Why is Need For Speed Carbon touted as a bad game?

[Gone Rampant]

Last week I had an extra day off due to a Bank Holiday in Ireland, and spent a few hours playing NFS Carbon after finishing Most Wanted 2005. I looked online, and I saw a lot of people throw Carbon in as one of the "bad" NFS games, like Prostreet/Undercover/Shift. Can someone explain why? I actually think it's my favorite entry, even more than the Citerion games (No offense, they were fun from what I played).

 

[gamernerdtg2]

Haven't played it - probably because of the genre, but I don't know. The NFS games tend to be awesome in my opinion.

 

[BrotherRool]

I enjoyed the Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift look of the game, but the actual gameplay felt really off to me and police chases were nowhere near as fun as Need For Speed: Most Wanted.

In general Carbon felt like a slightly inferior version of Most Wanted in pretty much every way (the exception being Canyon racing) the city wasn't as fun (no big circuit), the police chases weren't quite as fun and the story wasn't as good. I don't think the game was bad, but I had both and I never felt like I had a reason not to be playing Most Wanted instead

 

[Treeinthewoods]

I actually really enjoyed Carbon and Undercover, and neither one of those got reviewed very well. I just take it for what it is, the games had cheesy stories, over the top cut scenes and some ridiculous racing through heavy traffic so they hit my personal tastes perfectly.

 

[WanderingFool]

Last week I had an extra day off due to a Bank Holiday in Ireland, and spent a few hours playing NFS Carbon after finishing Most Wanted 2005. I looked online, and I saw a lot of people throw Carbon in as one of the "bad" NFS games, like Prostreet/Undercover/Shift. Can someone explain why? I actually think it's my favorite entry, even more than the Citerion games (No offense, they were fun from what I played).

Personally? I felt that it could have been a good game, but fallowing Most Wanted, it was lacking. Some of the particulars:

-Police chases: They were a serious annoyance in Carbon. In Most Wanted, they were a part of the game, and were definitely fun. In Carbon, they were just unnecessary, since there was no actual point of them in terms of advancement like in MW.

-Racing Gangs: Most wanted had the list of racers before you could take on Razor. In Carbon, you had to take over other racing gang turf. In itself not that bad, but than you throw in the fact that you get challenged for turf, and if you refuse, you lose the turf, so you basically had to race each guy that challenged you. Got annoying also...

-The map: The map in Carbon was to confined and samey. Most Wanted had several different areas, there was the suburbs, a country side (and golf course), docks, and a downtown area. Plus the maps were more open and not as cramped.

-The canyon drifting: Fuck it... seriously... Fuck. It.

Just some om my personal gripes.

 

[AD-Stu]

I actually enjoyed Carbon a lot too, as well as some of the other "bad" titles (Pro Street and Shift). Personally I consider the newer Criterion remakes to be the "bad" games in the series.

As for why Carbon may be disliked there's probably a few things at play. I didn't think the cop chases were quite as much fun as in Most Wanted, the city layout was a lot more fiddly and didn't lend itself quite as well to long, flowing sequences as Most Wanted did.

The whole "protect your territory" thing got a bit old after a while and took up too much time towards the end too.

Lastly I think the rubber band AI in this game was probably among the worst of the series (until the Hot Pursuit remake arrived anyway).

All that said though I thought there was a lot to like about the game. Return of genuine muscle cars, greatly improved car customisation options over Most Wanted, great soundtrack, return of drifting, addition of wingmen, some pretty cool looking environments, the canyon races... yeah, a lot to like.

 

[uchytjes]

Coming from someone that only played it, like, once I can say that I actually enjoyed it. I designed a car (A green and shiny one that had lateral stripes for SPEEEEEEEEEEED) and raced around with it for a while. I tried a canyon race, though. NEVER AGAIN. It may have been because I sucked or was very high level (I was playing on a friend's save) but it was PAINFUL to play. I like open roads, not confined ones.

 

[Professor Lupin Madblood]

I've never played any of the Need for Speed games, so I can't really comment on their quality.

I can, however, say that Carbon will always have a special place in my heart because it features Tahmoh Penikett in a semi-prominent role, and Tahmoh Penikett is always a plus.

 

[Kinitawowi]

Because it is?

