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Common Sense Note

Parents need to know that this game features illegal street racing and most of the trappings found in rave and "pimp my ride" culture. Meaning, everything is neon, everyone sports an attitude, and lawlessness is "cool." A lot of emphasis is put on spending money to "trick" cars out with cool accoutrements, as well as street-illegal car enhancements. The game glorifies illegal acts, to put it lightly, and EA is aware of this. They've included a video warning at startup, reminding kids and parents not to try this on their local streets.

Families can talk about why safe driving is important and why people should never participate in street racing in real life. Parents might want to remind kids that this game has an unrealistic lack of consequences. Families might also want to discuss the racing car culture -- why does it have such a strong pull? Why is it people have such loyalties to different types of cars?

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Common Sense Review

Reviewed By: Andrew Bub

Welcome to fictional Palmont City, a neon-lit car lover's dreamscape where rival gangs compete for control of the town and the canyons beyond. In NEED FOR SPEED CARBON, players assume the role of a racer with a checkered past. The story challenges you to take over the town one borough at a time (or defend what you've taken) by tweaking your car, picking the right wingman, and winning races.

The focus is on arcade-style racing -- cars never get damaged and stay glued to the road -- but there's a strategic layer that makes the game feel deeper than your average racer. Players can choose from three basic types of cars -- tuner, muscle, and exotic -- and then tweak their performance in the garage. Knowing a rival gang uses muscle cars influences the type of car and the type of approach you'll want to take.

A new concept, "wingmen" allow you to have a computer-controlled car help you win races by messing with rival cars (by blocking, bumping, or harassing them).

The graphics are beautiful, offering a wide variety of city streets and twisting, turning canyons to race in. All races take place at night, which gets boring after a while, but the neon and headlight effects are often stunning -- particularly when you watch a replay of a race. The music is mostly techno, so grease monkeys who don't enjoy club beats will probably experience extra road rage after a few hours.

The game offers a few dozen real-world cars you can race. The Xbox, PlayStation 2, Gamecube, PC, and Wii versions allow four computer-controlled cars on the track. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions expand the race to eight cars and offer a new mode, a massive 20-car race unfortunately named "Race Wars."

While the addition of "wingmen" is cool, their practical effect is that they make the game too easy. As a consequence, initially, moderately experienced racers will win most races. However, that winning streak will come to a screeching halt when faced with Boss races, intense competition where you can actually win territory, because those races are incredibly hard and frustrating. Most of the Boss races involve racing downhill in a twisting canyon at high speed. If you take a single turn in a less-than-perfect manner, you'll have to replay the entire race. Need for Speed Carbon would have been a better game if the developers had found a happy medium between these two levels of racing difficulty.

While the concept of gaining territory and the addition of wingmen add interest to this series and racing games in general, gamers are better off picking up Cars or Gran Turismo 4 to fulfill their speed needs.

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