During its lifetime, the Need for Speed series has passed through quite a few stages. In the beginning it was all about speed, then we had Porsche and it was all about the cars and the beauty of driving such beasts through fantastic environments. Next, we had chases with cops and that’s when the game went underground, culminating with Most Wanted. Lately, the tuning mania kicked in and Electronic Arts couldn’t stay away. Carbon comes to fill this gap with its evolved tuning feature, now called Autosculpt, and quite a few multiplayer treats.

        It seems to me that Carbon combines the best features found in the previous titles. First, we now get the exotic cars and car concepts that, of course, we can tune like the rest of the others. Muscle cars are also a new addition and while quite difficult to drive compared with tuners and exotics, they are a welcomed presence. So, we now get three car classes to play with (muscles, exotics and tuners), each with three tiers and lots of cars to choose from. Then we have the tuning part of the game, which is improved with the addition of the Autoculpt feature. More details to come, but for now pay attention here. Playing through the career mode may prove a bit disappointing to some of you, partly due to its length and partly due to its limited race types, but when going in multiplayer, you’ll get two new modes which involve the cops and this is where the fun begins. Basically, I’m going to analyze these three additions to the series and then draw the proper conclusion. Let’s go!