They were not allowed to reuse the big version's story. So they wrote a different one, and opened it with a death.
Two games called Carbon reached shops in the autumn of 2006. EA Black Box made the one for consoles. This one, for the Game Boy Advance, was made by Pocketeers — a small British studio in South Yorkshire — and it is not a port of the other. Different story, different game.
A licensed tie-in usually arrives with its plot already written somewhere else; the handheld team's task is to compress it. Here there was nothing to compress. They had to build everything the player would care about from scratch, on a machine with no hardware for the kind of space a racing game lives in.
In a racing game you win, and the next race starts. I had always taken that for granted.
This one is not built that way. Each race you win hands back a little more of the answer, and the reason to enter the next race stops being the placing.
That is the part I admire. This studio was not allowed to use the console game's story. It could have sent the player around a track with no story at all. Instead it wrote one of its own and put it on a handheld cartridge.
People do not keep going because they are winning. As long as you still want to know what comes next, you can keep going.
About this game
The last Need for Speed the Game Boy Advance ever received arrived on October 31, 2006, and it was not the console game of the same name. That one was made by EA Black Box; this one by Pocketeers, in South Yorkshire.
Gallery
The Story Behind
By the autumn of 2006 the Game Boy Advance was a machine on its way out. Its successor had been in shops for close to two years. This was the last Need for Speed to arrive on the older handheld, and it arrived on October 31.
Pocketeers had been carrying this series on that hardware for a while. The studio was formed in September 2002 by two British developers, Matthew Hopwood and David Garrison, working out of South Yorkshire; before this one they had already built the Game Boy Advance Need for Speed games going back to the Underground years.
Every time, the job had the same shape. The Game Boy Advance was never designed to draw three-dimensional space — a studio that wanted depth on it had to manufacture depth by some method of its own. And this time the story was off the table too: the console game's plot belonged to the console game. So a company two people had founded four years earlier had to deliver, on hardware that argues with the genre, a complete and original racing game — twenty-nine cars, seventeen recruitable allies, a murder running underneath the whole thing — for an audience that had largely already moved on to the next machine.
Tricks & Tales
The story opens with a death. Your brother Mick is killed in a multi-car pile-up, caused by someone you cannot identify, and everything after that is the work of finding out who.
The crew you assemble to do it comes in three classes — brawler, assassin, drafter — seventeen people in all, each carrying a skill the others do not have. Brawlers push. Assassins hunt. Drafters sit in your slipstream and give it back to you. The twenty-nine cars run from exotics through American muscle to tuners, and the city is divided into districts you take one at a time.
Collector's Guide
Region & Compatibility
Unlike the region-locked PlayStation 2, the Game Boy Advance is region-free: a Japanese cartridge plays on a North American or European unit and the reverse, which makes importing simple and is part of why Japanese collectors and overseas buyers meet so easily here. There are small caveats — linking Pokémon games of different languages can misbehave, and the China-only iQue variant is its own case. On power, the original AGB-001 runs on two AA batteries, while the SP and Micro carry built-in rechargeable batteries; there is no mains-voltage worry of the kind that affects a Japanese home console abroad.
Maintenance Tips
The original AGB-001's defining limitation is its unlit screen; many surviving units have been fitted with aftermarket backlit displays, and a modded screen is a genuine value-add rather than a fault. On the folding SP, the most common age problem is the hinge — the plastic around it grows brittle and can crack, though replacement shells fix it. The SP and Micro both use internal rechargeable batteries that weaken with age and can be replaced. Cartridge contacts oxidise like any Game Boy's and clean with a cotton swab and high-strength (91%+) isopropyl alcohol. One save-data note: most Advance games save to battery-free flash memory, but a few titles (such as Pokémon Pinball Ruby & Sapphire) use a small internal battery that, after two decades, may now be failing.
What to Watch Out For
Before buying, these are the points worth knowing — from someone who handles original Japanese Need for Speed: Carbon copies regularly.
Which Game Boy Advance model should I buy?
It depends on what you want from the screen. The most sought-after is the late SP, model AGS-101, which has a true backlight and is far easier on the eyes than anything before it — but it looks identical to the earlier front-lit SP (AGS-001), so confirm the seller specifies 'AGS-101', usually printed on the back label. The front-lit AGS-001 is cheaper and still perfectly playable, just dimmer and a little washed-out. The original AGB-001 is for those who want the authentic experience or a unit modified with an aftermarket backlight. Whatever you choose, the model number is the single most important thing to verify before buying.
Does the tiny Game Boy Micro play my old Game Boy games?
No — and this is the most common mistake buyers make. The Game Boy Micro (OXY-001) plays only Game Boy Advance cartridges; its slot is physically smaller, and original Game Boy and Game Boy Color cartridges will not fit. If you want a machine that plays the older games too, choose an SP or the original AGB-001 instead. The Micro is a beautiful object with an excellent screen, but it is Advance-only.
What should I check on a used unit?
Confirm it powers on and loads a game. On an SP or Micro, watch the battery — if it dies within minutes, it needs a replacement cell. Check the SP's hinge for cracks, look at the screen for dead pixels or liquid bleed, and inspect the cartridge slot for corrosion; on the original AGB-001, open the battery compartment and check for leak damage. If a game is included, start it and confirm the save works. A unit described only as 'turns on' has not really been tested.
Will Japanese games work on my console?
Yes. The Game Boy Advance is region-free, so Japanese cartridges run on any GBA and vice versa — one of the friendliest systems for collecting across regions. The main exception is link-play between Pokémon games of different languages, which can misbehave. For single-player, import freely.
Unexpected Discoveries
Games you weren't looking for — but might be glad you found.
Rooms this game lives in
Wander deeper — explore the themed rooms where Need for Speed: Carbon sits alongside its kin.
Memories from around the world
This is a young museum, and this page is still waiting for its first voices. The memories people send reach Taisei personally, and the ones that move him find a home here over time — always with the writer's blessing. Yours could be the very first for this game.
Share your memory ↑From the Museum's Screening Room
Need For Speed Carbon — Feature