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There are also a number of ways in which you can instantly fail. If, during the second race, your opponent manages to get ahead of you for more than 10 seconds, you automatically lose. But on the flipside, if you can get ahead of your opponent for more than 10 seconds in the first race, you automatically win both races.

Also, each course is absolutely rife with cliffs. This means that if you take a corner at the wrong angle or speed, you can launch your car off of a cliff, immediately ending the race. All of these elements can make for a tough but fair race. However, failure takes you back to the first half of the canyon duel, even if you failed during the second half. This is why the canyon duel can turn into a real chore.

The structure of the canyon duels can be frustrating, but because Carbon essentially excludes the police chases that were so instrumental to the success of MW is even more disappointing. In theory the cops still play a factor because each zone has its own heat rating that increases the more you race there. The higher the heat, the more likely it is that cops will start coming after you. While MW had you purposely baiting the cops, as well as attempting to wrack up huge property damages and lengthy pursuits to advance the story, there's little reason in Carbon for you to attract the attention of the law. With the ability to hop directly to any race event through the world map, it's possible and quite easy for you to go through the entire story mode where you can count the number of police encounters on one hand.

One good thing about the canyons races is that it takes you away from the lime light of the city just as how the old Need for Speed games used to be. This is welcomed and hopefully there would be an equal balance of city and non city events.

The Cops !
Well, they are still there though quite subdued. You have a lot more pursuit breakers which can be used not only when evading the cops but during the game as well. Some of them can do some serious damage. There are also no helicopters and the road blocks are rather easy to get by.

Not only this, but the city is apparently on a very tight budget since spike strips are rarely used.