Need for speed carbon ps3 review: Need for Speed Carbon for PlayStation 3 Reviews

Need for Speed Carbon Review

Even though the wingman mechanics and canyon races don’t quite pan out, it’s still a stylish and enjoyable street racer.

By
Ryan Davis
on December 6, 2006 at 11:05AM PST

After rebooting the franchise with Need for Speed Underground, EA has continued to produce some solid street racers under the Need for Speed banner. Last year’s Need for Speed Most Wanted, which featured hilariously over-the-top live-action cutscenes and seriously tense police pursuits, proved to be a high watermark for the franchise. Now it’s being followed up by Need for Speed Carbon, which downplays the role of the police chases, introduces some simple team-racing mechanics, and occasionally takes the action off the city streets and into the outlying canyons. The new gameplay doesn’t always improve the experience, but the racing can still be quite intense and still has a pronounced sense of style.

That guy from Battlestar Galactica isn’t much of a Razor Callahan substitute.

Carbon continues the story where Most Wanted left off. For those just tuning in, Most Wanted ended with you recovering your stolen car and bailing out of the city of Rockport while the overzealous, anti-street-racing Sgt. Cross continued his pursuit. At the start of Carbon, you’re making your way to Palmont City when Cross, now a bounty hunter, catches up with you and totals your car during the chase. Before he can collect his bounty on you, though, your old friend Darius steps in and pays off Cross. You are then put to work, taking over the turf of the other rival street-racing crews in Palmont City. It seems that you’ve got a history in this town that predates the events in Most Wanted. During the course of the game, you’ll learn more about that fateful night you skipped town. Different characters will give their takes on the night you supposedly ran off with a big red duffle bag full of cash. By the end of the game, you’ll not only find out what really happened, but you’ll have taken over all of the street-racing territory in Palmont City.

Outside of the actual gameplay, one of the more endearing aspects of Most Wanted was the way it used live actors in CG environments for its story sequences. These sequences invariably featured plenty of actor/model types, trying a little too hard to talk tough and failing spectacularly at it. The technique remains the same in Carbon, though there are more story sequences now and a slightly more self-aware tone. The heavy use of flashbacks is an interesting idea, but the story ends up being kind of muddled. None of the villains come off as particularly menacing. Although it’s hard to really qualify any of it as sincerely good, it’s just over-the-top enough that folks who enjoy stuff like The Fast and the Furious, ironically or otherwise, should get some enjoyment out of it.

Most Wanted had you racing to raise your visibility with the police and take on the most notorious street racers in Rockport. In Carbon, it’s all about turf. Palmont City is divided into four major territories, each of which is predominantly controlled by a different street-racing crew. Each territory is then further divided into zones, and within each zone, you’ll find starting points for a variety of different race events. Winning at least two events in a zone will put it under your control. And once you’ve taken over all the zones in a given territory, you can take on the head of that crew. As you continue to extend your reach across Palmont City, rival crews will come back and try to retake territory the same way you took it from them, forcing you to accept their challenge if you want to maintain control. Having to go back and re-race events that you’ve already won is kind of a pain, but the open world structure is nice and gives you plenty of options to take on races at any given point.

However, you won’t be taking on all of these crews by yourself because Carbon lets you bring along a wingman into many of the races. These computer-controlled companions break down into three different behavior types—blockers, drafters, and scouts. Blockers will run interference for you, spinning out opponents at your command. Drafters let you slipstream behind them, giving you some extra speed from the reduced drag, and from there you can pull aside and slingshot your way past them. Scouts have a knack for finding the many alternate routes and shortcuts that can be found in most races, and they have short neon tracers that follow them, making it easier for you to take advantage. You’ll definitely find yourself in races where your wingman’s influence is the difference between winning and losing. But often, your wingman’s presence is either unnecessary or an actual hindrance. Blockers are only really effective in taking out competitors that are behind you, and even then, they’re not very reliable. Drafters work as advertised, but the lengthy straightaway needed to set up a proper draft is rare in Palmont City, which limits their usefulness. Scouts are the least useful of the three because the neon tracers don’t seem to get longer as the cars you drive go faster, and eventually, there’s just not enough time for you to anticipate an alternate route. If you didn’t call on your wingman, you might expect him or her to just hang back. But we found ourselves getting bumped into and boxed in by our wingman on several occasions. It’s not ruinous to the experience, but sometimes it makes you wish they would just go away. Canyon duels are challenging, but their repetitious structure can sometimes make them wearying.

