Electronic Arts decided that they needed to change up the equation a little and they attempted that with Need for Speed Carbon. Whether or not the change is the correct one is a different subject. There are many street racers out on the market nowadays that dilute the genre and make everything feel subnormal. EA is hoping that they can push their way through the crowd and become king of the racers once again. Sadly, Need for Speed: Carbon isn’t the answer to all their prayers.

The most desired mode of play that was missing from Need for Speed: Most Wanted happened to be the drifting mode. After taking a year off and tinkering with the mechanics, EA is ready to reintroduce the mode to the masses. Unfortunately the addition comes with a subtraction; EA has taken the police chases down a notch and decided to focus on team-based racing.

The story picks up right after Most Wanted left off. If you haven’t played Most Wanted, the protagonist leaves Rockport after recovering his coveted car that was stolen by Razor, the rival that put a fork in all the protagonist’s plans. Now as you enter your old stomping pad, Palmont City, Sgt. Cross from Most Wanted returns as a bounty hunter. Arriving back in Palmont City, you’ll meet up with old pals to reminisce with and, of course, a new rival to make things interesting.

Returning from Most Wanted are the FMV sequences with live actors. This is a love/hate decision since it was split right down the middle in terms of how people reacted to the FMV scenes. For me personally, I hate the decision. The FMV scenes are tacky and cheesy – it reminds me of Zelda on the Philips CD-I. With little to be said, they are back and I’m not digging it since it’s an unattractive method of replacing CGI. The actors try too hard and the actresses seem like porcelain dolls. When I quizzed the lead producer about Carbon’s FMV sequences, he stated that he wanted them to be a little cheesy. If that was the original plan, then it’s a job well done on EA’s part.

The idea of Carbon isn’t about escaping the police and raising your status on their black list; it’s now about battling rival gangs. The purpose of battling these ragtag groups of hoodlums is to gain control of their territory and expand your own. When you do gain control, you’ll be able to buy new parts for your cars and access to new racing events. There are four major territories that will be up for contention and within those territories are individual zones you’ll be competing in races to build up your control. The nice thing about battling for land is that the rival gangs will continuously try to win their zones back.

To help you gain control of these zones are wingmen. These wingmen come in the form of Blockers, Drafters, and Scouts. These wingmen all have unique assisting capabilities that will aide you to victory in the races. Blockers will ‘attack’ your opponents by trying to bump them off the road or spin them out of the control. Drafters will fly ahead and give you a slipstream to gain speed. Scouts will speed ahead to find shortcuts and different routes that you can take. These wingmen are useful, but if you are a hardcore Need for Speed fan, you won’t ever need these wingmen. Starting the game off, I happened to use wingmen in almost every race; later on though, I didn’t use them as often since they did get in the way a few times for me to complete a race.

For the most part, EA implemented the basic game modes that are found in every other street racing game. You’ll find circuit races, sprints, checkpoint races, and point-to-point races – all the normal fluff that you should come to expect with racing titles. EA did bring back drifting and there are speed-trap races, but for the most part, EA didn’t do anything special with their game modes. The goal of drifting is to rack up points by either going to the extremes on a canyon road or on a closed race course with not much danger at all. Drifting doesn’t handle like the normal gameplay, it’s looser and the cars will lose control much easier. If you have played Ridge Racer 6, you’ll see a few similarities.

Being able to jump to your safe-house by the menu is still a nice addition. I find it tedious to drive the distance of the map to head back to my garage.  You are also able to jump to the car dealers, new events and races, and several different locations at the touch of the button. If you like to drive and waste hours of just free roaming, you are still able to do that. Free roaming will elevate the game from about 10 hours of replay to about 12-13 which isn’t a bad thing. To unlock everything, it will take a little over 22 hours to do so.

Besides the career mode, EA has thrown in a challenge series where you compete in difficult races they have set up with requirements you have to meet. The online component is nowhere to be found on the Xbox version which is very ill-fated due to that the Xbox 360 version does have Xbox Live multiplayer. With the omission of multiplayer online, EA has only incorporated split-screen multiplayer for those who wish to duel with their friends.

Need for Speed: Carbon isn’t the improvement in the series I was hoping for. Drifting is fun at times, the career is entertaining, and the game modes are basically all there, though EA took the heart and soul of the multiplayer out of Need for Speed.

Gameplay: 7.5
Racing crew bosses are enjoyable since they take place in the canyons which is what I thought Carbon was going to be all about. For the most part, the setting takes place in urban environments and the canyon races are not what they were hyped up to be. The duels in the canyon are the best part of Carbon, but you’ll see little of them in the career outside of the boss battles. The police encounters are disappointing since you’ll be only seeing them a few times throughout the story, which is awkward since Most Wanted made them a heavily favored trait of the NFS series.

Graphics: 8.0
The AutoSculpt system in Carbon is a brand new feature where you can fully customize your cars to your own liking. Creating the impossible hasn’t been easier, but making the impossible look good is tough. The environments are varied with much of the level design borrowing locales of Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Las Vegas. The vehicles aren’t a huge leap over in graphics compared to what Most Wanted featured.

Sound: 7.5
The soundtrack is all licensed rock and hip-hop music you probably have heard before. There is, of course, police chatter to try and make the world seem alive in Palmont City. I suggest just using your own music from your Xbox to create a more exciting session of playing Carbon.

Difficulty: Easy/Medium
Veterans of Need for Speed will find themselves right at home with Carbon. The drifting is difficult to jump right into since it’s a change of scenery from all other portions of the game.

Concept: 7.5
They tried to shake up the mechanics a little, but didn’t risk too much in terms of innovation. This is a run-of-the-mill street racer that felt little bare bones in my mind. It could have been for the fact that they took the multiplayer right out of the game basically. They did beef up the customization options which will open up many eyes of those who didn’t like the limited options in Most Wanted.

Multiplayer: 4.5
No Xbox Live? Who made that decision?

Overall: 7.2
If you want to play the real Need for Speed Carbon, pick up the Xbox 360 version. I suggest skipping the Xbox and PS2 iterations of the title and head straight to the Xbox 360 version since the Xbox 360 is the only console right now with online capabilities. With more than 30 licensed cars, car enthusiasts will still find a reason to pick up Carbon one way or another though.