Last year, Need for Speed: Most Wanted introduced you to the fast and dangerous world of high-stakes underground street racing and police pursuits. This year, EA Canada takes you back to the streets for more of the same—but this time you aren’t alone. In Need for Speed Carbon Collector’s Edition, you’ll build your own street racing crew who’ll have your back as you fight to clear your name and battle rival crews for territory. But before the streets are yours, you’ll have to face the leaders of the city’s toughest, most notorious crews—and survive The Canyon…

Need for Speed Carbon takes place in Palmont City, where you reprise your role as the nameless, faceless street racer from Need for Speed Most Wanted. You left Palmont under a cloud of suspicion as you narrowly escape capture by the police during a major street race sponsored by your mentor Darius played by Tahmoh Penikett (Battlestar Galactica). To complicate matters, your girlfriend Nikki portrayed by Emmanuelle Vaugier (Painkiller Jane) managed to toss the purse for the race into your car before she’s grabbed by the cops—only you find that there’s no money in the bag when you open it. With your getaway looking a little too convenient to suit everyone else and being the most likely suspect behind the missing money, you skip town for Rockport—and the rest—assuming you’ve played Need for Speed Most Wanted—is history. Now you’ve returned to Palmont to find out who set you up, clear you name, and reestablish your rep.

The events in Rockport aren’t completely behind you, though. No sooner than you hit the outskirts of town when an old “friend”—Detective Sergeant Cross from Rockport who is now Bounty Hunter Cross thanks to you—forces you off the road. Cross is about to drag you out of your totaled car to haul you in for the $150,000 bounty on your head courtesy of the Rockport P.D., when along comes your old pal Darius to pay off the bounty and get Cross off your back (at least in the interim).

As you’ve probably guessed, Darius’ motives for fronting that type of cash on your behalf aren’t entirely selfless. He’s now the head of Stacked Deck, one of the largest and most powerful street racing crews in Palmont. It seems that all the crews in the city are fighting over territory and drawing too much attention from the cops, and the last thing Darius needs is to have it spilling over into his territory. Darius is looking for someone with the skills to shut the other crews down without drawing attention to him. Since he just put up 150K on your behalf, guess who that someone is?

You soon learn that Nikki is Darius’ girl now, and she isn’t exactly happy to see you again. But happy or not, he assigns her to the task of showing you the ropes around Palmont. Getting back your rep, finding out what really happened that night you left town, and Darius’ real agenda, is up to you…

Anyone who has seen The Fast and the Furious Tokyo Drift will immediately recognize that film’s influence on Need for Speed Carbon Collector's Edition—particularly the extremely challenging and treacherous downhill racing that takes place in Carbon Canyon on the outskirts of Palmont.

The art of using live actors with digitized props and sets has been taken up a notch since the introduction of the technique in Need for Speed Most Wanted. Although it never rises above B-movie quality, the acting and dialog is better than in Most Wanted, and the flashback scenes of the events that led up to your fleeing Palmont as seen through the eyes of the various characters is expertly done and convincing. Overall, the major players in Carbon have more “personality” than in Need for Speed Most Wanted, and the result is that the player feels more of a connection with the goings-on of the game’s story. It’s also the first time that the plot of one Need for Speed game has been explicitly tied to another to create a refreshing sense of continuity.

Among car enthusiasts, no debate is more prevalent or passionate than which type of car is best—Exotics, Muscle or Tuners. In Need for Speed Carbon, it’s more than just a high-spirited philosophical discussion over a few cold ones with your racing buddies. The streets of Palmont are literally a battleground between the three camps and are divided as such. At the beginning of Carbon, you are given the opportunity to test drive a car from each class (courtesy of Darius). Your choice determines which part of Palmont you’ll start your street racing career, and the cars and upgrades you’ll unlock.