It's fun to go fast; whistling down country roads on a 1000cc motorbike, leaving your stomach behind as the roller coaster plummets after a lengthy climb, feeling the surge of power as an aeroplane leaves the ground and begins to ascend, zipping across the waves on a jet ski… sure, it can be scary, but controlling your fear is a big part of the exhilaration that speed brings. Of course, it's not always possible to speed around in the real world, so many gamers seek to satiate their need for speed with the latest racer - is Need for Speed: Carbon a racer that manages to live up to its title?

NFS: Carbon does something that few racers attempt and even fewer make a success of - it has a story that runs throughout its lengthy Career mode. The good news is that it's the best story I've ever come across in a game, fitting in perfectly with the whole theme and style of Carbon, while providing a range of quirky characters to meet and giving you extra incentive to take over the city by beating every racer you come across. You are a nameless racer who's back in the city after some bad business went down a couple of years back. On the night in question, you were about to win a big race when the cops appeared in full force, arresting everyone on the scene. You were the only person to escape, and as far as everyone else is concerned, you took a big bag of cash with you, which the very sexy Nikki (played by the delectable Emmanuelle Vaugier) threw into your car before the cops took her down. However, the bag was empty - the whole night stank of a set up and now you're back to prove yourself, reassert your influence and discover who set you up for a fall.

It's not a masterpiece of a story or anything, but it really does add some extra interest to a mode that's usually a very lonely and solo affair. The best part is the presentation, with some amazing looking cut scenes that combine live actors with a very cool 'smoothing' effect, blending them perfectly into their surroundings and using visual trickery to make them look computer generated, even though they're not. Most of the time the scenes are viewed through your eyes, and everyone talks directly to you (your character is the strong, silent type!), which further immerses you into the plot. Most of the characters you meet are interacted with in the game, either as your rivals or your crew. The actors' performances are natural and convincing, while most of the dialogue is well written, making for cut scenes of unusually high quality. There's a strong cast too, and sci-fi fans may recognise the likes of Chris Gauthier (Vincent from A Town Called Eureka) and Tahmoh Penikett, who plays Karl 'Helo' Agathon in Battlestar Galactica [What an amazing show! Ed].

Unfortunately, these cut scenes are the graphical highlight of NFS: Carbon; while the menus, safe house, load screens (which are mercifully brief) and world map all feature some of the snazziest and smoothest presentation you've ever seen, the in-game graphics engine more than belies its origins in the previous generation. In fact, the PS3 version of Carbon looks so bad at times that you could be forgiven for thinking that you were playing the PS2 version! 'Jaggies' absolutely litter the screen, where the polygon-generated outlines of buildings, cars, roadside objects and particularly overhead wires haven't been smoothed out properly, something that simply isn't acceptable on the PS3 - at least not to this extent. The result is a flickering mess that looks glitchy even though it isn't, as objects don't scale at all smoothly and the result is almost painful on your eyes after prolonged play, due to the busy city streets and neon lit scenery. Worse still, when you turn your car, the camera pans around the scenery with a judder; it seems like the PS3 is struggling to process the visuals, despite the fact that they look so tatty. You can just about live with it and it doesn't entirely ruin the game, but it definitely brings the experience down and reduces the fun of what is an otherwise pretty fine racer.

The setting throws up problems too; most of the game takes place in the city, and while the developers have done a great job of varying each district with different themes, from industrial through to residential and commercial, it all looks much the same after a while, and you start wishing that the sun would come up. There's plenty of interaction to be had though - as well as the many shortcuts that you can discover by crashing through gates and slipping down back streets, into tunnels, through parking lots and more, there's a host of roadside objects that you can smash through and scatter in your wake, without suffering much effect on your speed. Better yet are the bigger parts of the environment you can destroy - marked by red arrows - that cause structures to come crashing down behind you, often bringing the whole pack of rival racers to a halt for a few seconds, or writing off police cars that are chasing you (more on that later). You might knock over a tower that topples down behind you, or smash a sign that drops a giant donut into the road, hit a crane control to cause its load to come crashing down, or even blow up a gas station, scattering wreckage behind you. Making use of these strategically placed obstacles is highly enjoyable and very satisfying when you get it right.

The city areas are also broken up by one of Carbon's best new features - canyon racing - where you take it off the streets and tear along winding roads that twist and turn their way down hills, with plenty of sheer drops that can spell the end of the race if you go crashing through the flimsy roadside barriers. These races are just dripping with atmosphere, and when you speed around a bend and see the lights of the city in the distance, it's a really spectacular moment. There isn't an amazing feeling of speed at first, but as you buy better cars and get up over the 100mph mark, as long as you stick with the road-level or hood camera, you really start to feel the speed, as you whiz around corners and down straights at a breakneck pace.

The racing action itself comes in many flavours, which spices up the gameplay a treat; there are the regular two-lap Circuit races, Sprint races, which take you from the start to finish of a single run, and Checkpoint races, where you're going solo against the clock. Speedtrap races are slightly more unusual; you must go through a series of speed cameras and clock up the highest speed possible when you get flashed, with the racer who accumulates the highest total speed taking the victory. Then there are the Project Gotham style Drift races, which are hard to get to grips with and extremely frustrating at first - but if you persevere, it's incredibly satisfying when you get in the zone and nail the handling of these races, drifting around bends with precision and racking up massive scores using combos for clean sections and multiple drift turns in succession.

Circuit, Sprint and Speedtrap races also allow you to take a crewmember in as your partner; you can hire up to three at any time and they fall into the categories of Blocker, Drafter and Scout. Blockers are probably the most useful, as you can instruct them to ram an opponent to prevent them overtaking you, or even accelerate and take out the rival ahead of you who's not making it easy for you to get past; all the AI drivers are spot on, as they're competent but not infallible and will make mistakes, gradually increasing in skill and speed as you progress. Drafters allow you to drive behind them to give you a temporary speed boost - but like the Blockers, you have to wait for a bar to fill up and turn green, to indicate they're ready to activate. Scouts work for you all the time though; they drive ahead with a blurred light trailing from their rear, guiding you through every shortcut you come across. They're great for learning the shortcuts, but it's frustrating that they often win the race for you, because they try to stay ahead.

The addition of your crew doesn't have a huge impact on the gameplay, but it does make a difference and is one of the many things that makes NFS deeper than first impressions indicate. It's also great to have the company - as well as hearing the police radio, your crewmember chats to you, laughing and gloating when they ram another car, talking you through shortcuts, giving you encouragement when you fall behind and praising you when you take the lead. This makes you feel like you're not alone and lends the Career mode a more sociable aspect than most racers provide. They're not the only help you have either - you can purchase a Nitros booster for your car, which gradually refills itself for consistent use during a race, and you have Speedbreaker available most of the time, which activates a very cool time-slowing effect, where you can make very precision steering adjustments and speed around corners that you'd never make without the help.

The Boss Races are probably the most adrenaline-pumping events of all, where you first go head to head with the gang leader through the city streets, then go for a Canyon Duel. Here you must tail your rival, and the closer you stick to him or her, the more points you score. Knocking them over the edge or overtaking and staying ahead for ten seconds wins outright, but if you don't manage that, you run the race a second time, this time with your rival in pursuit. As long as you don't run out of points, which count down faster the closer your rival is, you win the victory and become the new owner of the city area you're racing for.

The city itself is absolutely massive, with four areas that are subdivided into a number of territories, plus the canyons beyond the city of course. You can bring up the world map at any time, which shows you all the available events, and whether you've won them or not. It's a very thoughtful touch that you can either activate your GPS system and drive to the event you want, or just jump straight there without delay. The World Map also shows you Car Lots, where you can purchase new rides, and Safehouses, where you can hire and fire crewmembers, select cars from your garage and pimp your ride to perfection.

The range of customisation options is staggering, although you have to unlock most of the many items as you play. There's a wealth of options for decorating your car with decals, you can modify the hood, spoiler, bumpers and more, and you can upgrade the engine, suspension, brakes and other elements to improve your car's performance. The cars do handle noticeably differently; the Muscle series are quite hard to control and slide all over the place but have the best acceleration, while the Exotics are all about top speed and the Tuners have great handling, which is what I chose. Each car has a simple display to show its top speed, acceleration and handling, and you can see the difference that purchasing performance upgrades will make to these stats.

While you're roaming around the city, you can find people who want to challenge you to a race, which earn you cash rewards if you win. You can also drive like a madman, smashing into oncoming traffic (it's nighttime, but there are still a number of regular drivers trying to get around without falling foul of street racers) until the police get on your case - then the pursuit begins! This is one of the most fun aspects of Carbon, as you speed along with multiple police cars on your tail, then bring down a tower that totals them all, ram through a roadblock or smash head on into a cop car to wreck it, with a tally of how long you've been on the run, how many police cars you've rammed/destroyed and how much you've cost the state with the damage you've caused. Don't get cornered or pinned in though, otherwise you'll get busted and have to pay a hefty fine to get out of jail, and reclaim your impounded vehicle for a fee too. To get out of trouble, you simply have to lose all the police cars and then find a spot to wait during the cooling off period, after which they give up finding you. It's a system that works really well and adds a lot to the gameplay - cops also turn up in some racing events too, although not as often as they do in some previous NFS titles.

If all this wasn't enough, there are other modes to explore as well. Quick Race gives you no less than 78 courses to choose from, and every single one of them in every mode is brilliantly designed, with tough corners to master and plenty of shortcuts to discover. Then there's a series of 36 Challenges to complete, spread across 12 different event types with three stages of Bronze, Silver and the tough Gold races to conquer. There are also Reward Cards to fill, ranked Easy, Medium and Hard - each card features four objectives to complete and rewards you with new kit or even a new vehicle. The objectives incorporate everything from the whole game - there are objectives for having a certain bank balance, buying or selling a set number of cars, escaping the police a certain number of times, costing the state a set amount during police chases, winning a number of Career races, achieving specific Speedtrap speeds and much more. Like the many challenges in Burnout, the Reward Cards are a completist's dream, boosting the already substantial lifespan through the roof. Stats on every aspect of the game are also available to view, as well as your personalised collection of cars.

But wait, I haven't finished yet! You can also take the action online, in races for up to eight players - and unlike some EA games, it's quick and dead easy to get online in NFS: Carbon, with an easy to use Custom Match option, or just hit Quick Match and select Ranked or Unranked for pretty much instant gaming. The lobbies are well designed and Carbon is one of the few games that doesn't boot you out at the end of a Ranked match; instead, all the players return to the lobby and a new leader is assigned - each player gets a turn at selecting the game mode and course, which is a truly fantastic system that every online game should incorporate when it comes to Ranked matches. You've got incentive to keep playing too, as you gain Online XP for every race and work up the ranks from 1 through to 50, unlocking one of the best cars when you finally get there.

The competition is very tough though - and unfortunately, unless the match host has limited the Tier (cars are available on three tiers), you'll find yourself outperformed every time unless you've put in the hours in Career mode and unlocked then suped up some of the most powerful beasts in the game - and there are dozens of licensed cars to get as well, meaning that there's something for everyone. Unfortunately, this means that the best players also get an unfair advantage of having the best cars, making it frustrating to break into online racing, because you just get left behind every time, within the first twenty seconds of the race. However, the online modes do include two extra additions, in the form of Pursuit Knockout and Pursuit Tag, which are fantastic fun and a welcome change from the regular racing action. In Pursuit Knockout, at the end of each lap, the player in bottom position becomes a cop and earns points by ramming the remaining racers. Pursuit Tag meanwhile designates one player as the racer; everyone else is a cop and must attempt to bust the racer to get a turn at being the one on the run - whether you choose to work with the other cops or just knock them aside though is up to you! Both modes are a real blast, particularly Pursuit Tag, which is reminiscent of good old Midtown Madness 3's wonderfully entertaining Stayaway mode.

The sound is pretty good throughout the game - while the constant drone of the engine might cause you to alter the audio options to put it more in the background, the range of music on offer is quite unusual, a mixture of original compositions and lesser known licensed tracks of varied styles, with a very distinctive tune that plays in the canyons and another great theme for the police chases. It's a real credit to the game's developers and a much better collection than Burnout: Revenge's soundtrack.

Need For Speed: Carbon is a racer with plenty of depth and variety; the range of race types, huge Career mode, massive city to explore at your leisure, exciting police chases, tense canyon duels, helpful crew members and comprehensive customisation all add up to a rewarding game with a wealth of things to discover and enjoy. Throw in the excellent online mode and you've got a game that should last and last. However, the frankly terrible graphics will ruin the experience for some gamers and at the very least will disappoint - if this was your first PS3 purchase then you could be forgiven for wondering why you've just spent £500 to play a game that doesn't look that much better than its PS2 counterpart. Games like Ridge Racer 7 and particularly the stunning MotorStorm show that developers are already tapping the awesome power of the PS3, so releasing Carbon with such sloppy and unfinished looking visuals is frankly inexcusable - it would have been better to keep this in development several more months so the graphics engine could be given the overhaul it so desperately needed. Because of this, I simply cannot recommend Carbon to PS3 owners - it might be a great game and is certainly a worthwhile purchase on other systems (particularly the Xbox 360), but on PS3 it just cannot cut it against the already impressive competition. So swerve away from Carbon and go with MotorStorm or Ridge Racer 7 to satisfy your need for speed, at least until the first dedicated PS3 NFS title hits the starting grid.

Reviewed by Geoff Holland for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).