Need for Speed Carbon Demo Available On Xbox Live

An early morning update from Major Nelson today reports that the Need for Speed Carbon demo is now available on the Xbox Live Marketplace. Indeed, this one's only for Xbox 360 owners, but we do expect a PC demo to follow sooner or later this month. The Major also indicates that the demo is 1 GB big, and offers the following promotional blah-blah:

"The Battle for the City is Won in the Canyons. What starts in the city is settled in the canyons as Need for Speed Carbon immerses you in the world's most dangerous and adrenaline-filled form of street racing. You and your Crew must race in an all-out war for the city, risking everything to take over your rivals' neighborhoods one block at a time. As the police turn up the heat, the battle ultimately shifts to Carbon Canyon, where territories and reputations can be lost on every perilous curve. With Online racing and the most advanced graphics and car customization tools ever, Need for Speed Carbon is the ultimate next generation racing game."

"The ultimate next generation racing game", eh? Rrright! Maybe the ultimately rushed racing game, because players are already complaining about framerate slowdowns in the demo, especially during Drift and Canyon races. And that's not all they're complaining about. Here's just one comment that sums it all up:

"Wow, this demo is ... incredibly .... baaaad. Wth [what?] are EA and M$ thinking ? Seriously, this demo is gonna harm sales big time. Framerate drops that nearly bring the game to a full halt for a second in tight turns, controls that could better be described as lack of controls, lack of physics, lack of AI ..... lack of everything that made Most Wanted a good and fun game."

So... go ahead and buy it if you like the demo. It's coming out on November 1, and I bet a whole lot of people will be waiting to get their hands on it. Sad thing is, I'm not being ironic at all.

(N.B. Archive text, links removed)