Need for Speed: Carbon [PS2]

Need for Speed: Carbon is the latest in EA's franchise of driving games. But instead of offering a souped up version of their last game, it's like trading in your car for a cheaper model. It's not quite a lemon, but it's no steal either.

Need for Speed: Carbon has a very different look from the last game, Need for Speed: Most Wanted, which took place in a nicely varied city. It has a sort of glamour crossed with industrial grunge sensibility, like racing in a cross between Los Angeles and Pittsburgh. To its credit, there were different locations and different times of day to vary the mood and ambience. You drove against a list of bosses, which gave the game a very clear progression as you worked your way up the list.

But Need for Speed: Carbon has a neon blue and Matrix effects wrapper. It takes place during a perpetual night in a city divided into territories controlled by rival gangs driving candy-colored cars. There are bosses, but they're few and far between. The whole thing has a disappointingly generic vibe, from the visuals to the driving events.

You choose among events spread out around the city. You occasionally take control of a territory, which is the main gameplay progression. The variety of driving is much more limited than it was in Most Wanted, which was also peppered with challenges and excuses to redo certain events. But Carbon mainly offers conventional races. There are still races that challenge you to hit a speed camera at a faster speed that your opponents, but nearly everything else is a matter of coming in ahead of the competition. The drag races from Most Wanted are gone, which is a shame, since those broke up the action with their distinctive style. In Carbon, you get drift races, where are maddening exercises in mastering a sloppy drift dynamic. Welcome to EA's take on Ridge Racer.

Also new are two-car canyon races. You have to stick close to a lead car as it works its way along a winding road, usually with a cliff on one side. If you go off the cliff, the race is immediately over (you're not even treated to a view of the car plummeting to the ground). If the car you're following pulls too far ahead, the race is over. You're scored by how close you can stay to the other car. At the end, you do it over, but this time with you as the lead driver. It sounds more engaging than it actually is, particularly in multiplayer, where it's a matter of waiting for the other guy to make a mistake. At that point, you're pretty much done.

True to EA's philosophy for the Need for Speed games, Carbon is built around car customization, in terms of both performance and aesthetics. As you upgrade your car parts, you can fine tune them, but the driving model in this game is far too glib and forgiving for fine tuning. Upgrades are simply a matter of pouring money into ramping up your top speed, acceleration, and handling (in fact, a handy "optimize" button just spends all your money for you). Then you'll unlock a new tier of car which all but invalidates all the money you spent on the last tier.