A vast improvement (Need For Speed: Undercover (Xbox 360))

Member Name: Hooo

Product:	Need For Speed: Undercover (Xbox 360)
Date:	29/12/08 (36 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Free mode, a storyline

Disadvantages: Didn't make the most of the storyline aspect

Upon purchasing this game I was not expecting too much. You see, this game has come off the back of Need for Speed Pro Street, which was a large dissapointment to me and many other fans alike.

The concept of Need for Speed was the ability to ride around cities in free mode and when Pro Street took this away and made the game like so many other racing games out there. Many were bemused.

I am happy to report however EA have gone back to the old style free mode with a twist. The areas that are used are not too large and unlike games like Grand Theft Auto there isn't much complexity to the sorroundings. No houses you can enter and the like so this is still purely a driving game.

What's new in this edition to the franchise is that there is a storyline to follow to keep the user entertained, props to EA as they have given me the "One more race" syndrome.

About the story line briefly. You are an undercover cop, hence the game name, and are attempting to infultrate underground race gangs. During your time undercover only one officer knows you are are a cop so there are constant cop chases and the odd betrayal or two.

Eventually after working your way through low key gangs you will meet more respected criminals (To other criminals of course). Inevitably the race difficulty will increase and with that your chance at dominating races will decrease. The reason I mention dominating is that is an option for all the races, if you finish one in a set amount of time you will "Dominate" that race and therefore increase one of your many driving attributes. These are things like: Braking, Acceleration and Turning.

Throughout the story and exploration of the maps you will notice structures with a glowing red icon on the map. These structures are destructable and therefore driving through them can demolish police cars pursuing you or fellow competitors tailgating you.

Moving onto what any car lover buying this game wants to see, the types of cars available. To be honest the selection is not as large as you see on games such as Gran Turismo but it is still a range which will satisfy 90% of people.

You are able to buy cars like a VW Gold to a Dodge Viper to a Veyron Buggati. You have a handful of places/countries to select cars from, these are: Europe, America and Japan. The main car manufacturors admittidly.

As with previous Need for Speed's you again get to go to Tuning shops to improve certain aspects of your car. I was not very impressed with this as there was three packages for my car and after getting them there was nothing else I could do bar painting my car yellow. You do get the opportunity to upgrade individual parts but it's hardly worth the bother in my opinion as the packages are so much cheaper and more worthwhile.

Overall I enjoyed the game far more than Pro Street and enjoyed having the ability to choose the races I did via the quick map menu (Up key) or go to a predetermined race which progresses the story mode (Down key).

The storyline was good but did letdown the game at some points. For instance the betrayal was obvious and the ending even more so. Needless to say I still enjoyed playing it and have repeated the storymode more than once, so it can't be that bad.

Summary: Much better than the previous Need for Speed, but can be improved