Pros: Large variety of cars, Autosculpt, good racing options, nice extras such as photo mode.
Cons: Poor audio.
The bottom line: Need for Speed Carbon for the Xbox 360 is a clear winner over its counterparts for different consoles. You'll love speeding away in customized, slick cars.
Electronic Art’s Need for Speed series has produced stunning titles in the past. With last year’s Most Wanted, EA introduced some cool features. With Need for Speed Carbon, EA further pushes those features and adds some additional ones as well. Its overall feel is similar to the title for both the Playstation 3 and the PC. If you’ve played Carbon on any of those platforms, then you won’t be in for much of a surprise, except for some minor adjustments and bonus extras. Car racing is done with style in Need for Speed Carbon.

Storyline

Need for Speed Carbon picks up where Most Wanted left off. After leaving Rockport, the player finds out that he was tricked and decides to race his way back to the top. However, he’s informed that the city is a much different place now than it was back then. Four major crews now control the city of Palmont. It’s up to the player to win everyone back from the man who betrayed him back in Rockport.

Gameplay

Need for Speed Carbon is primarily a racing game that features a career mode, in which players race to win territory from the already established crews of Palmont. Each crew controls a District of the city and players will have to show their skill in order to win over control. Rest assured that there is still plenty to do after you’ve gained the territories. Minor crews around the city will challenge you to defense races once in a while. Note that players are allowed to retry any of the races that they fail.

Need for Speed Carbon comes back with plenty of the same modes from Most Wanted. The race choices now include the familiar speedtrap, drift, and normal race. Newly added is the canyon race mode, in which players will have to compete on a long, winding cliff that has areas that have no barrier to the track. This was extremely cool because if players push their cars too hard on a turn, they would fall off the cliff and end the race. The canyon races are primarily only available during the boss race however. Players will have to beat one of the four bosses in a canyon duel in order to win territory and eliminate the boss’ crew. I would have liked to see this race mode featured more in races throughout the game. Sadly though, this feature is not seen outside the boss races.

Cops are still hanging around looking to apprehend suspicious drivers. However, the cops are much more of background figures. They won’t appear too often in game and certainly, the evasion runs (in Most Wanted) are not as frequently seen. However, players will still have to contend with the Cop Heat feature, which shows the amount of attention the police will give to once particular area on the map. I found this renovated cop feature to be more fun, as it shifted the focus of the game to actual racing instead of cop dodging.

Players will be able to recruit other racers to join their racing crew. Players will be allowed to choose three crew members at most. One of these crew members will be able to join you in races as your wingman. Wingmen in Need for Speed Carbon come in three types: Brawlers, Scouts and Drafters. I found the wingmen to be helpful only in the beginning of the career mode. Their abilities are seriously needed for beginners in the game as they offer some advantages. Brawlers will attempt to slam and slow down opponents; Scouts will reveal shortcuts in the racing route; Drafters will give extra speed if you’re in line with them for a certain period of time. After a certain amount of experience, players will find that they’ll be easily able to win races even without the help of these wingmen, if they are good drivers.

The actual racing in Need for Speed Carbon is very fun and entertaining. The courses are diverse and unique with a sharp turn here and there. The racing will take part during the light, which was a plus. The dimly lit environment added to the tension while racing, making the entire experience feel more exhilarating.

Cars in Need for Speed Carbon come in three types: Muscles, Tuners, and Exotics. Each with their own configurations, players will be able to choose the car of their own preference. There is a large variety of cars available to choose from and players will be able to unlock rare cars by completing certain milestones in the game.

In regards to customization of cars, Need for Speed Carbon offers tons of tuning packages and also the Autosculpt feature, which allows players to customize various portions of their car to no limit. This was a fun tool to use because the resulting cars had unique designs that players will probably never see elsewhere.

Need for Speed Carbon for the Xbox 360 includes a photo mode that allows players to take snapshots while racing. The photo mode supports zoom and camera angle changes, allowing players to take snapshots from different perspectives. Players will also be able to upload photos of customized vehicles for other players to see online.

Graphics

I found Need for Speed Carbon to be visually pleasing. Its visual quality matches the quality of the same game on Playstation 3. Graphics are stunning and realistic.

Sound

The audio in game was slightly irritating. I turned off the music because it started to sound repetitive within a few races time.

Controls

The controls are easy to pick up. I estimate the learning curve to be less than ten minutes. All the controls are customizable to suit the player’s wishes and needs. The Xbox 360 has a fun controller rumble when muscle cars slam into other vehicles. This is a very fun feature and gives a lot of extra oomph to the racing experience.

Online Play

Players will be able to duel other racers online with Xbox Live. Besides the modes offered offline, there are some online modes such as deathmatch and more. I found the online feature to be interesting after the offline game lost its attraction. It was simply more fun to show off my driving skills to other players than demolish the AI.

Final Thoughts

Need for Speed Carbon for Xbox 360 is a strong street racing simulator. With a large variety of highly customizable cars and interesting racing modes, it will not disappoint Need for Speed fans of the past. The Xbox 360 version surpasses it counterparts for the Playstation 3 and PC. If you’re having to choose between buying this between these consoles, then the Xbox 360 version is clearly leading the pack.