The game relies on some pretty tried-and-true types of races, but it also throws some curves. You’ll find plenty of common stuff, such as lap-based circuit races, point-to-point sprints, and checkpoint races. But there are also some unique races, such as the speed-trap race, where your standing is determined by your cumulative MPH as you race through a series of speed traps. Most races take place on the city streets of Palmont, but there are also drift events, which can take place either on a closed race course or on the winding canyon roads that surround the city. The goal in the drift events is to score points by making clean drifts around corners. The car handling changes completely for the drift events and feels much more slippery than in the rest of the game, which recalls the drift events found in Need for Speed Underground 2.

You’ll also face off with the different crew bosses in the canyons, and these events may test your patience. Once you’ve taken enough turf for a crew boss to challenge you, you’ll first race against him in a standard city-street event. If you beat him there, you’ll advance to one of the game’s canyon courses, which are narrow and undulating. Here it’s a two-part race, where you’ll first have to chase the boss through a point-to-point race, and then reverse roles for the second part. Your score on the first half is based on how close you stay to your rival; then in the second half, your rival tries to outdo you. These events can be quite challenging because the courses are technically complicated, and the crew bosses tend to be better, more aggressive drivers than the average street racers. There are also a number of ways in which you can instantly fail. If, during the second race, your opponent manages to get ahead of you for more than 10 seconds, you automatically lose. But on the flipside, if you can get ahead of your opponent for more than 10 seconds in the first race, you automatically win both races. Also, each course is absolutely rife with cliffs. This means that if you take a corner at the wrong angle or speed, you can launch your car off of a cliff, immediately ending the race. All of these elements can make for a tough but fair race. However, failure takes you back to the first half of the canyon duel, even if you failed during the second half. It’s kind of a minor point, but it’s one that can turn a canyon duel into a real chore.

The structure of the canyon duels can be frustrating, but the way Carbon marginalizes the police chases that were so instrumental to the success of Most Wanted is even more disappointing. The cops still play a factor because each zone has its own heat rating that increases the more you race there. The higher the heat, the more likely it is that cops will start coming after you. While Most Wanted had you purposely baiting the cops, as well as attempting to wrack up huge property damages and lengthy pursuits to advance the story, there’s little reason in Carbon for you to attract the attention of the law. With the ability to hop directly to any race event through the world map, it’s possible and quite easy for you to go through the entire story mode where you can count the number of police encounters on one hand.

Carbon features an eclectic selection of more than 30 unique licensed cars.

Structural imperfections aside, the core driving in Carbon is really solid. There’s a great selection of licensed real-world cars that you can purchase throughout the course of the game, which are sorted into three different groups—tuners, muscles, and exotics. And you’ll find that each group handles differently. In the tuner group, you’ll find a lot of souped-up Japanese sports coups, like the Nissan Skyline, Subaru Impreza WRX, and Toyota Supra. And the strength of these cars tends to be an ability to slide around corners. Muscle cars are all Detroit steel, including new stuff like the Chrysler 300 and the Dodge Challenger Concept. They also include early 1970s classics, like a Chevy Camaro SS and a Plymouth Barracuda. And though they’ve got great acceleration in a straightaway, they’re pretty loose in the corners. The exotics group is probably the most varied, with high-end offerings from Mercedes, Porsche, Alfa Romero, Lamborghini, and more. These cars also tend to demand a higher level of skill to use them correctly.