Nah, as has been mentioned, there were a few good ideas but mostly a lot of bad tacking on. The crew thing was an alright idea but badly implemented; the police chases were irrelevant and completely tacked on; it felt somewhat short, with territory defence and the Challenge Series events mostly existing as a gameplay stretcher; the story was terrible; the canyon races were a pain in the arse.

In short, the biggest problem with Carbon is that it wasn't Most Wanted, which remains one of my top half-dozen games ever. It tried to be "MW plus canyon races", but tossed out too much to get there.

 

[mParadox]

It wasn't Most Wanted. Most Wanted did so many things right, and Carbon screwed all of them up.

Barring the Canyon Racing of course, that was epic. Unbelievably annoying, but very awesome once you got the hang of it. At least it was challenging!

In Most Wanted, there are several shortcuts located on the map which you can use to gain an ungodly amount of distance from your opponents. In Carbon, there's no such thing. And that's crazy.

Also, police chases. It's Most Wanted's schtick. Says so in the title. Carbon couldn't pull it off very well. The police chases in Most Wanted were heart pumpingly awesome. Tough and very rewarding once you finally finally got the police off your back. In Carbon, it's boring. So... so very boring.

Carbon is not a bad game, but as a sequel to Most Wanted, it just doesn't hold a candle to its predecessor.

 

[AD-Stu]

In Most Wanted, there are several shortcuts located on the map which you can use to gain an ungodly amount of distance from your opponents. In Carbon, there's no such thing. And that's crazy.

I could be wrong (while I replayed Most Wanted a few months ago, it's been years since I've played Carbon) but the way I remember Carbon the problem wasn't so much the lack of shortcuts but the AI's ungodly ability to catch right back up to you even when you used them. I know Most Wanted had rubber banding as well, but I thought it was REALLY prominent and irritating in Carbon. I'm pretty sure there were some in Carbon (I remember some that let you bypass a long tunnel, for example) that should have given you a huge advantage but just didn't in practice.

I agree it didn't really need the cop chases. At least you didn't have to do too many of them and a lot of them could be pretty easily avoided.

 

[Soxafloppin]

I like Carbon, not quite as much as Underground 2 and Most wanted, but I still enjoyed it.

Its probably slightly more balanced, than those though, In U2 I barely drove, just kept making cars, in MW I barely didn't modify the cars as much, just did police chases!

Carbons police chases weren't really as good as MW but it did introduce Autosculpt (which needs to come back) the drift races were really fun in it too!

 

[Gone Rampant]

I can, however, say that Carbon will always have a special place in my heart because it features Tahmoh Penikett in a semi-prominent role, and Tahmoh Penikett is always a plus.

True- I only found Dollhouse (And by extension, the Buffyverse) through looking this guy up after I first played the game in 2010.

 

[FFP2]

With the exception of the amazing canyon races it was inferior to the one and only Most Wanted (Burnout Paradise 2 was garbage).

The AI was beyond broken, story was bad even by NFS standards, the city was dull and they really messed up with the cops. I distinctly remember there being massive amounts of obvious rubber banding as well. And that whole racing in teams that have different abilities was really stupid.

I played the PS2 version though so it might have been different on other consoles.

In my opinion the only truly great NFS games are Most Wanted and Underground 2. I've played all of them except for that shitty 2010 Hot Pursuit reboot and Shift 2. Take what you will from that.

 

[Jimmy T. Malice]

Is Carbon touted as a bad game? I really enjoyed it.

 

[TephlonPrice]

With the exception of the amazing canyon races it was inferior to the one and only Most Wanted (Burnout Paradise 2 was garbage).

The AI was beyond broken, story was bad even by NFS standards, the city was dull and they really messed up with the cops. I distinctly remember there being massive amounts of obvious rubber banding as well. And that whole racing in teams that have different abilities was really stupid.

I played the PS2 version though so it might have been different on other consoles.

In my opinion the only truly great NFS games are Most Wanted and Underground 2. I've played all of them except for that shitty 2010 Hot Pursuit reboot and Shift 2. Take what you will from that.

I played the PS3 version.

It's about the same.

-Useless crew mechanics that don't really do much unless you have the guy who takes other out the lead, and even then it's useless. It just seems forced in there.

-Excessive levels of rubber banding. Hory shet, this game has more rubber banding than a drug dealer's money stacks.

-Cop chases that weren't that challenging. If the cop chases, say, gained me special unlockables, I wouldn't complain, but since they're just useless and seem to be way too easy...

-Wack city. The city sucks dick. Too repetitive & nothing really interesting to look at.

