NFS: Carbon demo is out

/me stabs download queues

Does this come with free spyware too?

*Cuts cue* WEEEEEEE

Anyone know of any torrent links to the demo? (Am at school now, but I can remotely queue up a torrent from home (bless you uTorrent)). It' d be nice to have this ready when I get home.

Aggies

ive got the 360 demo and it sucks big time. it has no actual changes that warrant a purchase if you already have most wanted.

Played the 360 Demo.

Main differences:
- Dark instead of light (MW daytime looks prettier IMHO)
- Can custo car more
- Improved Multiplayer (this wasn't in the demo). You can play as the cops now, which is nice.

Gonna see how the demo plays out with my Momo Wheel. It ain't true racing without a racing wheel ;)

I abhor the drifting race type though. I thought I was done with that after Underground :(

Aggies

bloody que 27min!
Im suppose to be out at 10pm, downloading this demo is more important lol

Heh, man this is why I love private torrent trackers. No queues and damn fast speeds! :D

I found it a bit bland to be honest - the car detail looks to be improved, but at the expense of detail around the tracks. I guess we'll have to wait til you can roam before it'll be clear whether the detail in the background is as good as MW.

I'm still in the queue :( does it support widescreen yet or am I going to have to avoid playing it on my laptop again?

im abit ignorant with the need for speed franchise, can someone please tell me whats so good about these games?! iv played a few of them and they are average at best :S

Demo's pretty good. Controlls are way better than MW, its darker (wee!), all cars doesnt look the same (ok, they do in the demo, since theres just one color per car.. but itll be better in the full game, I hope) and the drifting's back.. I just love the drifting! Not as simple as in nfsu, but.. well.. thats it? Im to tired for this

Originally Posted by fev
*Cuts cue* WEEEEEEE

xD Me too downloading @ 1200 kb/s I've been waiting for this since teh begining of august! w00t Can't wait! (even tho its only 11mins :P )

Originally Posted by Solidus
im abit ignorant with the need for speed franchise, can someone please tell me whats so good about these games?! iv played a few of them and they are average at best :S

lol join the club... I find them utterly dull and repetative with poor graphics and rearly don't get how people can like them too :P

Originally Posted by Solidus
im abit ignorant with the need for speed franchise, can someone please tell me whats so good about these games?! iv played a few of them and they are average at best :S

Ok, the idea of Need For Speed ever since the NFS2 (the first one I played) is that you race but really quickly. The perceived speed is notched up to a little beyond realistic levels. To compensate for this, the tracks are usually wider than your average race track, and there are always some nice big corners you can take at full pelt.

Since NFS Underground though the feel of the cars has perhaps been made even less realistic but I would say definitely more fun. Handling is usually responsive, braking and acceleration are quick. Along with that came the whole addition of customisability of your car's internal and external parts along with unlockables and everyone loves unlockables in a game.

The last four games then have maintained this feel more or less with new features to make things more interesting such as a roam-able city, nitrous, various race types such as drift, sprint, etc. Then came police chases and challenges in Most Wanted which I think was done really well (although totally unrealistic) and was the best NFS yet.

Oh yeah and one other thing before someone mentions it, NFS has always had a good selection of proper cars by real makes. Sometimes you might even believe you feel like you know what it's like to drive a Lamborghini Gallardo and assuage somewhat your hopes of ever doing it for real.

Anyway back to the demo. My first thoughts are:
I don't like the night-time setting. The daytime was one of the good things about MW.
The normal racing seems pretty easy as usual.
The drift mode sucks and I actually liked the drifting in NFSU2 on occasion. Somehow they've made it ridiculously easy to turn the car from left to right and yet at the same time that's made it harder to do a proper drift.
The canyon racing is pretty tough but it's not bad. Somehow though the constantly switching camera down to the side of your car makes it a lot harder to control.
And what the hell is that Crew Member stuff about? Why the hell would I want the help of a crew member and have him constantly tell me how well I'm doing?