You can buy cars from dealerships or you can win them from crew bosses. And once you get them, there are all kinds of upgrades that you can apply to them. There are tiered performance upgrades, as well as a rainbow of paint colors, dozens of vinyl stickers, aftermarket rims, spoilers, and body kits. You can also fabricate your own body parts with the game’s autosculpt system, which is oddly reminiscent of the Game Face feature in EA Sports’ Tiger Woods PGA Tour games. It’s a novel idea and great for making some really physically impossible-looking parts. But it takes too much incremental tweaking of settings to get something unique. And there’s such a wide variety of prefab aftermarket parts that don’t require all that toil, which means only the truly obsessed will get much out of the autosculpting.

If you keep your eye on the prize, you can see the credits roll in Carbon’s career mode in well under 10 hours. But if you want to beat every event, as well as unlock every last car and upgrade, you can just as easily spend 20 hours. And there’s even more racing to be done outside the career mode. There are 36 increasingly difficult races to take on in the challenge series, and the quick-race option lets you jump into something—no strings attached. Like the Xbox 360 version, Carbon on the PS3 provides a pretty solid online multiplayer component, where up to eight players can participate in all of the race types found in the career mode, as well as multiplayer-exclusive modes, where players get to play as both cops and street racers. The rules in some of these modes aren’t explained very well, which can make for some pretty confusing moments. But once you get past the learning curve, you can have some good, team-based fun. We also experienced some minor but pervasive latency issues, even when we were nowhere near the eight player limit, as well as an odd bug where all in-game sound would drop out for the duration of a race. It’s kind of flawed, but again, the actual feel of the racing still translates pretty well online. And an online experience system where you can unlock additional cars helps make it a little more interesting.

With Palmont City apparently living in eternal night, the game’s feel recalls the Need for Speed Underground games, though the scenery changes in Carbon are much more varied. There’s a distinct West Coast feel to Palmont City, and you’ll find yourself in districts that recall the more posh parts of Los Angeles and Las Vegas. As different as it feels from the city of Rockport in Need for Speed Most Wanted, keen eyes and ears will notice a lot of recycled elements here. Vehicles, environmental objects, textures, and a lot of the sound elements have been cut and pasted into Carbon, making for some odd déjà vu. In some cases, it’s a good thing because the squeal of the tires and the growl of various car engines still sound great. But hearing the same police radio chatter in Palmont City that you did in Rockport is just weird. There’s some familiar, dramatic music in Carbon as well. Although it’s odd how poorly the game uses what is actually an interesting licensed soundtrack of rock, electro, hip-hop, and grime. You just won’t hear much of it because the game seems to prefer its own music most of the time. The missing online component in the PS2 and Xbox versions makes the 360 version an obvious favorite.

Need for Speed Carbon on the PlayStation 3 looks roughly comparable to its Xbox 360 counterpart—which is to say it looks really good, with some heavy-motion blur around the edges of the screen, lots of good-looking bump mapping, and slick lighting and reflection effects. There are a few subtle differences, most of which the PlayStation 3 version comes up on the short end of. The PS3 seems to have more jagged, aliased edges, and a framerate that is a little more stuttery. The soft glow and motion-blur effects do look better on the PS3 version, though there’s times that it’s laid on a bit too thick.

Ultimately, Need for Speed Carbon doesn’t make the best use of some of the strengths from Need for Speed Most Wanted. Many of the changes made to the Most Wanted formula seem to be for the sake of change, but it all still just comes back to the solid driving action, which Need for Speed Carbon puts to good use.

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Need for Speed Carbon — PS3 — Review

Need
for Speed Carbon is this fall’s entry in EA’s long-running racing franchise, and
it takes the race back to the city streets. More of an evolution than a
reinvention of the series, Carbon carries on the feel of the Underground games
released a few years ago, emphasizing city-street racing and tuning. Carbon also
adds some new concepts to the formula, some that work and some that don’t.
However, all things considered, NFS Carbon is a solid entry that brings some
great ideas and concepts to the series and would be a worthy addition to your
fledging PS3 library if you’re a fan of the series or racing games in general.

Need
for Speed’s storyline is told completely through stylized involving real human
actors done in front of a green screen. The highly stylized look is reminiscent
of films like Sin-City, and generally fit in with the feel of the game’s
graphical presentation. The gist of the storyline involves your character
returning to the city after a long absence in order to settle some scores and
regain your respect after some shady events culminated in your departure,
leaving a lot of people suspicious of you.

