Need for Speed: Carbon

Need for Speed: Carbon introduced nighttime canyon duels into the series, in which the player has to follow and match an opponent's line through mountain-road hairpins with no guardrails, and expanded the traditional street races with a territorial system, where conquered districts unlocked new shops, garages, and rivals, with the city divided into three distinct areas each with its own driving style. The game also let players build a crew of teammates with their own abilities who helped during races and police chases by blocking rivals or drawing police vehicles' attention. Cars could be customized both visually and in performance in the body editor, one of the series' signature features.

The PlayStation 2 version launched alongside the release on the new generation of consoles at the end of 2006, and due to the older console's performance had to scale back the size of the open city, simplify textures, and reduce traffic density and vehicle damage detail in order to keep a smooth frame rate even in the denser traffic of the city center, where noticeably more cars drove the streets at once on the more powerful consoles. Canyon duels and the crew system remained intact as key gameplay features, just with noticeably more modest graphics and shorter camera draw distances, so the city surroundings rendered closer to the vehicle than on newer consoles.

For many players who hadn't yet moved to Xbox 360 or bought a PlayStation 3, it was the only available way to play Carbon on a console they already owned without having to invest in new hardware. Content-wise, the PS2 version was essentially the same game as the newer platforms, with the same story and the same list of cars, just wrapped in a simpler graphical presentation suited to the older console's capabilities, and the vehicle customization editor remained functional as well, albeit with a more limited selection of parts and a simpler range of body color shades.

Why play it: For PS2 owners who wanted Carbon without investing in a new hardware generation - content-wise it's the same game with the same story, the same list of cars, and a functional customization editor, just in a simpler graphical package.