Need for Speed Carbon, A 'Reinventing' Hybrid...

Need for Speed Carbon, A 'Reinventing' Hybrid // UPDATE

There's this thing about EA's press releases that never ceases to amaze me... and that's the sheer amount of BS. Superficial superlatives aside, there's not much left in there about the latest game in their long-racing NFS series - Need for Speed Carbon. Thankfully, though, Game Informer already managed to score a preview revealing a few details about Carbon, which we'll quickly run through below. Don't bother fastening your seat belt, this will be a rather quick drive.

First of all, you can imagine Carbon as a cross between Underground and Most Wanted (how's that for "reinventing the franchise") - meaning that it will retain some of Most Wanted's police chase sequences, while also reintroducing Underground's tuning features ("using the ground-breaking new Autosculpt technology", they say). The "map factor" will also be in place, as the player will have to win territories over three different maps, each split into seven different territories. Control will be gained via a racing duel, and once it is established, the player will be entitled to bonuses such as cheaper car parts.

Downhill Drifts are also back, except that they don't call it that way anymore... and they may not always be drifts... or downhill, for that matter. These are the new "Canyon" races, and here's how Electronic Arts would want us to see them:

"What starts in the city is settled in the canyons as Need for Speed Carbon immerses you into 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' neighbourhoods 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."

You gotta love this "reinvention" of the racing genre, with all sorts of gameplay features that are about anything but actual racing. But anyway, expect Need for Speed Carbon to clog up retail shelves around Christmas, over about a dozen platforms: PC, PlayStaion 2, PlayStation 3, PSP, Xbox, Xbox 360, GameCube, GBA, DS and Wii.

A couple of meaningless trailers are available here (E3 2006) and here, along with the first three equally-pointless screenshots.

UPDATE: EA opened an official NFS: Carbon website, and new screenshots have started to flow. I'm not impressed! [27.06.2006, 17:21]

(N.B. Archive text, links removed)