You
play the game in order to regain your personal respect one territory at a time.
You regain sections of the map by completing races of several varieties. Each
section of the map is composed of three or so races, and once you beat those
races you’ll gain special unlockables, like special car customizations.

Once
you beat enough sections, you’ll gain the opportunity to do a boss battle where
you race against the leader of the gang that controls the territory. If you beat
him or her, you’ll gain control of the territory. There are a total of four territories to
take over.

In
Carbon, you’ll also have access to some extra help. Your wingmen will help you a
lot in your races, as they’ll be able to block opponents for you, help you draft
and slingshot past your competition or scout out shortcuts that you can take.
While the blockers are generally the most useful, the other two categories
aren’t so helpful. Drafting is essentially a bust, since you never will find a
section long enough for you to gain enough speed to actually make it go in your
favor, and scouts are pretty much only a real help if they’re in front of you.

Another
new element in the game is the drifting mode. Drifting basically has you going
through a set course gaining points for sustaining speed and performing combos
while drifting. This mode could’ve been done better, since very little realistic
skill is required to do well in this section (you don’t actually even have to
hit the brakes to drift in certain parts).

One
element that is exclusive to the PS3 version is the use of the SIXAXIS
controllers. The game makes good use of the controller’s motion-sensing
abilities, albeit in a more ancillary way than most games. By tilting it in the
direction of the turn as you’re going into it, it will give you a bit more
leverage in the curve and an added boost in handling. It feels very natural and
unforced and adds a new element to the game’s physics.

Need
for Speed Carbon looks pretty good on the PS3, but seems to be lacking the same
polished look as its Xbox 360 counterpart. While the textures are a bit sharper
in this version and the framerate stays pretty consistent, the special effects,
like the motion blur when you pick up some serious speed, look pretty ugly. Some
of the lighting effects also seem a little half-baked.

Soundwise, the game fairs pretty well, with some great effects and a really good
soundtrack composed of some great songs that set the tone for the game and never
get in the way.

Need
for Speed Carbon is a solid entry to the series, with some great gameplay
elements and makes good use of the SIXAXIS controllers tilt functionality. Check
it out if you’re a fan of the series.

Review
Scoring Details
for
Need for Speed Carbon

Gameplay: 8.0
Need for Speed
Carbon offers up some cool new features and brings the gameplay back to the
city. The SIXAXIS controller is used well, adding a new element to the driving
physics. Some parts of the gameplay are hit and miss.

Graphics: 7.5
NFS Carbon
features some pretty nice textures and car models and moves at a pretty solid
framerate, but lacks in overall polish. The special effects are poorly
implemented.

Sound: 8.5
Carbon is a great
sounding game, with a good soundtrack and some solid effects.

Difficulty:
Medium/Hard

Multiplayer: 7.5
The online racing
features are fairly par for the course.

Concept: 8.0
The story is told
through the use of stylized-FMV cutscenes, and fits in well with the neon-laced
aesthetic.

Overall: 8.0
Carbon is a solid
entry to the series with cool features and a great sense of style and unique
controls thanks to the PS3’s SIXAXIS motion sensor abilities.

Need for Speed: Carbon came out at a time when PC versions of games could be quite different from console games. You don’t have to look far for examples — the closest of them is the notorious Xbox 360 version of Most Wanted , which was much more technologically advanced than all the others. The computer version of Carbon, of course, was more fortunate, and the players got a port from Nextgen consoles. Everything would be fine, but even this port has many drawbacks compared to the versions for the most modern game consoles at that time.

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Here I want to describe a selection of mods that will allow you to bring the game up to the level of versions of the game for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 as much as possible. Also, other improvements will not be forgotten, some of which will gently bring the game even up to relatively modern standards, without breaking the canonicity.

Attention: further describes dances with a tambourine, it is better not to look at it for the faint of heart. But if you do everything according to the instructions, then the installation is not difficult, although you will have to spend some time. And yes, there will be no ready-made assembly from me immediately with all the mods, and there are a lot of reasons for this.

