The are two schools of thought in the Need For Speed camp about what the last good NFS game actually was. Some say that the glory came during the pre-fast and the furious Hot Pursuit 2 while others like myself sit firmly in saying that Most Wanted was the last good Need for speed game. While I realize that this may be an overly vague generalization and there are fans of Carbon and Prostreet (god help them) but its likely that Undercover isn't going to take the pedestal of Best NFS game because Undercover is riddled with so many flaws that it leaves me to believe that no one at Blackbox even remembers how to make a decent NFS game.
Undercover is actually the 12 incarnation of the Need for speed series and places you in the shoes of a (surprise surprise) Undercover detective looking into an international smuggling ring.... of cars. As you can see the story doesn't stack up well and this isn't helped by short cut scenes which don't really go in to enough detail about what is actually happening. The game takes a bizarre approach to progression, you take part in your normal street races such as sprint, circuit and checkpoint races as well as the odd police chase to convince the gangs that you aren't a cop to level up your Wheelman status. The quickest way to level up is to dominate (an idea introduced in Prostreet) the event by beating the target time. In theory it sounds alright but all it really amounts to is racing over and over again until someone gives you a call and tell you to do something. There a specific missions to break up the racing but often this boils down to pinching a car and dropping it off some place, occasionally with a time limit or a damage meter to mix things up. In short these driving ?missions? aren't nearly varied enough and become repetitive, although they are fun I would have like to seen more creative jobs to do.
Undercover introduces two new racing modes, Outrun and Highway battle. Outrun pits two cars together in the city, whoever stays in front for an amount of time say 30 seconds wins. Highway battle pits two cars against each other but this time on a busy highway, pull away by 300m and you win. Undercover also utilizes Driver skills and zone points. Drive Skills don't seem to affect the gameplay at all and neither do the zone points. You earn zone points by overtaking, near misses with traffic, grinding (I'm sorry is this NFS or Tony Hawks!) and drifting. The idea is that the higher you get you zone meter the better you do in races and the slower consumables like NOS and Tiebreaker are used up but it doesn't make any real difference and the races are easy enough as they are anyway. The actual driving itself is conflicted. Being a racing game naturally I plugged in my Logitech Momo for some fun and I found it rather rewarding and the cars are tune-able if your not happy with the response from the wheel. However I found the physics to be very odd when trying to play with the keyboard. Take what you will from this observation.
For a street racing game the customization options are lacking in terms of body kits and games like Forza and Juiced have had better decal customization for a fair while now but you still can layer loads of stickers all over the car and it still allows you to have the front and rear wheels different colours, sizes and styles. Something that most games don't deliver on.
Graphics aren't worth mentioning because everything looks so great these days and Undercover is the exception. Playing with everything on High and the world doesn't look stunning or amazing it just looks drab, not the gritty, so called realistic drab but just poorly made. It's not terrible optimized either and it brought the computer to a halt occasionally even when I turned the graphics down.
Sound however is good, while the soundtrack is forgettable it is best to just turn it off and listen to the magnificent roar of a Lambo designed V12 or the humble sound of a straight six Supra motor. All the little sounds life blow-off valves are also well accounted for.
The game is riddled with other problems as well such as the area of Tri City is touted as the largest NFS city ever made, now try to enjoy it. Undercover doesn't let drive to events oh no, you have to select them on the GPS map in the menu thereby making the ?open world? redundant. Undercover now places yellow barriers to enclose the track but there was nothing wrong with the old system from Carbon and Most Wanted and it made just as much sense. The cars are way overpriced compared to real life values, countered by the fact that you get a free car by doing almost anything. All these issues conspire to sour the game and to be honest it had enough trouble holding its head above water in the first place. It's also been a good two months that the game has been out for and a patch still hasn't been release. They say it's coming but I've finished the game and have basically had my final word on it.
So what do I make of Undercover. I see it as proof that EA and Blackbox don't know how to properly take the game forward. I see it as a game riddled with not bugs but rather bad design choices and a poor decisions. But on the right road, in the right car with the right settings and nothing running in the background. It can be absolutely magnificent.
EA, get in touch. I know how to fix your games.
Undercover is actually the 12 incarnation of the Need for speed series and places you in the shoes of a (surprise surprise) Undercover detective looking into an international smuggling ring.... of cars. As you can see the story doesn't stack up well and this isn't helped by short cut scenes which don't really go in to enough detail about what is actually happening. The game takes a bizarre approach to progression, you take part in your normal street races such as sprint, circuit and checkpoint races as well as the odd police chase to convince the gangs that you aren't a cop to level up your Wheelman status. The quickest way to level up is to dominate (an idea introduced in Prostreet) the event by beating the target time. In theory it sounds alright but all it really amounts to is racing over and over again until someone gives you a call and tell you to do something. There a specific missions to break up the racing but often this boils down to pinching a car and dropping it off some place, occasionally with a time limit or a damage meter to mix things up. In short these driving ?missions? aren't nearly varied enough and become repetitive, although they are fun I would have like to seen more creative jobs to do.
Undercover introduces two new racing modes, Outrun and Highway battle. Outrun pits two cars together in the city, whoever stays in front for an amount of time say 30 seconds wins. Highway battle pits two cars against each other but this time on a busy highway, pull away by 300m and you win. Undercover also utilizes Driver skills and zone points. Drive Skills don't seem to affect the gameplay at all and neither do the zone points. You earn zone points by overtaking, near misses with traffic, grinding (I'm sorry is this NFS or Tony Hawks!) and drifting. The idea is that the higher you get you zone meter the better you do in races and the slower consumables like NOS and Tiebreaker are used up but it doesn't make any real difference and the races are easy enough as they are anyway. The actual driving itself is conflicted. Being a racing game naturally I plugged in my Logitech Momo for some fun and I found it rather rewarding and the cars are tune-able if your not happy with the response from the wheel. However I found the physics to be very odd when trying to play with the keyboard. Take what you will from this observation.
For a street racing game the customization options are lacking in terms of body kits and games like Forza and Juiced have had better decal customization for a fair while now but you still can layer loads of stickers all over the car and it still allows you to have the front and rear wheels different colours, sizes and styles. Something that most games don't deliver on.
Graphics aren't worth mentioning because everything looks so great these days and Undercover is the exception. Playing with everything on High and the world doesn't look stunning or amazing it just looks drab, not the gritty, so called realistic drab but just poorly made. It's not terrible optimized either and it brought the computer to a halt occasionally even when I turned the graphics down.
Sound however is good, while the soundtrack is forgettable it is best to just turn it off and listen to the magnificent roar of a Lambo designed V12 or the humble sound of a straight six Supra motor. All the little sounds life blow-off valves are also well accounted for.
The game is riddled with other problems as well such as the area of Tri City is touted as the largest NFS city ever made, now try to enjoy it. Undercover doesn't let drive to events oh no, you have to select them on the GPS map in the menu thereby making the ?open world? redundant. Undercover now places yellow barriers to enclose the track but there was nothing wrong with the old system from Carbon and Most Wanted and it made just as much sense. The cars are way overpriced compared to real life values, countered by the fact that you get a free car by doing almost anything. All these issues conspire to sour the game and to be honest it had enough trouble holding its head above water in the first place. It's also been a good two months that the game has been out for and a patch still hasn't been release. They say it's coming but I've finished the game and have basically had my final word on it.
So what do I make of Undercover. I see it as proof that EA and Blackbox don't know how to properly take the game forward. I see it as a game riddled with not bugs but rather bad design choices and a poor decisions. But on the right road, in the right car with the right settings and nothing running in the background. It can be absolutely magnificent.
EA, get in touch. I know how to fix your games.