Oh and how do you change the settings as there were no in game options? I really don't fancy playing it at 640x480 again. :|

I have actually been enjoying the demo quite a bit so far. The canyon racing and circuit mode didn't do anything special for me, but I really like the way the cars drift now. I think it feels much better than the drift mode in Underground 1 & 2.
So I have been playing the drift track over and over for about 1.5 hours now. I find it much easier to use the manual transmission for chaining large drifts together without smashing into the wall.
Current record:~402,000 points over 2 laps on the demo track.

I must agree, the crew member feature sucks big time. Can you turn it off?

Dex: at the main menu, press 1 for Options, then press the down key on your keyboard to scroll through the available system options.

But who can forget the amazing career mode in Porsche Unleashed, where you got to be a Porsche test driver? That was possibly the most fun single part of any need for speed game I have played, I must say. I am currently downloading the demo, hope they have made the physics a bit more realistic. (In MW, the driving is quite retarded. I found that alot of the times at slow speed I couldn't drive under 20mp without the car skidding.) I also hope they improved the sound a bit.

Originally Posted by ~Link~

Current record:~402,000 points over 2 laps on the demo track.
.

Alas that score sucks my brother in law has been getting in the 700,000 range for the last week or so but he has been playing it non stop for like 2 weeks (how long its been on xbox live) much to the annoyance of me.

I would like to say THPS Project 8 DEMO came out not to long ago for 360 which i gotta say plays well and looks great.

I'm really exited about Carbon 'cause its much more like Underground.
Tbh I hated most wanted, daylight all the way and the custimisation options
on the cars was pretty poor judjing from how many parts Underground 2 had.
And in MW ther where no drift races and drag sucked.
But thank god all of that is supposed to be back and better
/one hour left of downloading

Anyone else call this game Car- Bon! with a spanish accent like i do? its sounds much more exotic.

EDIT: Just played it, The handeling on the tuner car was rubbish, the race was too dark anf the motion blur ruined it as i didnt know which way to go also that the team member was useless, also the drift was equally as horrible as the handeling was shite.

Also the game is too dark, i like my day time stuff.
Tho im not gonna rite this game off as its only a DEMO.

Seemed slightly prettier than Most Wanted, will have to see how it turns out. Seemed to be reasonably fun though. :)

Might put my realism hat back on later and play a bit of GTR2. :D

Just played it and it seems allright.
The car customisation seems quite cool (althought I hope there are more options/paint jobs on the full version), and is certainly different from previous versions.
However, the driving, to me, seems less fun than it was in Most Wanted. I don't know why, I just enjoyed the gameplay more in MW than in this. This seems to be very similar to Underground, just with a few tweaks on the car customisation.
Drift mode sucks, I've always hated it. Probably why i can't get past it :p
racing seems OK, the handling on the cars annoys me for some reason.

I really really liked Most Wanted, so the fact that there are pursuits makes me want the game. I don't much care for the darkness, but I can get past that. It seems like they made the motion blur more blurry than MW which really dosn't help. I really hate the drift race in the demo, incredibly frustrating. The car just flips back and forth with the slightest tap of the arrow keys. It reminds me of a fish on the deck flopping around for dear life :( . Now in MW I could drift my car, and that required lots of mashing at the keyboard, tweaking your wheels back and forth and fiddling with the accelerator/brake/NOS to hold the drift. When the car flips into a drift at the tap of an arrow key, I'm not impressed. The drift mode will be like the drag mode in MW, something to suffer through to get to the rest of the game. I am not impressed. I never played the two Underground games because they were dark and pure racing games. Got to have some smashing in there :p

42% Looks like I will get it in the next few hours, looks like my saturday night is sorted...

