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Need for Speed: Carbon
Developer	EA Black Box
Publisher	Electronic Arts
Series	Need for Speed
Version	1.4 (2007-06-08)[1]
Released	PC, PS2, Xbox, Xbox360, GameCube, NDS & GBA October 31, 2006 November 3, 2007 PS3 November 16, 2006 Wii November 19, 2006 Mac OS X August 17, 2007[2]
Genre	Racing
Mode(s)	Single player, multiplayer
Ratings	BBFC: PG CERO: B ESRB: E10+ ESRB: E (NDS, GBA) OFLC: G PEGI: 12+ PEGI: 11+ (Finland) USK: 12+
Platform(s)	Windows, Mac OS X, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, PS2, XB, GCN, PSP, GBA, NDS, Mobile
Media	CD, DVD, Blu-ray Disc, Wii Optical Disc, UMD, GCN Game Disc, GBA Cartridge, NDS Game Card
System requirements	Windows 2000/Windows XP, 1.7 GHz CPU or equivalent, 512Mb of RAM or more, DirectX 9 compatible graphics card (ATI Radeon 8500 or greater; NVIDIA GeForce 4 Ti or greater) Macintosh: Mac OS X 10.4.9, 1.83GHz or faster Intel Core Duo processor, 1GB RAM, 6GB free hard-disk space, Video card: ATI X1600 series or later; NVIDIA GeForce 7300 or later, DVD-ROM drive

Need for Speed: Carbon is an Electronic Arts video game that belongs to the Need for Speed series.

Contents 1 Background 2 Plot outline 3 Gameplay 3.1 Controls 4 Features 4.1 Car customization 4.2 Characters 4.3 Race types 4.4 Pursuit system 4.5 Cars 5 Soundtrack 6 Reception 6.1 Windows Vista issues 7 References 8 External links

Need for Speed: Carbon was first shown in EA's montage at Nintendo's E³2006 conference and booth and was the cover story in the Game Informer magazine issue of July 2006. Carbon is the first in the Need for Speed series to be released for all seventh generation consoles. Carbon features some of cars of its predecessors; namely Need for Speed Underground 2 and Need for Speed Most Wanted, but also incorporates many new additions including the Audi R8 Road Car (called Le Mans Quattro in-game), the Chrysler 300C SRT 8, Chevrolet's Chevelle SS and the Toyota MR2 Spyder. Carbon features the Canadian actress and model Emmanuelle Vaugier as Nikki, the player's main source of help and ally in the Career storyline. The PSP, Nintendo DS, and Game Boy Advance versions of the game are called Need For Speed Carbon: Own the City, still set in Palmont City however with a totally different storyline. The game is now available for use with Mac OS X. ^[3] Need for Speed: Carbon debuted at number one on the UK All Format Gaming Chart on its first week of release, beating Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer.^[4]

Carbon utilizes the same gameplay engine as with its predecessor, Most Wanted.

Need for Speed: Carbon picks up where the player left off in Most Wanted, driving out of Rockport in his recently-retrieved BMW.

Driving through Carbon Canyon en route to Palmont City, a flashback of what seems to be a race against Kenji, Angie, and Wolf comes to the player's mind. A police incident at the end of the race forces the player to make a hasty escape from Palmont months prior. In the present day at Carbon Canyon, Police Sergeant Cross in his Corvette chases the protagonist down the canyon leading to his famous BMW M3 GTR being totaled; Darius then compensates Cross, and the player meets up with Nikki later on bad terms.

Darius tells the player with the help of Nikki to clean up his image by beating the rival racing crews to gain territory and to reclaim his reputation as a respected street racer in Palmont. Winning races one by one, the player acquires territories and ultimately districts from Kenji, Angie, and Wolf. As the player meets up with racers who want to join the player's crew, the three major heads of the racing crews slowly reveal their side of the story, regarding the night the player took off from Palmont.

Securing all three districts, Darius asks the player to meet up with him, where he reveals he was just using the player all along. On the brink of being arrested by Cross, Nikki saves the player , and tells him that some of their team were telling the truth regarding about the infamous police incident months ago, and joins the player's crew as a selectable crew member. Realizing that Darius was ultimately liable for the player's fall, Nikki and the player attempt to conquer Silverton, and oust Darius and his "Stacked Deck" crew, to clean up their images once and for all.

A string of final races between the player and "Stacked Deck" ensues with the player coming out as the victor in spite of Darius's efforts. Knowing the rules full-well, Darius grudgingly hands over his Audi to the player and exiles himself from Palmont but not without warning the player that "there's always someone out there who's a little faster than you are, and sooner or later they're gonna catch up."

The gameplay is based upon rival street racing clubs and teams and chicks.

Players run a crew and can hire specific street racers to be in their crew. Each hirable street racer have two skills, one which is a racing skill (scout, blocker, and drafter) and a non-race skill (fixer, mechanic, and fabricator). Each skill has different properties from finding hidden alleys/back streets to reducing police attention.

In career mode, players have to race tracks to conquer territories and face off against bosses to conquer districts.

