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Electronic Arts takes a console racer, shrinks it down removing rigid realism then adds crazy features for a DS style romp through the ci-tay.
January 6, 2007 | 10:26 PM PSTby: Blake Leftwich
With Need for Speed Carbon: Own the City, Electronic Arts takes a console racer, shrinks it down removing rigid realism then adds crazy features for a DS style romp through the ci-tay. Is it as good as its console counterparts? Our full review tells all, in a very customized way.
Facts and Features:
Where the Rubber Meets the Road
I think it is safe to say that we have all played racing games before and this game does not break conventions put in place by the earliest 3D racers. But 3D on the DS used at this exhilarating pace is something that your Duel Screen collection is probably missing and NFS: Own the City, while it does miss a few marks, encapsulates all the fun of the genre and keeps everything clean and very accessable to portable players.
First off, the racing, control, and tracks are good. The game flies and the sense of speed is fantastic, the handbrake works well forcing you to find the balance between powersliding and countersteering, and tracks are littered with tough turns, traffic, and shortcuts. So what exactly sets this game apart from all the other racers? The wingman feature for one… You have two types of “wingmen”: Attack and Draft which can be called by tapping your tag (selected and customized at the beginning of your adventure) or pressing a button. The attack wingman simply attacks another racer by knocking them off the road, slowing them down and giving you an edge. The Draft wingman makes things a little more interesting. He or she gets in front of you leaving a glowing trail behind. If you draft behind this car, time slows down and your nitro, rewind and speed-breaker are filled and damage is removed, based on how long you can stay in the slipstream. The Rewind and Speedbreaker, accessed by pressing Select, add a unique twist to the genre. Speedbreaker slows down the action making tough turns and avoiding traffic easier while Rewind, my personal favorite, allows you to undo a mistake. Both are only available for a short time and sadly the game chooses which races you can use them. That said, several races around the 60% mark allowed rewind, boosting the card’s fun factor.
Controlling Your Ride
The touchscreen interface is inconvenient in a game where speed and split-second timing can mean the difference between winning or losing. However, all the functions but one can also be carried out by pressing a button and the control is spot on. Traction control, the one touchscreen-only control is switched from "factory" to "freeway" to "street" by tapping the stereo on you touchscreen dashboard and affects your car’s handling slightly. It's not necessary to change in mid race so adjusting in the beginning by tapping the screen is no big deal. Another hinderance involving the touchscreen is looking down at the bottom screen to see your placement in the race or nitro level. The on-screen action is fast and its a challenge to check these stats while you race. But whether intentional on the programmers’ part or not, it gives the feeling that you are glancing down during a dangerous speed and it feels risky, like it would in a real race. It works and it's fun (and realistic, if you think about it). Yes indeed, the control is excellent. Steering is tight but oversteering is rare (depending on how you tweak your performance). Using the directional pad to steer is intuitive, the developer makes up for the lack of an analog stick with a rather unique control scheme: As usual right and left mean right and left but pressing diagonally upward while turning creates a soft turn while downward diagonals make a hard turn, an interesting alternative to traditional d-pad driving, but optional; it is not necessary to use this to complete the game. Braking and acceleration works as it should and the handbrake is excellent, sending you into a slide with ease.
CUSTO-mi-ZaTiOn
Customizing your car is simple and fun, not overwhelming, and you can even create your own door or hood decal using the touchscreen if you wish. There are few parts available in the beginning but many more will be unlocked as you progress and enhancing the look of your car will cause you to earn more points for winning races, points which can be used to buy more parts. An exclusive feature to the DS is the ability to customize your dashboard with flashy instrumentation, fancy stereos, fuzzy dice, etc.
Performance enhancement is another key part of customization and is handled well, challenging you to find a middle-ground between excessive and too little speed, control or other attributes. Note: The close up view of your masterpiece is somewhat blocky, but is adequate and looks good while racing. Balancing your car’s performance is fun and it is easy to overdo it. If you can find the right balance however, you can dominate the races.
Lookin' Good
The high frame-rate on the top screen looks great; it moves smoothly and controls well and although some playstation-era clipping, glitches, and pop-ups exist, the pace is fast and impressive. I can’t believe my DS can push polys so fast! The races all take place at night, necessary in order to keep the theme alive. The dark visuals are very clear to be on such a small screen but the darkness makes things harder to see and the developers included a high or low contrast choice in the options. I left my game on high contrast for the entire ride. Another important option for a racing game is the camera selection. NFS provides a far chase, near chase and bumper cams. For a game of this speed and intensity, I found the bumper cam to be the most effective.