Originally Posted by stephen2002
I really really liked Most Wanted, so the fact that there are pursuits makes me want the game. I don't much care for the darkness, but I can get past that. It seems like they made the motion blur more blurry than MW which really dosn't help. I really hate the drift race in the demo, incredibly frustrating. The car just flips back and forth with the slightest tap of the arrow keys. It reminds me of a fish on the deck flopping around for dear life :( . Now in MW I could drift my car, and that required lots of mashing at the keyboard, tweaking your wheels back and forth and fiddling with the accelerator/brake/NOS to hold the drift. When the car flips into a drift at the tap of an arrow key, I'm not impressed. The drift mode will be like the drag mode in MW, something to suffer through to get to the rest of the game. I am not impressed. I never played the two Underground games because they were dark and pure racing games. Got to have some smashing in there :p

Drift is much easier with an Xbox 360 controller - I increased my scores from around 40k with keyboard to 400k with Xbox 360 controller. :D

Originally Posted by Reaper_Unreal
I'm still in the queue :( does it support widescreen yet or am I going to have to avoid playing it on my laptop again?

*kicks EA* no... it doesn't.

the drifting while a bit more challenging is far more annoying than it wan in U2. visuals i wouldn't say were rubbish. but it seems like it took a step down from MW. i do have to say that i dont care if its light or dark. but it gets annoying when its constant, should be a little bit more dynamic. i think they have taken too many features from underground out. the higher level of parts available for visual upgrades. i don't think its one ill be buying though. doesn't impress me enough. a long awaited letdown imho.

Having Played Underground (passed on U2) and then MW.

Carbon is "OK" (from the demo, played it with my Logitech Momo Racing).

In general the Need for Speed is about balls out racing fun. Some would call it "arcade", as it's definitely nothing near a sim. Take a corner to fast, and you can bump into buildings/rails etc, without much of a penalty. However there is enough understeer/oversteer at times to still make it challenging (it's great with a FF wheel).

Carbon feels less like the open world of MW and more like the "set of strict races" like Underground.

The drifting I find is actually easier in Carbon. Initially I tried drifting like in Underground (Steep angles, ease off the gas to give time to fishtail etc).

However with Carbon, the car will naturally drift. My scores were low, until I just got pissed off and tried to drive through the track as fast as possible, screw drifting. Right away I got a 175k single drift. If you just drive fast, taking corners, the cars naturally drift. While terribly unrealistic, it looks like the driving model has been adjusted to make cars drift naturally. So it's easier. Don't try to force it, just drive fast and corner normally, and you'll drift into insane combos. After a few tries I was able to smooth it out a bit (making sure to stay inside bonus areas).

I still dont' enjoy drifting, and didn't miss it at all from MW.

All in all Carbon feels like a bit of a step backwards. With blurr off, the graphics are ok, but without daylight, everthing looks more dull/generic. The multiplayer may be the only saving grace.

Aggies

Doesnt remotely work in my Vista RC2. Dam you nvidia drivers :(

Originally Posted by Tim S
Drift is much easier with an Xbox 360 controller - I increased my scores from around 40k with keyboard to 400k with Xbox 360 controller. :D

I gotta try that... I can't get past 240K with my beloved Keyboard.
Does anybody here know when the wireless 360 controller pc will be available?
Btw Drift just freaking rulezz

edit:/made it to over 262K...getting to the 300k step by step
god I'm adictet :)

I had a go on it and am not very impresed. The graphics arn't that good even maxed out and don't run very smoothly even at lowest settings even though my pc far exceeded the minimum spec. The handeling of the cards is so unlike any car that it's boring. The tracks are dull and repetative and the cpu players seem to auto catch up when you start thrashing them which is annoying as it destroys any remaining sense of imersion. I do however like the car customisation.

Originally Posted by Kipman725
I had a go on it and am not very impresed. The graphics arn't that good even maxed out and don't run very smoothly even at lowest settings even though my pc far exceeded the minimum spec. The handeling of the cards is so unlike any car that it's boring. The tracks are dull and repetative and the cpu players seem to auto catch up when you start thrashing them which is annoying as it destroys any remaining sense of imersion. I do however like the car customisation.

I'll second everything said here! God knows why it doesnt run smooth, it's like that on my computer to. Very annoying! I much prefer NFSU:2

if this is even a vague indication of the final game I'm not buying it... Its terrible.

