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Among the many gifts I received for Christmas was Need for Speed: Carbon for the Wii. Chris gave it to me because she knows how much I like the NFS franchise of games. Unfortunately, the controls are not quite as intuitive as other Wii games’ controls, or controls for NFS games on other systems. I wrote a short review for the game on Amazon.com:

I haven’t played any other racing games on the Wii, so I was excited when my wife bought NFS: Carbon for me for Christmas. In the first few hours of gameplay, I struggled to get the controls down. The default controls (using just the remote) seemed unresponsive. I found that the alternate methods were just as unresponsive.

I wish there were an option to try steering with the nunchuk’s joystick, rather than having to tilt anything. The joystick is only used in the non-driving interface, usually to control the camera when viewing your car.

As for the rest of the game, I find it pretty entertaining and challenging. The last NFS games I played were Underground 1 and 2. The free roam of NFSU2 was a great addition to the franchise, but the ability to jump straight to a race from the map in Carbon is even better. Also, the reward cards add a different element to the game, allowing you to earn rewards for various gameplay events or actions.

Overall, it is a pretty good game.

I’m taking a few days off of work this winter break, so I’m going to keep playing to see if I get any better. What I wouldn’t give to be able to use a dual shock controller instead of tilting a Wii remote or nunchuk.

Update: So, on Thursday, January 4th, I finally saw the two controller configurations that allow you to steer with the nunchuk’s joystick. I swear that they were not available to me the first times I played. Oh well, I’m still not going to use it because I’m used to the default controller configuration now.