The options screen seems sluggish and animates inconsistently but the menus are very simple and easy to understand with no load times. Some of the selections and options found in the menu include: Single or Multicard play (thankfully becoming more frequent in DS games). Single card allows a normal race on one track while multi lets you choose the track, the car and the type of race. The race types, which are a part of the single player campaign as well, consist of: Elimination, wherein the last place of each lap is eliminated until there is one winner; Hunter, fullest life bar wins; Sprint, a short race on a small portion of a track (less than one lap); and Circuit, a traditional race. Other options let you select an automatic or manual transmission and turn on AI catch up helping the computer to “compensate for your superior driving skills.” Also worth mentioning is the auto save which is very nice and contributes to the instant gratification of portable gaming on your DS.
Where's The Bass?
I usually dislike licensed music in games and movies, but in this case it fits the theme and adds to the experience; the songs sound like radio tunes one might hear while racing at 3:00 a.m. Unfortunately, there are very few songs (I remember three, but the credits state that there are more), and you may turn the music volume down in the options if it becomes too repetitive. The sound effects are great. Engines rev, tires slide, oncoming cars honk, and it all helps you believe you’re involved in an intense race.
A Little Background
The story of revenge is cliché but its animated comic-book-style storyboard presentation keeps you interested. The meat of the game being the racing, this stylized approach is appreciated and may not have survived past the drawing board on other systems. You can check the message center between races to stay on track with the story and tips, every bit of text shown to you throughout the game can be found here.
The Great Debate
This game is an excellent example of an infamous argument that gamers have entertained since the 80s. What’s better, fun or realism? Ever since simulations appeared on early computers gamers have been split down the middle. And by the way, pay attention, as this could be your best clue as to how to answer the question: Is Need for Speed Carbon for me? On one hand we have realism; simulations that can produce amazing visuals, terrain created from real topographical data, sounds recorded from actual guns under actual conditions and games that can practically award you a driver's license or a PhD. On the other hand there’s walking on clouds, punching cars, wielding magic, and boxing aliens. Which do you prefer? Call of Duty or Metroid, Fight Night or Punchout, Microsoft Fight Simulator or Pilot Wings, Gran Turismo or Mario Kart? Need for Speed: Carbon blurs the line a little by using licensed vehicles, realistic visuals, and a kickin’ soundtrack but at heart it’s a big ol’ softy. Hitting a wall or driving on a sidewalk does not slow you down. You can reverse time to undo wrecks, gain points for smashing into opponents, and refill nitrous by drafting behind your buddies; not your cup of tea if you’re trying to keep it real, but most likely exactly what you want if you own a DS.
-- Blake Lefwich
Facts and Features:
- Choose from 12 licensed vehicles and customize your ride with neons, kits, performance-enhancing parts and custom decals created with the touchscreen.
- Use Rewind to turn back time and undo your last mistake or use Speedbreaker to slow down the action and give you an edge.
- Call in a Wingman who can refill your precious nitrous or simply ram the other guys into the guardrail!
Where the Rubber Meets the Road
I think it is safe to say that we have all played racing games before and this game does not break conventions put in place by the earliest 3D racers. But 3D on the DS used at this exhilarating pace is something that your Duel Screen collection is probably missing and NFS: Own the City, while it does miss a few marks, encapsulates all the fun of the genre and keeps everything clean and very accessable to portable players.
First off, the racing, control, and tracks are good. The game flies and the sense of speed is fantastic, the handbrake works well forcing you to find the balance between powersliding and countersteering, and tracks are littered with tough turns, traffic, and shortcuts. So what exactly sets this game apart from all the other racers? The wingman feature for one… You have two types of “wingmen”: Attack and Draft which can be called by tapping your tag (selected and customized at the beginning of your adventure) or pressing a button. The attack wingman simply attacks another racer by knocking them off the road, slowing them down and giving you an edge. The Draft wingman makes things a little more interesting. He or she gets in front of you leaving a glowing trail behind. If you draft behind this car, time slows down and your nitro, rewind and speed-breaker are filled and damage is removed, based on how long you can stay in the slipstream. The Rewind and Speedbreaker, accessed by pressing Select, add a unique twist to the genre. Speedbreaker slows down the action making tough turns and avoiding traffic easier while Rewind, my personal favorite, allows you to undo a mistake. Both are only available for a short time and sadly the game chooses which races you can use them. That said, several races around the 60% mark allowed rewind, boosting the card’s fun factor.