Suitable game version

You need a clean game version 1.4 . It can be both English and Russian versions of the game. Please note that patch 1.4 was not officially released for the Russian version, that is, the disk version of the game from SoftClub will not work for us at all. In this case, I would recommend either looking for and installing the original (if necessary, we will Russify it anyway), or look for an already Russified Russian version. Only the version of the game is important here and that no mods should be installed on it.

I will divide the mods into 3 categories — «base» , «recommended» and «at the discretion» .

Base of all bases. Adds support for widescreen aspect ratio.

While the console versions of the Need for Speed games have supported 16:9 since Underground 2 , PC players only got to know it after the release of Prostreet . Widescreen Fix , among other things, corrects the viewing angle, lighting and shadows from cars in accordance with the Xbox 360 version.

To install, simply copy the contents of the archive to the game folder. If you use a non-standard aspect ratio, such as 16:10 or 5:4, then also install the NFSC HUD Adapter (the file from the downloaded archive should be placed in the scripts folder).

You may well leave the game in the original or with the standard rather imperfect crack from SoftClub. But if you would like to play in Russian, and even with the correction of a bunch of errors, then I recommend installing a text crack at the link. Among other things, it has the optional ability to play with subtitles, so if you like English voice acting more, then this crack will be even more useful for you and will allow you to look at the plot of the game from a new perspective, because SoftClub, in my opinion, made a rather unsuccessful dubbing of both cinematics and cutscenes.

Russification is set up simply — either using the installer (correctly select the folder with the game), or manually (before that, look at the Readme.txt file)

Also, this crack replaces the main text font with the same one that was used in the English version of the game. By the way, in the folder at the link there are cracks with replaced fonts for other parts of the series, in addition to Carbon.

Updated the game interface to look crisp on Full HD and 4K monitors.

On the left is the original at 4K screen resolution, on the right is the game with mod

To install, we need the Binary utility (for it to work, first download and install .NET Core Desktop Runtime 3.1 (x86)).

Installation Procedure Remastered UI is as follows:

1. Open Binary on behalf of administrator

2. Select User Mode

3. Select a file Remasteredui.end from the downloaded and unpacked archive

4. Select a folder with the game

During the installation process, you will be asked several questions about additional options. We answer the first question according to the localization of your game ( English or Russian ), then leave Vanilla Carbon (Unmodded) ; it is better not to check the next checkboxes, except for Use 60 FPS Barrier Animations . Next, press OK and Yes . Optionally, you can agree to a test run of the game to see the new interface in high resolution.

The mod fully supports the Russian version of

Mod adds support for XInput , thanks to which you can connect an Xbox gamepad without additional problems and play almost like on a console (almost, because vibration is not currently supported). But personally, I would recommend installing this mod only if you plan to play exclusively on a gamepad, because even if you do not have a gamepad connected, it still changes the interface a little.

To install, download Release-Carbon-Pack.zip (or Release-Carbon-Win7-Pack.zip if you have Windows 7) and extract the content to the game folder. In file scripts/NFS_XtendedInput.ini you can change the design of the buttons according to your preferences by changing the parameter ControllerIconMod (there is a choice between different generations of Xbox, Playstation, and even buttons from Switch).

Reduces the amount of motion blur. Initially, in the PC version of Carbon, it is made so disgusting that you turn it off immediately after the start of the game.

To install, we throw the contents of the folder Install from the downloaded archive into the game folder.

The PC version of Carbon has rather strange reflections on the car. This mod makes them much more realistic and detailed. In addition, the mod improves reflections not only on cars, but in general everywhere.

To install, we throw the contents of the folder NFSCHDReflections from the downloaded archive into the game folder.

There is another useful feature that HD Reflections brings. The mod allows you to return background blur to some menus, as it was in the console versions of the game. To do this, open file scripts/NFSCHDReflections.ini and set the value of the parameter PauseBlur to 1

Thanks to the user Chaos Stein for the tip on the parameter.

To do this, you can also use a very cheating NFSC Extra Options mod, in which blur is enabled by default. In addition, it removes the binding of saves to the game key. This is useful if you have downloaded a save from somewhere on the internet. And for everyone else, of course, the wide functionality of the mod can never be used.

