Playing testsies with Need For Speed: Carbon!

I absolutely loved NFSU2, but was rather disappointed with Most Wanted, and after I read an exclusive in GameInformer about Carbon, I was amped about it. Finally last week a demo came up on XBOX Live, and I got to play it. Here we go with how it's like.

In the demo you can choose from an old Charger, a Lancer, and a Lamorghini Gallardo. Once you pick you get to test out the game's customization which is called AutoSculpt or something like that. It's the coolest thing about the game, because you can mold just about every feature of your cars, and it's very hard to get 2 cars looking alike. That is the best part of this game I think..

You then can do a race and a drift, both of which are easy once you figure them out. The race is not challenging whatsoever thanks to the "squads", which are probably one of the most pointless features ever, because they stop other racers from being ahead or keep them behind you. Makes the races way too easy, when they're already very simple. It also is very hard to see anything, and you can thank blur for that. Yes they did it on purpose.

I liked the drifting a lot more, it definitely worked better then back in the days of Underground. I enjoyed that, but it really didn't make up for how bad the racing was. And I can see the fun of this wearing out quickly, as well.

Last you get to try the new Canyon race, which seemed like an awesome idea, but in reality it's nothing special. The purpose is to go down a winding canyon road, head to head, and if you hit them you lose points, if you hit the rail on the side of the road you fall off and lose, and if you pass them you win. It would work cool, if it weren't for the fact that a lot of rails that should be able to fall through, aren't, and the ones that you can are funky colored. Makes them look weird. And the problem with it is that you can go through the rail and sort of drive along the top side of the mountain, which sort of takes away from the way it's supposed to be played.. I was not impressed.

I am shocked at how this game is actually worse then Most Wanted.. check it out for a rent I guess, but I wouldn't be doing anything else with it.