Need for Speed Carbon

What starts in the city is settled in the canyons as Need for Speed Carbon immerses you into the world's most dangerous and adrenaline-filled form of street racing. You and your crew must race in an all-out war for the city, risking everything to take over your rivals' neighborhoods one block at a time. As the police turn up the heat, the battle ultimately shifts to Carbon Canyon, where territories and reputations can be lost on every perilous curve. Need for Speed Carbon delivers the next generation of customization giving you the power to design and tweak your crew's cars in every way using the ground-breaking new Autosculpt technology. Represent your car class, your crew, and your turf in Need for Speed Carbon, the next revolution in racing games.

The story this time around is unfortunately washed out and disappointing in this year's rendition of the NFS series. Following from the events surrounding the end of last year's Need for Speed: Most Wanted, you return as the unnamed/unidentified racer who has wandered his way back into a city where he obviously has some bad history and isn't very well liked. Right into the story, you find a returning character from Rockport (the city in Most Wanted) who helps add some familiarity to the title for those who played the last one, but also unfortunately adds little to the story development and progression. It's surprising that players will span almost the entire length of the Career mode without knowing what's clearly going on in the game's seemingly non-existent plot. In other titles in the series, EA has managed to fill in a decent storyline to compliment a genre where it's often hard to do so, but this time came up short. Fans of Most Wanted will find it a turn off this time around as the narrative is much less engaging and appears to be more than an afterthought.

Also returning from last year's rendition are the FMV-based cutscenes that drive the story. This year's belle is played by Emmanuelle Vaugier, who adds a surprisingly more down to earth face, but unfortunately falls victim to shallow character design and story. The FMV sequences themselves remain beautifully crafted and characters are much less stereotypical and "cheesey" this time around, but odd dialog and a storyline villan that lacks flair and tenacity of last year's fan favorite Razor. The dialog is much slower this time around and leaves a bland taste in your mouth, and remains barely enough to help drive the narrative.