NFS Carbon or NFS Most Wanted?

By BryanChung
in PC Gaming

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Grand Master

+shift. MVC

Posted
  • MVC
Posted

I would get Most Wanted first THEN get Carbon, because the story in NFS Carbon is a continuation of the one in NFS Most Wanted. And you would want to know what's going on before jumping right into the middle of the story.

Gameplay wise, in my opinion, Most Wanted is more interesting. While Carbon just has nice graphics (sorta)

Grand Master

NeoXY

Posted
Posted (edited)

Carbon is really more of the same. They added "drifting" big woop. It was in fact a terrible game. I beat it in 2 or 3 days. You get maybe 20 - 30 races out of it and you can beat pretty much every race on your first try. The only mode at one point allow you to race as a cop if you finish last. (forgot what its called. Look it up, its advertised as a feature), but there is MUCH more playing time in Most Wanted and is actually considerably difficult when you mess around with the cops from the third blacklist member and up...plus Most wanted looked better...

Get Most Wanted. Carbon reminds me too much of that underground crap :/

p.s...if you REALLY want to play as a cop in the NFS world, I think Hot Pursuit 2 offered you to play as a police officer. But the game is like...6 years old and do not run on Windows XP :laugh:

Grand Master

ANova

Posted
Posted (edited)

I have both and I would definitely recommend Most Wanted. It's a much deeper and more detailed game, has much better replay value, more options, much better graphics, is more challenging, the list goes on.

The only better aspects of carbon are the atmosphere and music.

Grand Master

Fourjays Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted (edited)

I'd also recommend NFS:MW. Although I haven't tried Carbon yet, Most Wanted is amazing compared to the Underground games. From screenshots, I think it looks graphically better than Carbon too - in all the in-game screens of Carbon I have found, the car doesn't look like it is part of the scene. As if it has been cut and pasted into the image.

Has anyone tried Driv3r? I've been thinking of getting it, as I had Driver and Driver 2 on the playstation and loved them. What is it like compared to 1 and 2? I've read player reviews that say the poor reviews are just GTA Fanboys (which is believable considering some of the "bad points" raised against Driv3r are quite applicable to GTA too) .

Edited by Fourjays
Mentor

_dandy_

Posted
Posted
p.s...if you REALLY want to play as a cop in the NFS world, I think Hot Pursuit 2 offered you to play as a police officer. But the game is like...6 years old and do not run on Windows XP :laugh:

I beg to differ. Not only have I played it on XP, I've also played it on XP 64-bit. I fired it up again during the holidays.

Grand Master

Denis W. Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted (edited)

While for some reason I hated Underground 2, Carbon was alright - but only if you're willing to adapt to some changes over Most Wanted. The graphics in Carbon are better, but only if you disable the God awful motion blur. I still prefer the breathtaking scenes in Most Wanted. You can't beat driving with the sun glaring in your eyes :cool:

What Carbon has that MW does not (most on this list don't count as positives for me):

- Canyon duels. Definitely not my favourite.

- Drifting. Quite a hell of a lot harder than the Underground series.

- Autosculpt. Who uses that? :huh:

- A crew that is useful to you in the beginning, but a pain in the ass afterwards.

- Speaking of your crew: EXTREMELY CHEESY FMV BIO VIDEOS OF YOUR CREW.

- Reward cards. Good for boasting e-ego, and unlocks extra stuff.

- The whole concept of controlling territory. Meh.

- Muscle cars.

- One of the most mixed up and underused EA TRAX soundtracks ever. There's hip hop, grime, and techno that are rarely heard in game - instead you hear EA's own in-house composed soundtrack. It's always the same damn 4 songs playing in circuit races. Should I mention they took in Most Wanted's chase music that sounds completely out of place given Carbon's atmosphere- and there's no option to shut it off?

- Tweaking your car's performance is illogical: you'd have to "rebuy" a part to tune it. I prefer Most Wanted's simple performance tweaking menu. Play Underground 2 if you're that obsessed with performance tweaking.

What MW has that EA axed from Carbon:

- Junkman parts. Your maxxed out Carrera GT in Most Wanted will outrun a maxxed out Carrera GT in Carbon.

- Drag racing. Actually, it's more like "let's play dodgeball with traffic" compared to drag racing in the Underground games.

- Helicopters in cop chases.

- A simpler performance upgrades system. They are unlocked sequentially after beating Blacklist members. In Carbon it's completely random and sometimes confusing.

- Oh yeah, and the Blacklist itself. The Blacklist members (bosses) are worth racing against. Carbon's crew leaders are just... meh.

- LAN mode! Why was it removed from Carbon? (even though getting LAN to work in MW is a real PITA)

- One of the most polished game UIs. It fits the game well.

- And of course, the soundtrack. Also fits the game.

Both have checkpoints/tollbooth racing, cop chases (Carbon seriously dumbed down the importance of cops; in Most Wanted you must purposely tick off the cops to advance in career mode), and funky cutscenes. Carbon's video work is a bit more indepth and enjoyable than MW.

Oh, and both games have crash to desktop problems. For Most Wanted, sometimes the game likes to crash with a Visual C++ error when there's too many cops chasing after you. And that's with the latest 1.3 patch. :/

Generally speaking, Carbon is more about controlling your car. Most Wanted is more about speed. I'd take MW over Carbon. There is one challenge in MW where you flee from cops in a cop cruiser. :p

p.s...if you REALLY want to play as a cop in the NFS world, I think Hot Pursuit 2 offered you to play as a police officer. But the game is like...6 years old and do not run on Windows XP :laugh:

I have HP2 on my machine. It runs pretty well.