Controlling Your Ride
The touchscreen interface is inconvenient in a game where speed and split-second timing can mean the difference between winning or losing. However, all the functions but one can also be carried out by pressing a button and the control is spot on. Traction control, the one touchscreen-only control is switched from "factory" to "freeway" to "street" by tapping the stereo on you touchscreen dashboard and affects your car’s handling slightly. It's not necessary to change in mid race so adjusting in the beginning by tapping the screen is no big deal. Another hinderance involving the touchscreen is looking down at the bottom screen to see your placement in the race or nitro level. The on-screen action is fast and its a challenge to check these stats while you race. But whether intentional on the programmers’ part or not, it gives the feeling that you are glancing down during a dangerous speed and it feels risky, like it would in a real race. It works and it's fun (and realistic, if you think about it). Yes indeed, the control is excellent. Steering is tight but oversteering is rare (depending on how you tweak your performance). Using the directional pad to steer is intuitive, the developer makes up for the lack of an analog stick with a rather unique control scheme: As usual right and left mean right and left but pressing diagonally upward while turning creates a soft turn while downward diagonals make a hard turn, an interesting alternative to traditional d-pad driving, but optional; it is not necessary to use this to complete the game. Braking and acceleration works as it should and the handbrake is excellent, sending you into a slide with ease.
CUSTO-mi-ZaTiOn
Customizing your car is simple and fun, not overwhelming, and you can even create your own door or hood decal using the touchscreen if you wish. There are few parts available in the beginning but many more will be unlocked as you progress and enhancing the look of your car will cause you to earn more points for winning races, points which can be used to buy more parts. An exclusive feature to the DS is the ability to customize your dashboard with flashy instrumentation, fancy stereos, fuzzy dice, etc.
Performance enhancement is another key part of customization and is handled well, challenging you to find a middle-ground between excessive and too little speed, control or other attributes. Note: The close up view of your masterpiece is somewhat blocky, but is adequate and looks good while racing. Balancing your car’s performance is fun and it is easy to overdo it. If you can find the right balance however, you can dominate the races.
Lookin' Good
The high frame-rate on the top screen looks great; it moves smoothly and controls well and although some playstation-era clipping, glitches, and pop-ups exist, the pace is fast and impressive. I can’t believe my DS can push polys so fast! The races all take place at night, necessary in order to keep the theme alive. The dark visuals are very clear to be on such a small screen but the darkness makes things harder to see and the developers included a high or low contrast choice in the options. I left my game on high contrast for the entire ride. Another important option for a racing game is the camera selection. NFS provides a far chase, near chase and bumper cams. For a game of this speed and intensity, I found the bumper cam to be the most effective.
The options screen seems sluggish and animates inconsistently but the menus are very simple and easy to understand with no load times. Some of the selections and options found in the menu include: Single or Multicard play (thankfully becoming more frequent in DS games). Single card allows a normal race on one track while multi lets you choose the track, the car and the type of race. The race types, which are a part of the single player campaign as well, consist of: Elimination, wherein the last place of each lap is eliminated until there is one winner; Hunter, fullest life bar wins; Sprint, a short race on a small portion of a track (less than one lap); and Circuit, a traditional race. Other options let you select an automatic or manual transmission and turn on AI catch up helping the computer to “compensate for your superior driving skills.” Also worth mentioning is the auto save which is very nice and contributes to the instant gratification of portable gaming on your DS.
Where's The Bass?
I usually dislike licensed music in games and movies, but in this case it fits the theme and adds to the experience; the songs sound like radio tunes one might hear while racing at 3:00 a.m. Unfortunately, there are very few songs (I remember three, but the credits state that there are more), and you may turn the music volume down in the options if it becomes too repetitive. The sound effects are great. Engines rev, tires slide, oncoming cars honk, and it all helps you believe you’re involved in an intense race.
A Little Background
The story of revenge is cliché but its animated comic-book-style storyboard presentation keeps you interested. The meat of the game being the racing, this stylized approach is appreciated and may not have survived past the drawing board on other systems. You can check the message center between races to stay on track with the story and tips, every bit of text shown to you throughout the game can be found here.
The Great Debate
This game is an excellent example of an infamous argument that gamers have entertained since the 80s. What’s better, fun or realism? Ever since simulations appeared on early computers gamers have been split down the middle. And by the way, pay attention, as this could be your best clue as to how to answer the question: Is Need for Speed Carbon for me? On one hand we have realism; simulations that can produce amazing visuals, terrain created from real topographical data, sounds recorded from actual guns under actual conditions and games that can practically award you a driver's license or a PhD. On the other hand there’s walking on clouds, punching cars, wielding magic, and boxing aliens. Which do you prefer? Call of Duty or Metroid, Fight Night or Punchout, Microsoft Fight Simulator or Pilot Wings, Gran Turismo or Mario Kart? Need for Speed: Carbon blurs the line a little by using licensed vehicles, realistic visuals, and a kickin’ soundtrack but at heart it’s a big ol’ softy. Hitting a wall or driving on a sidewalk does not slow you down. You can reverse time to undo wrecks, gain points for smashing into opponents, and refill nitrous by drafting behind your buddies; not your cup of tea if you’re trying to keep it real, but most likely exactly what you want if you own a DS.
-- Blake Lefwich
February 8, 2010
