and a wide range of vinyls have been added as well. There are other modes available such as quick race for one or two players and challenge series, which can be used to unlock more cars and customisations. Gameplay has not changed much since Most Wanted bust graphics, I feel, has become worse. EA were obviously not concentrating on the PS2 version of this game. I like the music EA have chosen but it is not good value for money - it is way too short.
I am probably one of the biggest fans of the NFS series - I have bought every game since Need For Speed 2 on the PS1 including V-Rally and there have been some dissapointments and Need For Speed Carbon is undoubtably one of them. Don't get me worng, it is a good game, but I would expect better from EA.
Thanks for reading, Jem.