After the well-received NFS Most Wanted, the sequel was not long in coming and Carbon was released in November 2006. But whether MW is better than the next part or not, we’ll now consider.
Plot
The plot, as befits a sequel, continues the plot of the previous part. After escaping from Rockport, we go to Palmont and watch a flashback. We were already Palmonte and were racing against Kenji, Angie and Wolf. We win the race in the Toyota Supra, but the cars of Kenji, Angie and Wolf are paralyzed by the EMP. We take the main prize (money) and run away. Later we find out that there was no money in the bag.
Cross is still chasing us. At the end of the chase, you unfortunately lose your legendary BMW M3 GTR, and have already fallen into the clutches of Cross, but then several cars pull up. This is Darius, our old friend. He helps us get rid of Cross and one person familiar to the hero reappears - Nikki. She is clearly not happy about our appearance, believing that we have betrayed everyone. Darius, in return for help then and now, demands from us that we retake the city for him from local gangs, led by the already familiar Kenji, Angie and Wolf.
Later, at the car dealership, we choose one of three cars and undergo training related to the use of a new feature - assistants.
Gameplay
There are no fundamental changes - we still participate in street racing, but not alone, but in a team with one person. By winning races on a territory, we capture it. After capturing all the territories of one gang, we challenge the boss. The race with the boss takes place in 2 stages: 1) Duel in the city. Just cross the finish line first. 2) Canyon. A tense ride along the serpentine road. The goal here is not to fly off the track and not to lag behind your opponent, if possible to overtake him.
The game has the usual types of races “ring”, “sprint”, etc. and in addition to the above-mentioned race with the boss, a “drift” race has also appeared, which was already in Underghround. A “battle of teams” also appeared. Here you compete against a large number of competitors from different teams in a long race.
There are copsin the game, but... They faded into the background when compared to MW. Here they are all in one place, although you can still have some fun.
Assistants. Bots that play on your side. I wouldn't say they're extremely useful, but they don't get in the way either. Each type of assistant has its own skill. The blocker blocks the opponent's path and stops them, the speeder rides in front of the player and when driving behind him you gain speed faster, the observer looks for shortcuts on the route and marks them on the map. In addition to active abilities, they have passive ones such as +10% money after check-in, discounts on purchases at a car dealership, etc.
The game has a good fleet of cars in the form of three classes: muscle cars, exotic and tuned. And, as befits a street racer, we can tune the car to our taste. The choice is wide. Change body parts? Can. Vinyls? No questions asked. Change your seating position? Yes! The game also has a cool tuning system Autosculpt. The part is offered to you, and you can completely customize its appearance yourself.
Graphics
The graphics cannot boast of anything remarkable. The city is well designed, the cars are well detailed, but... There's something missing in the game. Well, you don’t feel the night in the city (the lighting doesn’t give the full effect of night), there are, one might say, no shadows, and the reflections are not very detailed. Although, perhaps, for its time the game looks quite tolerable.
Music
The game's soundtrack is represented by very cool compositions for every taste. There are 3 genres to choose from: rock, hip-hop and electro. But you know what makes the soundtrack stand out from the rest of the series? The music is interactive and plays a specific genre of music depending on your current car. Naturally, muscle cars play rock music. The tuned ones play electro, the exotic ones play hip-hop. The game also has a kind of player in which you can turn off some tracks or specify at what point they should play. This has already happened in the NFS series, starting with Underground.
Summary
Black Box wasn't afraid to experiment a little with the series, and rightly so! NFS Carbon offered something new and it fit well into the game. The game turned out well, but did not receive recognition from the players. It's a pity...