And the vinyls in the PC port are badly screwed up. But the mod makes them even better than they were on consoles. And this is without any AI upscaling, since most of the vinyls in the game are stored in vector format.

Was and became

To begin with, it is highly desirable to install a patch to support the use of 4 gigabytes of virtual memory by the game. To do this, download it, throw 4gb_patch.exe into the game folder, run and select NFSC.exe from the game folder.

The HD Vinyls mod itself is installed in a similar way to the Remastered UI — using Binary . When installing, select 2048 (HD Quality) and enjoy high-quality vinyls in the game.

Repairs broken flashlight marks in the PC port. The effect used is similar to the Xbox 360 version. On PS3 it was made much prettier, but it hasn’t been ported yet.

Download ReleasePack.zip and put the contents into the game folder.

The PC port also has mediocre video quality. While the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 versions of the game have cutscenes in HD.

This mod takes videos from the PS3 version of the game as a basis (the highest quality of all — the advent of BluRay was not in vain) and pulls them up to a resolution of Full HD . The mod at the link from the title is intended for the Russian version of the game and offers videos with Russian or English voice acting. The installation is described there.

And this link is useful if you have the English version of the game. In addition, on it you can find videos with German, French, Spanish, Italian and Japanese voice acting. Download the folder with the desired language from the cloud, upload the videos to folder MOVIES and in the Widescreen Fix settings ( scripts/NFSCarbon. WidescreenFix.ini ) change the parameter FMVWidescreenMode to 2 .

There is definitely something in this

Filter port from Playstation 3. Game looks more «next-gen» with it.

Installed via Binary — select INSTALL.end , click OK and then tick the box where the utility offers.

This is not really an improvement, but many people don’t like the visualization of the airflow at high speed. Luckily for them, it can be turned off.

Here we need the NFS-VLTEd utility to install. Run, click File > Open and specify the path to the folder with the game. Then select File > Import > Modscript and select the file from the downloaded archive. We press the button Install , again go to the menu File and press Save . Everything — gray stripes as it happened.

Mod allows you to change the scale of the interface. By default with this mod it scales to match the console versions of the game.

To install, copy the contents of the folder NFSCHUDResizer to the game folder. Be sure to open the scripts/NFSCHUDResizer.ini file and set the FMVScale parameter to 1.0 to keep the original video scaling.

And here is the first sound mod in the list. Even in the PC port, it falls short of the console versions. This mod only improves the quality of the music, but that’s something. To install, download and drop files numbered 9 into the game folder0003 1 and 4 . And if you also want to remove censorship in the compositions, then the file 4 can be replaced with 2 or 3 .

Might be useful for those who use Discord. The library connects the game with the messenger and displays the game status in your profile. Unfortunately, it does not fully work correctly with the Russian version of the game (the names of the tracks are displayed incorrectly), but even so it is of some use, showing, for example, the duration of your game session.

Totals

These are probably not all possible fixes for the game — some could just get lost in the wilds of the site NFSMods . Finally, I post some 4K screenshots, where you can see a combination of most of the mods described above, and a video demonstration of the graphics.

Need for Speed Carbon (Carbon Own the City) — reviews and reviews, description, release date, official website of the game, system requirements and player ratings

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4.0

735 ratings

System requirements

Minimum:

Pentium 4/Athlon XP 1. 7 GHz, 512 MB memory, 3D accelerator with 64 MB memory, 5.7 GB hard drive

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Review
Sathuras Need for Speed Carbon Review
Carbon is such a park in the United States of America that is well respected by street racers of all stripes. Electronic Arts is such a mega corporation, which employs the most prominent masters in the game industry of sucking money out of the public. From the fusion of these two beginnings, the greatest creation of the genre of glamorous illegal racing was born, but the result was a speculation concocted between lunch and the subsequent smoke break, designed to milk the users’ wallets one more time, luring them with a pretty oversweetened candy, chewed already four times. Our today’s guest Need for Speed: Carbon is a good simulator, a mediocre game, a frankly failed continuation of the series and a completely shameless extortion.