Need for Speed Carbon:
The player drives on a route to Palmont City, when a flashback of what seems to be a race against Kenji, Angie, and Wolf comes to the player's mind. A police incident at the end of the race forces the player to make a hasty escape from Palmont. In present day, former Police Sergeant, now turned bounty hunter, Cross (Played by Dean McKenzie) in his Chevrolet Corvette, chases the player down the canyon [5] leading to his BMW M3 GTR that he reclaimed from Razor in Need for Speed: Most Wanted being wrecked. Shortly before Cross can arrest the player, Darius (Played by Tahmoh Penikett) and his crew arrive. Darius pays off Cross, and the player meets up with Nikki (Played by Emmanuelle Vaugier), a former girlfriend, on bad terms.Darius tells the player with the help of Nikki to clean up his image by beating the rival racing crews to gain territory and to reclaim his reputation as a respected street racer in Palmont. Winning races one by one, the player acquires territories and ultimately districts from Kenji (Downtown), Angie (Kempton), and Wolf (Fortuna). After beating each racer, the player meets up with a former member of that racer's crew, who want to join the player's crew and reveal their observations regarding the night the player took off from Palmont.[6]
Owning all three districts, Darius asks the player to meet up with him. He reveals he was just using the player all along to get more territory and had set up an ambush with Cross to have him arrested. When Darius leaves, the player, on the brink of being arrested by Cross, is saved by Nikki who tells him that she now realizes everything that happened months ago after piecing together her view of the night and the viewpoints of the other racers.[7] Realizing that Darius was ultimately liable for the player's fall that fateful night, Nikki sides with the player and leaves Darius. Meanwhile, Darius hires the 3 previous bosses (Kenji, Angie, and Wolf) into his new crew, Stacked Deck. The Player then attempts to conquer Silverton, and oust Darius and his Stacked Deck crew, to clean up the player's reputation once and for all.[8]
Winning races against Stacked Deck, the player gets his chance to beat Darius for control of Palmont. At the end of the game, Darius surrenders his Audi Le Mans Quattro to the Player with the addition of Nikki once again becoming the players girlfriend. But not without Darius first telling the Player, "enjoy it while it lasts, there's always someone out there who's a little faster than you are, and sooner or later they're gonna catch up..." before departing Palmont.[9]
An arcade version of the same name was released by EA Arcades in 2008.
Gameplay
The gameplay is based upon rival street racing crews. Players run a crew and can hire specific street racers to be in their crew and the active friendly racer is known as a wingman. Each hirable street racer has two skills, one which is a racing skill (scout, blocker, and drafter) and a non-race skill (fixer, mechanic, and fabricator). Each skill has different properties from finding hidden alleys/back streets (shortcuts) to reducing police attention. Cars driven by the wingmen are also different; blockers drive muscles, drafters drive exotics and scouts drive tuners (although the first two unlockable wingmen (Neville and Sal) drive cars according to the player's chosen car class at the start of the game). In career mode, players have to race tracks and win to conquer territories and face off against bosses to conquer districts.Unlike Need for Speed: Most Wanted and Underground, Carbon had no drag racing. However, Carbon features the return of drift racing, a mode that had been included in two previous installments Need For Speed: Underground and Underground 2, but omitted from Carbon's predecessor, Most Wanted; and new style of event, Canyon Event, based on Japanese Touge races. There are four types of Canyon Events: Canyon Duel, Canyon Sprint, Canyon Checkpoint and Canyon Drift. A special point to note is that Lap Knockout race events are omitted, compared to previous installments. Tollbooth racing from Most Wanted was renamed to "Checkpoint" racing in Carbon.
Players can upload in-game screenshots to the Need for Speed website, complete with stats and modifications. NFS Carbon was the first NFS game to feature online exclusive game modes. The Pursuit Knockout and Pursuit Tag game modes are modes that allow the player to play as either a racer or a cop. Pursuit Knockout is essentially a lap knockout with a twist. The racers that are knocked out of the race come back as cops and it’s their job to try to stop the other racers from finishing the race through any means necessary. The player that finishes the race wins. Pursuit Tag begins with one player as a racer and the rest of the players as cops. It is the cops' job to arrest the racer. The cop that makes the arrest then turns into a racer and has to try to avoid the cops. The player who spends the most time as a racer wins.
Need For Speed Carbon System Requirements:
OS: Windows 2000 SP4 / Windows XP SP2
CPU: 1.7 GHz
RAM: 512 MB RAM
Hard Disk: 4.7 GB
Optical Drive: 8x DVD/CD
Video Card: 64 MB memory and one of these chipsets is required: NVIDIA GeForce3 / NVIDIA GeForce4 (Ti series only) / ATI Radeon 8500.
Sound Card: DirectX compatible sound card
DirectX: Version 9.0c
Online Multiplayer: 512 Kbps connection; 2-8 Players
Input: Keyboard, Mouse
Optional: USB Steering Wheel / Dual Analogue Gamepad
screenshots:
