Hi guys!!
It's been a long time since I'm not being around here...I have lots of exams at university and
it's very difficult to administrate my time, and also playing carbon short my times! LOL
Well, I have to say lots of thing from the new EA game: NFS Carbon.
I will divide my review in sections:
1. GRAPHICS:
- First of all, i'm very impressed in the fact that carbon uses the same MW engine and the game
doesn't stutters at all, well, at least in my pc doesnt do that. Also, I can feel that EA did a
great job trying to implement those effects from consoles (like Speedbraker blur, real road reflection detail,
air coming from the tail of the car/spoiler, etc.)
Graphically, Carbon is just an "optimized" version of the MW engine, that's for sure. But
some effects, like motion blur, shader details, etc, are very cool. But the game still
doesn't give an accurate feeling of been racing at night. The world level of detail contribute that
because the 80% of the building textures are very VERY poor and cartoonish, remembering here
to Underground 2. I think that EA didn't consider the level detail important, but that is exactly what
gives a difference and also a new experience. I was just like "WTF!?" when I realised that even
with the world level of detail at maximum, the enviroment look crappy and repetitive.
But what is cool, is the "darkness" effect. Just low your brightness and you'll see what I'm
talking about. Decrease your monitor brightness and u have a cool real night racing, BUT, sometimes,
specially at canyon drifting or duels, you can't see NOTHING. You have to increase your brightness, and u will
loose the effect, and also it will turn the game too bright for dark textures.
Another cool thing is the road detail. If you increase the shader detail, the road textures looks
amazing. Also it's cool because in MW, the road was "always" the same, full with leaves and "dirty".
This time the road looks more realistic than MW. The "Road reflection" is also worth of trying. It's
even better than the effect from U1 or U2.
The car reflection detail is awesome, just pass a racer and you'll see your car reflected in his car! NICE!
I like a lot the fact when you change an option, it loads inmediately, there's no pop-up effect from the resolution,
it just loads without "reseting" the graphic engine.
About resolutions, it's nice to set now with no "lag" 800x600, 1024x768 or up to those ones. Almost forgot:
The shader detail leaves a great great performance if you turn it OFF. Max ALL your graphics except shaders
and you will see. BUT, as always the game looks SO CRAPPY!!! :S
My mark to this aspect: 8/10
2. Career Mode:
- When i saw the trailer of some of the characters like Cross, Emanuelle (Nikki), etc, i thought the story were going
to blow this year: nothing happened.....
The game in fact is Most Wanted 2 ( it's supposed that we are continuing with the character that escaped from Rockport)
and it was obvious that EA were going to use the same "formula" from MW. At the start, the story looks very attractive, but soon,
it goes down, and deeply goes down. I'm not referring to something interesting, is the fact that the story looses "interest" after all those
"flashbacks" from your crew wingmens. I just cleared the story just seeing the first 2 flashbacks, from Samson and
the girl (i dont remember her name: Melody?). With those 2 flashbacks I joined the whole story: Darius was behind all...
But what I really can't understand yet is the f****** boring ending. Come on EA! You just won and Darius just leaves? and Nikki has no words?
She just watches you....LOL, come on EA.... For next time, do something MORE interesting... I don't know, like samantha from U1 challengues you,
or Eddie also from U1 returns to challengue Nikki, whatever....
My mark to this aspect: 4/10 and it's deserved....
3. Music:
- Well, i miss the MW music. MW music is far 389378937538947 times better than Carbon soundtrack. Some songs keeps you boring, repetitive
composed music in races, few interactive music in pursuits (even they keep the good ones
) and also noticed that there's no option
to just put the songs in the menu. I'm bored to hear the same damn composed music in the menu!!!! :S xD
Also, EA didn't insert the "next song" button in Carbon, which in Mw was cool because if you were tired of 1 song, just hit the key and there u go: Next
track please!! XD.
I can't say anymore about music, because I can't discuss if that music is better than this one, It's logical, you have different tastes from me, it's obvious
My mark to this aspect: 6/10
4. Gameplay (drifting, physics, etc.):
- This is one os the most difficult points to talk. I'll do my best. First of all, I'm glad that drifting is back to nfs games. But the system is a little bit complicated
if you don't have a joystick or pad with analogs, because drifting with analogs it's much easier than drifing with keyboard, VERY DIFFERENT...
With a keyboard, the car tends to slide more and it's problable that you crash with walls. I also hate when you're using NOS and trying to tape a key and accelerating, and
somehow, the car doesn't respond, i mean, the car still accelerates and uses nos, but u can't turn to left in my case pressing the 3 keys. But that is past, because i bought a new
analog controller just for carbon (2 days ago
).
Another thing i noticed is that the game crashes more often than Mw. I hope EA release a patch for this point. I found a BUG, yes people, a BUG. If you start as a tuner, and when you
challengue Kenji for the 1st time (that circuit race), if you click "JUMP TO EVENT", the game crashes!, but if you drive and press the "Enter event" which is "ENTER" or "INTRO", the game loads
normally this race. :S
My mark to this aspect: 6/10
5. Pursuits:
- Not really different from MW, but the AI is very very improved and optimized this time. LVL 1 cops will start chasing you even at high end speeds. They also try to crash you from the sides,
uses also rolling roadblocks (the technique from LVL 5 Crovettes from MW) and other cool stuff. LVL2 cops are cool, just trying to ctach you at any cost, but they tend to accelerate quicker than LVL 1 cops.
LVL 3 cops are more intelligent this time, because the blocks are placed seconds before passing the block area, which really doens't give you much time to see where you can pass or which cop car to ram.
LVL 4 cops are smart enough to keep you using speedbraker constantly, the spike strips are placed much quicker than MW. I noticed that when you're approaching to a spike strip, they tend to "distract" you
from the front road, crashing your car just few moments before passing through the roadblock, which in my opinion, is a challengue to every who played MW and even an pursuit master.
LVL5 cops are the hell man....they are demon-posessed. they start crossing in your front bumper. trying to crash your car in the rear bumper of their car and then apply the brakes....NICE!
Well, idk why, but i can't see the chopper yet! where the f*** is it?! In career freeroam i can't advance to a level 6, 7 or 8, and idk if those heat levels exists in career freeroam, at least i experienced lvl 7
in one of the challengues series, and all i have to say is: WOW!!! but still no helicopter....
My mark to this aspect: 8/10
6. Sound:
- Man, i recently bought an Audigy 2 and....WOW!!! also i bought a 5.1 sound system and OMFG!!! The cars sounds so realistic that one day playing i thought that a racer was really behind me, and even i didn't use the
"look back" key because I clearly hear where "exactly" is the car behind me..awesome. The car engines are pretty cool, specially the Nissan 350z and Skyline engines, and I was shocked when I bought the Charger R/T...OMG
I was --> O_o ....
My mark to this aspect: 10/10 (Sound IMO is the best!)
7. A.I ("Catch-up", blockers, drafters, scouts, and global):
- I was praying before getting the game because I was so scared that the game could have that horrible and cheating "catch-up" system from MW, but it seems that the system now is "sorted", like some races catch up is present,
but in other races is not there.....
About what EA said long ago, about the "new" catch-up, I think they are saying 70% of truth, because sometimes I have a amazing tuned Murcielago, but when I'm racing, some tuners (Mazdas RX-7's, Mazdas 3's, etc.) are passing me...
then I just feel that the catch-up from MW is there...
, but in some races, especially the Race Wars, there's no catch-up at all..... weird..... :S :S
In general, the A.I is better than MW, and I'm also glad that the traffic for the FIRST TIME, try to avoid you when you come straight to them. But I don't like something special from the traffic: If you touch them, they seems to be
toy cars because they start to spin everywhere, and fly also very several meters away...weird... :S :S :S :S...
My mark to this aspect: 7.5/10
8. Autosculpt:
- When I first heard of this, I was in shock: "...You're going to be able to do your own parts, modifiying every aspect of each part...", sounds great,huh?... well, my toungue wants more. I think EA did a great job with this, but
they should include more parts or even more zones to modify. Cool also that each class has it's own parts, because you're not going to found the "shadow" bumper in the Muscle cars Autosculpt. Some parts are so cool to modify, like the spoilers,
the wheels, etc, but I'm dissapointed because we can't modify the "Body Kits", which are classified as "Aftermarket" parts
....
One aspect that is very awesome is the Vynil Autosculpting: just do whatever you want with it, stretch it, move it, rotate it, etc. BUT, the interface is slow, too slow in my opinion, but it's ok, what more you want if you can do whatever with
them?
Also, paiting this year is great! Iridiscent, Pearlescent, Candy, Chrome (my favourites), Gloss, Metallic and the other categorie that I can't remember now
...Are cool enough to test as many combinations as possible.
PD: GUYS, IF ANYONE CAN FIND THOSE STRIPES FROM MW, THE ONES LIKE THE VIPER VYNIL, PLEASE TELL ME BECAUSE I CAN'T FIND THEM!!!
As a conclusion, Autosculpt HAS TO BE in the next NFS game, I hope EA can release Underground 3 with autosculpt, IF there's an Underground 3 XD.
My mark to this aspect: 9/10 ...fun is guaranted
9. Race Types (Canyon duels, Pursuit Knockout, Pursuit Tag, Drift, etc...)
- Canyon duels are not the big thing...they are for quick reaction racers, and the ones who can properly tune their cars. I don't recommend going to a duel with all the performance parts installed but without TUNE them. As I can feel, the car's
handling is reduced significantly during canyon duels, even a Tuner can handle like a rock if it's not TUNED.
About Pursuit Knockout and P. Tag, those modes are freaking awesome. I just tested those modes in a friend house and it was amazing: There's total mess!!! So cool, but i'm again dissapointed because we can't do this OFFLINE, what a pity!!
Also wondering why EA didn't put a damn "Split-Screen Mode"??? Damn guys.....
My mark to this aspect: 8.5/10
AND FINALLY, AFTER A LONG LONG POST (SORRY GUYS, THIS IS MY FINAL REVIEW OF MY GAME)
10. CARS!!!!
- What I can say? This is far the BEST carlist made by the "new" NFS team. Skylines, Murcielagos, Vipers, RX-8's, Supras, Jaguars, Mercedes's, uffff....amazing carlist.
The 2 bad points here are that if you bought the Collectors Edition like me, there's just few "new" cars, like the Pagani Zonda F, Nissan 240sx, and some pre-tuned cars, and that horrible DVD.
The other point is that....MAN!!! I CAN'T CUSTOMIZE THE OLD ECLIPSE!!! AND SOME OTHER CARS LIKE THE AUDI LE MANS, BMW M3 GTR, ETC!!! DAMN DAMN DAAAAAAAMMMMNNNNN EA!!!
But I'm glad I can finally realise my "dream": Nissan Skyline GTR-34 vs. Lamborghini Murcielago.. WOW!!!
Okey...that's all what I can say about this "expansion pack" (hehehehehe
)
I'm also wondering if this team is going to do the next NFS (If there's another NFS) or another one. Seriously thinking this, I think they shoold quit, and let to another team do the following NFS series.
I really want to see Underground 3, really, because the story is interesting, much more than Mw and Carbon one. I want to see a return of Samantha, Eddie, Caleb from U2 and other characters.
So, this is the end of my report.
I'll back as soon as i finish my exams guys...promised! (maybe this week, I dont know really)
Take care all
.....(this is the least error, cos you can choose not to make that big...)
(its not because im a bad drifter, in the 'flat' tracks i beat the hell out of the AI 
)
