Review: Need For Speed Carbon: Own The City (DS)

Score: 81

I know there have been previous titles in this series, from different developers, but I haven't played them and am approaching Need For Speed Carbon: Own The City from scratch. There's a plot of sorts here, to do with winning back sections of the city by winning races, but essentially it's simply high-octane fun behind the wheel in races where there are no rules.

In practice this means careering through city streets at well over 100mph. Although the basic car physics aren't that realistic, the impression of speed is, with motion blur in all the right places and with a surprisingly high frame rate throughout. In addition to left and right on the D-pad, you'll need to use the brake sometimes in order to get round a corner, either facing the right way or by sliding round sideways, which is more fun than it sounds.

There are pumping music soundtracks, if you're into that sort of thing, although they bear no relation to the action on-screen. The dual screen is used to good effect (dashboard and first person view), although there's little use for the stylus here.

Finally, there's a wingman to help you out in races, with manoeuvres like crashing into the guy in front of you, automatically bumping you up one place. Never mind the carnage. Not that there's much of that on-screen, at least, everything's very sanitised here.

If you buy this title, it'll be because you like racing (virtual) cars at high speed. And you'll be very happy, because that's the one thing that this game really excels at.

(Buy Need For Speed Carbon: Own The City for the Nintendo DS Lite now)