Electronic Arts and Black Box showed off Need for Speed: Carbon at the Leipzig Games Convention. We figure there are two ways to approach this news.

Reaction #1: What's the Big Deal?
They showed a trailer showing a bunch of cars. For those of you who don't like cars, then whatever was on the trailer is "the same old stuff" you saw in the videos we posted last month or in the coverage of rumors, screenshots, and game features for the incarnations of the driving game: the one for the Xbox 360, for the Wii, for the DS, for the PSP, and for the PS3.

Reaction #2: It Is a Big Deal

• over 50 completely customizable cars
• customize even the small, fine details like number of spokes)
• morphable parts: you pull, twist, or stretch some pieces to customize your machine
• 900+ decals, and 90,000+ paint combinations
• the races happen in a city split into subzones
• subzones have street, drift, and canyon duel races (and canyon drift mode)
  
• the number of races depend on importance of area (boss challenges can have 5 or 6 races)
• about drift races:
• highly accurate gameplay (based on studying drift events)
  
• points for speed and for how far the rear of the car swings out when going around corners
• bonuses for linking drifts together (e.g., sliding from one to the next)
• each type of car has its parts that are available only for that type
• each type of car has its own car physics
• cars come in three categories in a curve progression
• you'll start in different areas of the map: it depends if you have a muscle car, a tuner, or an exotic
• rivalry between crews means you have to build up your team
• tracks vary: you need to pick the car and crew wisely
• PS3 and Xbox 360 versions will have multiplayer modes