Originally Posted by Tim S
Drift is much easier with an Xbox 360 controller - I increased my scores from around 40k with keyboard to 400k with Xbox 360 controller. :D

I always preferred a controller for race-type games they allow you more control and quicker response then a keyboard :o

I liked MW a lot the cars and environment looked great and ran smooth. With carbon, I don't think the cars look nearly as good(maybe it's just the night time shaders instead of daytime), and the detail of the track up close is just horrendous. The drift mode deffinitely isn't as fun as it was in Underground and U2. The over all car physics don't seem as good as they were in MW either. MW was just a lot more fun to drive in. And maybe it's just me but the canyon racing was just insanely difficult(don't know the difficulty setting, used the Gallardo).

No widescreen support. Poor from EA.

Controllers are supported. Bad move from EA that you cant access that menu until you are in game, and then you can change controls. Hit ESC, and you have a controls option. But it IS a demo. I couldn't do crap with the tuner car, as it is WAY to slow for what it is supposed to be. A hooked up EVO can't run with those other cars??? Gimme a break. I moved to the EXOTIC ranks with the Gallardo, and won the circuit race with no problem. BUT now i'm in an exotic and dude is driving an RX7 and runs off and leaves me with no problem??? More crappy AI. Jump in the MUSCLE division, and run off and leave everyone in the cricuit and drift modes. In the canyon race mode I pass the AI driver about 45 seconds into the race and hold it for 10, BAM race won. If they have that stupid ass AI catchup mode from Undergroun and MW in this game, it will be quickly returned and exchanged for another game. I HATED the original Underground and MW for that. If I'm driving my ass off, and get 20 seconds ahead of a car, they CAN NOT CATCH ME IN 2 SECONDS WITH 1 BUMP OFF THE WALL. Alot of you loved Most Wanted, and I thought it was the worst of the bunch for that BAD BAD BAD AI. Burn all your nitrous from the get go to get a lead and they stay right beside you while not burnin NOS???? I don't think so. I tried to cheat in MW and it still sucked. If they go back to the Underground 2 style of play and AI, I'll love it. Otherwise I'll exchange it for Oblivion on the PC :D

Didn't they have catch-up in Underground 2?

I have to admit that's my least favourite part of the game. I don't mind the other cars catching me up so much but I don't like the fact that you can completely screw up a corner and be passed by every car and then still be in the lead a lap later. You can see the cars slow down straight away as soon as you crash. If I'm not punished for mistakes like that, how can you gain any satisfaction from winning? I remember in Underground 1 the best race was the last one. It hap 7 laps or something and took me about 10 goes before doing it without a mistake. In Most Wanted I think I only had to repeat a race 4-5 times.

Why don't they have a difficulty setting?!

Nope, Underground 2 didn't have the catch up AI. You got 20-30 seconds ahead, messed up 1 corner and pulled off a save, and you were stil 5-15 sec ahead. In Underground 1 and MW, if you managed to get that kind of lead and scrub the wall around a corner, the AI was all over your butt in about 2 seconds. I was on my 7-8 playthrough of Underground 2, but FF 12 came out Tuesday and I haven't done anything since. The last race in Underground 1 was ridiculously easy compared to the race before and after it. They had a difficulty in Underground 1 that you chose before each race, but it didn't matter. You could pick EASY, and win by 2 seconds because you rubbed the wall on the last turn. Take the same race, play it on hard, and you win by 2 seconds because of a RUB on the last wall. Not a hit, just a rub. EA had the AI so screwed up in MW that played to about #9-10 and quit. CHEATED with Ultra Nitrous on the PS2 so that nitrous actually did something, and enjoyed only a hair more. Rubber band AI has always been the bane of my existence in racing games.

NFSU2 does have catchup, at least on the PC version, I noticed it in the settings when I played it last night. It definitely does work too as no matter how big your lead is over the other cars, they always catch you up on the last lap and you usually end up going from first to last.

DJMyst, you're right I was thinking of the last but one or one of the last races anyway in Underground 2. Not the one where you have to race the chick at the end. That was easy.

I agree that catch-up sucks, but I'd rather the cars speed up to keep up with you rather than slow down so you keep up with them.