-Confusing ass menus for customization & vehicle shit. Who the hell designed these? It's like fishing with missing arms. Poorly put together & poorly categorized.

-Wack ass soundtrack. Nothing like NFSU or U2, or even Most Wanted (shouts to S.O.B.) mix of rap, rock, & electric that's dope.

 

[BrotherRool]

I thought I was going to be alone in the 'because it wasn't Most Wanted thing' but it seems like everyone had the same impression (including the canyon race exception), so I think that's pretty conclusive

Why the hate for it on the Escapist? Two words: Electronic. Arts.

That makes no sense Why would you pick one game to hate in a franchise because a certain publisher made it along with all the rest of the games. You'd hate on Need For Speed in general, not on Carbon in specific. And everyone in this thread was praising Most Wanted which was EA too.

There's some valid reasons to hate on the Need for Speed franchise too, it's had some amazing titles but it's ridiculous inconsistent, there have been so many re-imaginings it's not really got any identity. And it's hard to praise the developers because something like Underground gets made and then later down the line you get Undercover, even the people who make it keep shifting.

I don't think it's a particularly EA problem though, or rather it's a normal problem that any publisher might struggle with if they're not especially on the ball with it and not something that arises out of EA being particularly evil or anything

 

[Elvis Starburst]

I think it's been said a lot... But I'll say it again :3

Shitty map: Compared to NFS:MW, it was horrible. In Most Wanted, you could tell where things where and what locations where the best routes to shake the cops. Here, you can't really tell where you're going. That, and the city seems incredibly tiny, not just in scale, but in comparison of car to building, other car, to road ratios, it all just seemed really poorly sized.

Crew: Not a bad idea, but it wasn't done very well. I liked the territory idea, but it just wasn't really that *great*. I also didn't like how you got upgrades, I liked the MW formula for unlocking stuff

Canyon Races: Although not fun at all, they did give me a good feeling of tension. Especially when I took a turn too fast and started breaking off parts of the fence. Had to use NOS to boost me off of the ledge o.o

Rubber banding: Fuck this game and its rubber banding -_-

Lastly... The cops: THEY SUCK. They felt added in for 0 purpose, they were horrible at what they were supposed to be doing, there was very little risk vs reward, and the whole system seems like someone took the Most Wanted pursuit system, ate it, threw it up, then re-arranged it in the way it was before, but not half as good

Whew, that was fun~ I liked the game a little, but it's not my top choice. Most Wanted always is my fave NFS game <3

 

[AD-Stu]

So this thread inspired me to go back, reinstall the game and play it again. First of all, getting it to run stably in Win7 is proving a bit of an issue, easily the most frustrating thing about playing it now. But putting that aside yeah, a lot of the points above stand up. Here's the gameplay bits about it that still really frustrate me:

- The territory system, and more to the point, having to guddam defend your territory. I'm only onto trying to beat the second rival crew at the moment and already I'm having to go back and redo old races after every other thing I do to stop some upstart little turds taking it off me. It really, REALLY feels like the gratuitous padding that it is, and you don't even get decent money back for winning them. Seriously, I have a crew, why can't I send them out to do my defending for me?

- Speaking of the crew, I'm finding it a bit frustrating how few of my own races I actually get to win, since the scouts (don't have a drafter yet) have this magical ability to always be faster and in front of you. You still get to "win" the race and you get the same money regardless of whether it's you or your wingman that crosses the line first but the victories feel pretty hollow.

- Agree that the cop chases are pretty hollow too. Unlike some of the other responses above I don't necessarily object to them being in the game, since it's still about street racing and it makes sense that where there's street racing there's cops trying to shut it down. And the way the game attaches heat to geographic areas makes a lot of sense too. But yeah, the maps really aren't great for it and I'm finding a lot of the chases (even the high level ones) just peter out without my really having tried anything clever, as opposed to Most Wanted where there was a real onus on the player to put some work into getting away.

If you can get past the above then it's still a fun game. Personally I really enjoy the canyon races (as well as the return of drifting), they're probably what gives the game most of its character. Can definitely see how mileage will vary on them though, they can be super-frustrating as well. I thought the car selection was pretty good, even though I was more excited about the return of Godzilla than I was about the classic muscle cars. Visual car customisation is definitely improved over Most Wanted, though it's a lot more fiddly and time consuming too (Pro Street probably did it best IMO).