Guides: Need for Speed Carbon Guide & Walkthrough (PC)

Basics |

Driving School

Events

Races

Sprint:This is your basic race to the finish line. Sprints will pit you against a number of opponents and nothing matters but who crosses the line first. Be aggressive, keep your opponents from passing, and make good use of your wingman.

Circuit:More or less the same event as sprints, but you'll need to take two laps around. These races tend to be longer than sprints, so pace yourself.

Speedtrap: These races aren't about who finishes first. There will be several speed traps along the course. They'll be marked on the mini-map and clearly visible. Each trap will record your speed as you pass. Whoever has the highest total wins. Try to maintain a steady speed and fire your nitros coming into each trap. Don't sweat your opponents too much and stay focused on your own score.

Checkpoint: These are like your old-school arcade racing games from the 80s. You have no opponents, just a countdown to race against. As you pass each checkpoint, you'll be awarded some bonus seconds to get to the next check point. If you make it to the end, you win. These are about as straightforward as it gets.

Drift: These events throw physics to the wind. Your car will control completely differently and drift with the slightest of turns. Tapping the wall will end your drift. Drift carefully without hitting the wall to chain drifts together for big multiplier bonuses. Higher speeds will also land you more points. These events are pretty easy in career mode, and the slow and careful approach (using the nitros to keep yourself away from walls) will get you through most of them on the first try.

Canyon Duel: There are two parts to the Canyon Duel. The first is the chase. In this part, you'll follow behind your opponent. The closer you get to him, the faster you'll rack up points. If you fall too far behind, 10 seconds will count down and if you can't catch back up, you'll forfeit the duel. If you pass your opponent, you'll automatically win and skip part two.
In part two, the roles will reverse. The points your opponent earns during the second phase will be deducted from the points you earned during the first phase. If you can cross the finish line before your points reach zero, or maintain a large enough lead for 10 seconds, you'll win the duel. If you can't or, if your opponent passes you for more than 10 seconds, you lose, and you'll need to repeat both races.

Pursuits

As in Need for Speed: Most Wanted, you'll have to contend with the cops. These aren't proper events in Career mode. Instead they'll happen spontaneously during races or while driving around in Free Roam. If they happen during races, you'll still be able to complete the race but you'll have to end the pursuit before returning to the safe house, or accessing the world map.

A pursuit is triggered when you're spotted by a police car. When the pursuit begins, the camera will zoom in on the car that spotted you. From here on, all police cars will appear as flashing arrows in your mini-map. If you get too close to a police car, the meter in the top right of the screen will creep toward "busted." If it fills, you'll have to bail your car out of jail, and a strike will be put on that vehicle. If a vehicle gets three strikes, you'll need to find a new ride.

Littered throughout the map are various Pursuit Breakers. These can be triggered by hitting them with your car, will trigger some sort of destructive obstacle that can be useful for shaking anyone tailing you.

When your car is out of view, the evade meter will begin to fill. When it fills you'll enter the Cooldown phase. During this phase officers will not actively pursue you, but they will continue to patrol for you. The Cooldown meter will fill gradually, but you can find hiding spots (marked as circles on the map only during Cooldown) where the meter will fill rapidly. When this meter has filled the pursuit will end.

Heat: As the Pursuit continues, your Heat will gradually increase. Your heat is capped early on, so you can't get into too much trouble, but later on it will behoove you to keep an eye on it. As your Heat increases, the police will deploy more units and better units, and will become more aggressive. In addition, the Cooldown time will increase with your heat.

At Heat level 2, cops will begin setting up roadblocks to slow you down. We found it best to barrel through these as they can be more effective for stopping your tail than they are at stopping you. At level 4 you'll start to see more Rhinos, which are going to be more aggressive, and won't hesitate to ram your car. You'll also notice roadblocks that use spike traps to bust your tires. Be very careful not to run these over. At Heat level 5 you'll have ten cars after you, including some very fast cruisers, and Cooldown will be a full two minutes.