Edited by rm20010
Grand Master

Razorwing

Posted
Posted
While for some reason I hated Underground 2, Carbon was alright - but only if you're willing to adapt to some changes over Most Wanted. The graphics in Carbon are better, but only if you disable the God awful motion blur. I still prefer the breathtaking scenes in Most Wanted. You can't beat driving with the sun glaring in your eyes :cool:

What Carbon has that MW does not (most on this list don't count as positives for me):

- Canyon duels. Definitely not my favourite.

- Drifting. Quite a hell of a lot harder than the Underground series.

- Autosculpt. Who uses that? :huh:

- A crew that is useful to you in the beginning, but a pain in the ass afterwards.

- Speaking of your crew: EXTREMELY CHEESY FMV BIO VIDEOS OF YOUR CREW.

- Reward cards. Good for boasting e-ego, and unlocks extra stuff.

- The whole concept of controlling territory. Meh.

- Muscle cars.

- One of the most mixed up and underused EA TRAX soundtracks ever. There's hip hop, grime, and techno that are rarely heard in game - instead you hear EA's own in-house composed soundtrack. It's always the same damn 4 songs playing in circuit races. Should I mention they took in Most Wanted's chase music that sounds completely out of place given Carbon's atmosphere- and there's no option to shut it off?

- Tweaking your car's performance is illogical: you'd have to "rebuy" a part to tune it. I prefer Most Wanted's simple performance tweaking menu. Play Underground 2 if you're that obsessed with performance tweaking.

What MW has that EA axed from Carbon:

- Junkman parts. Your maxxed out Carrera GT in Most Wanted will outrun a maxxed out Carrera GT in Carbon.

- Drag racing. Actually, it's more like "let's play dodgeball with traffic" compared to drag racing in the Underground games.

- Helicopters in cop chases.

- A simpler performance upgrades system. They are unlocked sequentially after beating Blacklist members. In Carbon it's completely random and sometimes confusing.

- Oh yeah, and the Blacklist itself. The Blacklist members (bosses) are worth racing against. Carbon's crew leaders are just... meh.

- LAN mode! Why was it removed from Carbon? (even though getting LAN to work in MW is a real PITA)

- One of the most polished game UIs. It fits the game well.

- And of course, the soundtrack. Also fits the game.

Both have checkpoints/tollbooth racing, cop chases (Carbon seriously dumbed down the importance of cops; in Most Wanted you must purposely tick off the cops to advance in career mode), and funky cutscenes. Carbon's video work is a bit more indepth and enjoyable than MW.

Oh, and both games have crash to desktop problems. For Most Wanted, sometimes the game likes to crash with a Visual C++ error when there's too many cops chasing after you. And that's with the latest 1.3 patch. :/

Generally speaking, Carbon is more about controlling your car. Most Wanted is more about speed. I'd take MW over Carbon. There is one challenge in MW where you flee from cops in a cop cruiser. :p

I have HP2 on my machine. It runs pretty well.

I agree with you . But one thing I don't is Drag Racing. I'm glad that they took it out. For me, I'd rather Drift instead of Drag. In UG2, you could actually drift along side someone else. I thought this was in Carbon. Nope. Another thing is that EA intended Carbon to have it's own 'style'. Same with every Underground after games has.

As I said before, the game has tons of potential. EA just screwed it up. It was said that they would include a ton of cars. Yes, but to the fact you cannot use them in career. like WTF. I was soo ****ed off once I found that out. There were like 15 cars you can use in career and the rest ( total of around 50 cars) is only for online, and ontop of that tons are custom tuned and some are stock. Those cars you cannot I repeat you cannot modify at all, even outside of the Career mode. As what I learned from my gaming class, you do not, absolutely do not take away something you already gave the player, or when the player achieves something and they cannot use it. The more I type about Carbon the more now I hate it. Yes, the game is also stupidly unstable and has EA made a patch out for it to fix it? Nope. The 1.3 patch was for online features. I am not even going to start with the online part.

Hopefully when Crysis, or Interstellar Marines comes out I will get rid of this junk.

Grand Master

NienorGT

Posted
Posted

Sorry, but, both sucks online. People are just cheating, high ping make the race unrealistic...

I have both and I regret that EA didn't even protect it's online system like other games.

My "friend" as pirated the game and his fun is to cheat online... :no:

I liked both in career mode but it's too fast finished...

Grand Master

Fourjays Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted
Most Wanted + Carbon's Drifting = WIN

Most Wanted - Drag + No Drifting = WIN :p

I hate both of them. Drifting always feels like it comes down to luck. Drag is simply a case of learning where and when the traffic cars will be so you can follow a certain line.

Experienced

fmxer

Posted
Posted
Most Wanted - Drag + No Drifting = WIN :p

I hate both of them. Drifting always feels like it comes down to luck. Drag is simply a case of learning where and when the traffic cars will be so you can follow a certain line.

Haha i'll pay that drag comment, but I feel carbon's drifting offers more control and therefor I enjoy it more. Although the split scoring is abit weak. :\

  • 2 weeks later...
Veteran

Bei337

Posted
Posted

I beat MW and I'm about to beat Carbon. Both are good games and I would recommend getting MW first (it's only $20) and then after you beat MW (it'll take some time) THEN you can buy Carbon to continue the story line, etc.

While they are the same series they offer different game plays. I loved MW and I'm enjoying Carbon as much as I did with MW.

Oh and make sure to pick up a controller because keyboard=not for racing at all.

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