As being a new person to the Need for Speed series. I can't say if this is the best or worst game in the series. But I can say this game is completely awesome! The story goes as yourself returning to your local city, only to find it overrun by different car gangs, split up by car type. And what you have to do is reclaim the city block-by-block for yourself. You start by picking your car class. Tuners, who have great handling, but poor speed. Muscles, who have great acceleration, but poor handling. And (my personal favorite) exotics, which are the most balanced. The city is controlled by 3 main gangs, which vary by car type, and you take over their territory by beating them at races. Carbon features a fair number of race types, including your standard 2-3 lap race, a sprint to the finish line, drift events, and more. The coolest race types are Race Wars, which puts 20 cars in one circuit race, and Canyon Duel, which features a 1-on-1 race on a narrow road where you can fly off the cliffs. Graphically, this game's pretty good looking. Some parts of the city look really good (chinatown,downtown,silverton), while some areas look really dull. The game also has a slightly slower frame-rate. But as long as you havn't been playing Burnout non-stop, you probably won't notice. When your driving around town in free-roam, cops will come after you if you cause too much trouble, and they get a lot harder as you cause more carnage! The game also features nice cut-scenes, which blend real-life footage, with a digital look to it. NFSC has a great soundtrack as well. When your freely driving around the city, licensed music plays in your car. The music genre varies depending on what type of car your driving. Tuners have techno, muscles have rock, and exotics have hip-hop. Unlike most EA games, Carbon uses its own soundtrack quite a lot. The game's own soundtrack plays during almost all of the races. Carbon features very deep car customization. There's a cool feature called "autosculpt" which lets you change the shape of different parts of the car. The game also has several online modes such as knockout pursuit - which is where a bunch of people race, and the person who is in last place at the end of the lap becomes a cop, this goes on until, you have a bunch of cops against one car. Overall Carbon is a great game that any racing fan should own. You might want to rent it first just to be safe though.