The game also features the return of drift racing, a mode that had been included in two previous installments Need For Speed: Underground and Need For Speed: Underground 2, but omitted from Carbon's predecessor, Most Wanted; and new style of race, Canyon Racing, based on Japanese Touge races. There are 4 types of Canyon Races: Canyon Duel, Canyon Race (essentially a sprint or "Canyon Sprint"), Canyon Checkpoint and Canyon Drift. Canyon Duels consists of two stages. The first part the follower gains points contingent on how tight and aggressive he/she can follow the leader. The second stage the follower takes the lead and loses points depending on how good the first stage leader follows the follower. The follower wins the duel by reaching the finish line with points. The leader loses the race if the follower passes the leader for 10 seconds. The follower loses the race if he/she falls behind for 10 seconds. Either car will lose the race if he/she crashes through the cliff. Checkpoint races works the same way Tollbooth races worked in Most Wanted—players must get from one point to another within the alloted time. The Drag race mode has been omitted from Carbon, previously featured in Underground, Underground 2, and Most Wanted.

The Need for Speed: Carbon Collector's Edition features 4 exclusive cars, 10 pre-tuned cars (out of the box), 6 new races, 3 unique challenge events, 10 unique vinyls and a Bonus DVD showing the making of Carbon and showcasing all the cars used in the game. The Collector's Edition also features alternate box art and metallic finish packaging. Although the Mac edition doesn't display the Collector's Edition title, it contains all Collector's Edition features.

The mobile edition of the game (Own the City) features the Audi TT and the Chevrolet Cobalt SS, while the downloaded version of the game features the Ultimate Performance Kit, 2006 Pagani Zonda F and the 1971 Dodge Challenger.

There is also the ability now to upload one's in game screenshots to the Need for Speed website, complete with stats and modifications. Also, the PC, Xbox 360, and PS3 versions features an online only, "Be the Cop" racing mode, wherein the fastest player has to try and evade the others who are all police; once someone overtakes the fastest player they then become the hunted car.

Control of the actual game play varies on among the different consoles. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 control steering through the use of their joysticks, while acceleration and braking as well as other controls can be configured and mapped to the different buttons on the controllers. On Windows, joysticks and wheel controllers are supported, as well as those that support force feedback.

The Wii lacks online game play, but you can use the Wii Remote in five different configurations:

• Tilting the joy stick left and right to steer and pressing the 1 and 2 button to accelerate and brake.

• Tilting the Nunchuk back and forth to steer and tilting the Wii Remote back and forth at a 45 degree angle to accelerate and brake.

• Tilting the Nunchuk back and forth to steer and holding down the Wii remote like a pedal to accelerate.

• Using the joy stick on the Nunchuk to steer and tilting the Wii Remote back and forth at a 45 degree angle to accelerate and brake.

• Using the joy stick on the Nunchuk to steer and holding down the Wii remote like a pedal to accelerate.

Carbon features a new car customization option called "Autosculpt", enabling players to utilize aftermarket car parts and shape/mould the parts to their liking. Players can also have multiple and/or custom vinyls as well. Performance tuning has been redone so that players, as upgrades are purchased, can tune the car for a number of different properties, such as higher top speed or higher acceleration. Unlike Most Wanted, all of Carbon's performance tuning/enhancing and car customizing is done inside the safe house.

As with Need for Speed: Most Wanted, players will interact with key storyline characters (i.e. Darius, Nikki, Angie, Wolf, and Kenji) ranging from antagonists, deuteragonists, and selectable "crew members" in which some claim to be connected to the player's central plot.

Because players will run a crew in the game, throughout career mode players will run into several major crews, minor crews, and "hirable" crew members as career mode progresses.

Need for Speed: Carbon features about 10 race types as follows: sprint, circuit, drift, checkpoint, race wars, canyon duel, canyon sprint, canyon drift, canyon checkpoint, and speedtrap. Some race types are accessible only through the game's challenge series set.

Most of Carbon's focus lies through various canyon races, which the game's theme is based on. Players have to race against other racers, drift through canyons, or even face off against an opponent in a one-on-one competition known as a "canyon duel", borrowed from Japanese Touge races.

As with Most Wanted, cops are everywhere in Carbon. Police chases can break out at any time, including when in Free Roam mode, when racing, or just after a race is completed. Some races do not have a chance of a police pursuit, such as Canyon races, and Checkpoint races. As with Need for Speed: Most Wanted, there are 5 conditions. Players have to be careful to avoid getting pursued by state or federal authorities.

Although the pursuit system is similar to Most Wanted, this feature has been reprogrammed in Carbon to ensure that police were not too dominant in arrest tactics in high pursuit levels (Some of the police tactics such as the spike strips were toned down) while at the same time to make pursuits much harder to escape once a pursuit initiates.^{[citation needed]}

Players can choose from many licensed cars divided into three classes as follows: Tuners, Muscle cars, and Exotic cars. Each car has its own characteristic ranging from easy cornering to well-balanced road performance. Players have to learn how to master each car class in order to play the game well. Players can choose a class to start career mode on which the set of unlocks will be different.

