Need for Speed: Carbon

You know what? I'm sick of this. I'm sick of, every year or so, having to deal with a new crappy game pumped out by EA that is nothing but the same old crap I reviewed last year, just with a shiny new coat and new name. At first, I thought it only applied to Madden. Now, it's applying to the one game series I hate more than anything else in the world: Need for Speed.

Need for Speed: Carbon, the latest in the overplayed franchise, is the same thing as huffing paint thinner in your garage, going into your house, and watching ?The Fast and the Furious? until you think you can actually drive a ricer like they do. The game is all about racing very shiny over hyped cars in an unmentioned city, where you play a stereotypical bad boy who comes back to his hot city to race souped up ricers. Because apparently, when you're awesome and get all the ladies, all you ever need to do in life is run around driving something that your grandmother uses to pick up groceries, only given a spoiler.

But let me boil the game down for you beyond that. The game is basically pornography for people who thought ?The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift? was anything other than a really bad movie for people with bad taste (see: Idiots). Trying to emulate the actions of racing clubs all over the United States (see: clubs for 22 year old college dropouts), the game takes you through the life of a racer who tries to beat everyone who can drive better than him. This means, for those of you who are incredibly slow, you will spend your time driving a ricer around a city trying to beat another ricer.



And of course, you are probably wondering ?What makes this different than the other Need for Speed games??. And I would reply laughing like a hyena, ?Nothing?. Yes, nothing. Other than some truly mediocre additions (a wingman driver, who only exists to ensure you have a much more difficult time in the super-narrow streets, along with some assorted game modes), Need for Speed Carbon is, all in all, the very same thing I saw not months ago with Need for Speed Most Wanted Black Edition. Oh, except for the menus. You see, they are a little bit different. THAT really warrants paying an extra $40 to one of the worst gaming companies available to man.

But hey, let's try to be fair. The graphics are nice, newly souped up to not look like hell on the next-gen systems. This game has already launched for the 360 and PC, and will also be featured on the PS3. Naturally, it will show it's face on the Wii much later, because apparently ?toning the graphic effects down? has never been in EA's vocabulary, thus effectively setting the Wii on fire. Hopefully that will be fixed. The graphics are, amazingly, not that remarkably different from that of the last game (Black Edition), though given another generous helping of sheen, poor anti aliasing, and that weird scary blur effect they give to all of the real actors to presumably hide pimples. Nothing special there.

And, of course, EA driving another nail in my coffin, they generously heaped a bunch of generic rap, pop, and punk rock on the soundtrack. Here, you will find virtually nonexistent artists such as ?Dynamite MC? pretend to rap while you drive your ricer around the city. Just like in Black edition, this is extremely irritating, to the point where I literally turned off my speakers. I have better things to do than be assaulted by crap rap every time I race some wigger on a highway.

One thing the game does that seems rather unique is break up the car selection into three distinct areas- Tuner, Muscle, and Exotic. This basically means, Ricer, stupid American renditions of ricers, and some random selections, such as BMWs. I don't think I need mention that all of these cars- even the lowly Mazda RX8- end up being really really shiny and needlessly souped up. I'm sorry, but if I am driving a Volkswagen Golf- yes, the tiny little car that was made for you to go pick up groceries with- I do not need a spoiler. I do not even need a roof. The car will not go fast enough to make the wind even annoying. When the speedometer only need go up to 40mph, I really doubt the use of a spoiler.



It may be just my jaded hate for this kind of car fetishism that drives me to hate this series so much. When I turn on Gran Turismo, I enjoy myself- the kind of enjoyment I get from realistically handling cars, managing them, tuning them, that kind of thing. What I do not enjoy is watching a bunch of wannabe gangsters run around in cars that old people drive claiming to be hardcore and drift racing to see how fast they can wear out their tires. If EA is going to do racing right, they should stick with what they know- either continue with Burnout, or just find some way to turn Need for Speed into something other than a really over hyped game that reminds me of MTV on steroids.

With that being said, Need for Speed: Carbon is one of the worst next-next generation games I have gotten my hands on thus far. It is boring, needlessly flashy, repetitive, and generally nothing original. I doubt I would even have to make a concerned effort to take pictures of the game to prove that the game is nothing but very pretty graphics with an essentially flawed concept. If you are looking for a good racing game, go play Gran Turismo, Burnout, or even Mario Kart- any of that makes Need for Speed: Carbon look like that one uncle you have that lives with your parents in the basement eating cheetos and watching Nickelodeon reruns.

0.5 star(s) out of 5

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