There are 3 types of cars featured in the game Tuner Cars - Their strongest point is handling, with decent acceleration but slower top speed. They consist of Japanese cars and mainstream European models. Exotic Cars - Their strongest point is their top speed, and are the most balanced, performance-wise, of the car classes. Most cars are from European companies. Muscle Cars - Their strongest point is acceleration and have decent top speed. Their handling is also poor though, and such cars are prone to sliding. Most cars are from companies of the United States.

The official site only lists 46 vehicles, 3 of those being special police cars.^[5][6]

Players can also unlock cars that are reserved for quick races as the players progress throughout the game.

Much like the previous Need For Speed titles, the soundtrack features a variety of electronic, hip-hop, and rock music. By default, hip-hop songs are played when the player is driving an exotic car, electronic songs are played when the player is driving a tuner car, and rock music is played when the player is driving a muscle car (in the PSP version all music plays regardless of the car type). The list of licensed tracks is as follows.

1. Dynamite MC - "Bounce" & "After Party"
2. Ekstrak feat. Know-1 - "Hard Drivers"
3. Eagles of Death Metal - "(Don't Speak) I Came to Make a Bang"
4. Every Move a Picture - "Signs of Life"
5. Gary Numan/Tubeway Army - "Are 'Friends' Electric?"
6. Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five - "Scorpio"
7. Goldfrapp - "Ride a White Horse (Serge Santiago Remix)"
8. Kyuss - "Hurricane"
9. Lady Sovereign - "Love Me or Hate Me"
10. Ladytron - "Sugar (Jagz Kooner Remix)" & "Fighting In Built Up Areas"
11. Melody. - "Feel The Rush (Junkie XL Remix)"*
12. Metro Riots - "Thee Small Faces"
13. Part 2 feat. Fallacy - "One of Dem Days (Remix)"
14. Pharrell feat. Lauren - "Skateboard P presents: Show You How to Hustle"
15. Priestess - "I Am the Night, Colour Me Black"
16. Roots Manuva - "No Love"
17. Spank Rock - "What It Look Like"
18. Sway - "Hype Boys"
19. The Bronx - "Around the Horn"
20. The Presets - "Steamworks"
21. The Vacation - "I'm No Good"
22. Tiga - "Good As Gold"
23. Tigarah - "Girl Fight (Mr. D Hyphy Mix)"
24. Tomas Andersson - "Washing Up (Tiga Remix)"
25. Valient Thorr - "Heatseeker"
26. Vitalic - "My Friend Dario"
27. Wolfmother - "Joker & the Thief"
28. Yonderboi - "People Always Talk About the Weather (Junkie XL Remix)"
29. Legowelt - "Disco Rout"*

• Original version used in PSP version.
• Hidden track, found on song list in credits, part on main menu music.

Many magazines reviewed the game well. PC Format gave it a score of 78%, saying that it was "engaging enough," but lacked innovation. IGN gave it a 7.9 and 8.2 for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 versions respectively, out of 10 possible points.

"It's not revolutionary, it's not brilliant, but it's good, deep racing," said IGN.com

The Gamespot praise for adding more movie clips, customisation and solid gameplay but was critical about frustrating boss battles and under utilizing police chases. Wii is also praised for its motion controls but lacks online play.

Another major criticism of Need for Speed: Carbon was that with its release, many of the anticipated cars such as the Porsche 911 Turbo and Ford Shelby Mustang GT500 were inaccessible in game. After much criticism from common Need for Speed forums such as NFSUnlimited.net and NFScars.net, EA's representative Smoothie later discussed this as a minor problem made during the late production of the game, and respectively, EA released packages of the locked cars available for download for $5.00 USD on the game's website.

Electronic Gaming Monthly gave the game an average score of 8.0.^[7]

The unpatched PC version of the game has compatibility issues when playing under Windows Vista and crashes after the EA Logo screen, although most issues have been resolved in patch version 1.4.

According to EA's Website Support page,^[8] they have not released any games that are supported under Windows Vista and suggest changing the compatibility mode to play EA games if necessary.

In versions prior to 1.4, the game will load with both 32 bit and 64 bit editions of Windows Vista if the compatibility mode is changed to either Windows 98 or 95. However, the game still crashes frequently. Deleting or renaming the MOVIES folder, however, alleviates the problem. This has also been linked to the 1.3 upgrade patch. Some users have also successfully run the game out of the box on Vista 32-Bit RTM, suggesting that the issue may have been related to issues in Vista's pre-release code.

In version 1.4 of the game these conflicts with Windows Vista are solved, according to EA.^[9]

• Need for Speed: Carbon Home Page Official Site (US)
• Mazda RX7 - Need For Speed Carbon Feature
• Need for Speed: Carbon at MobyGames

v • d • e Need for Speed franchise
Video games	The Need for Speed · Need for Speed II · V-Rally · Hot Pursuit · High Stakes · V-Rally 2 · Porsche Unleashed · Motor City Online · Hot Pursuit 2 · Underground · Underground 2 · Most Wanted · Carbon · ProStreet
Locations	Bayview · Rockport · Palmont