Need for Speed: Undercover-Once you go under; you're on your own... (Need For Speed: Undercover (Xbox 360))

Member Name: Stunt 101

Product:	Need For Speed: Undercover (Xbox 360)
Date:	27/01/09 (320 review reads)
Rating:

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Need for Speed: Undercover-Once you go under; you're on your own...

The Need for Speed series has been on a bit of a low as of late. While Most Wanted not only refreshed the franchise back in 2005 with its heavy emphasis on police chases and breaking the law by street racing, the two entries to come after disappoint. Carbon was a mediocre street racer which had less of a focus on police chases and more of a focus on mediocre handling, and Prostreet decided to rip off Gran Turismo and Forza Motorsport in the most unsettling way possible. So, the series has been a bit meh for the past couple of years, but this time EA Black Box have brought back the cops, crazy cutscenes and cool cars for Need for Speed: Undercover. Is this addition to the series the revolution needed for EA, or the nail in the coffin?

Undercover has a plot to follow this time around. Here, you are an undercover cop who goes in deep with the help of Chase Linh played by Maggie Q, the latest female star of the Need for Speed series. There is a smuggling ring which somehow involves the local street racers and it's up to you and Chase to stop this smuggling ring before it's too late. The story is told once again with campy cutscenes in the same style of Most Wanted and Carbon, but this time around they're kind of disappointing. In previous games the cutscenes were so over the top that they were 'so bad they were awesome'. Whereas in Undercover, the acting comes off as stiff and actually serious meaning they're just a bit bland. There is a predictable twist, which you can guess by the mission name in which the 'twist' takes place, a funny mistake on Black Box's part. In the end, it's serviceable but not interesting enough to be as good as Most Wanted, or even Carbon's cutscenes.

Undercover takes place in an open city called the Tri-City Bay area. This is where you can access races and Most Wanted missions as well as jobs to progress the story. Jobs aren't available straight away-you must complete the nearby races available to increase your Wheelman level. Once you start increasing your level, then more jobs will come and progress through the story will come quicker. Sometimes, however, the progress of Undercover is slow and you'll feel like it takes a rather large amount of races before the jobs start rolling in again. The open world, however, is mediocre. There are too many invisible walls during races and not during races, events can be started up in the menu meaning you don't need to travel in the open world and there are no collectibles to cause incentive to explore. It should have been a linear experience, rather than creating a disappointing open world which disappoints especially compared to Midnight Club LA.

However, the actual racing is solid and an improvement over the two previous games thanks to tighter handling. There are a few race types in Undercover, including standard circuits, point a to point b sprints, highway battles where you must overtake the other driver by a certain amount of distance while avoiding traffic on the highway and outrun races where you must overtake the driver and keep the lead by driving where you want to go. There are also master events-tough versions of these race types which sometimes require some patience to win. The race types are good, but because the game sets you down one course, they don't feel dynamic like Midnight Cub. You must go down one specific route, rather than create your own course, though this has been complained about in most of the series' games. And thankfully, the laser barriers aren't present; instead the route is created with road blocks which can't be broken through. At least your map shows the shortcuts of the game's course.

The missions which move along the story are called 'Jobs'. These missions are a bit varied in gameplay styles. You get the missions where you steal cars and must deliver them to a location in the world. These can vary as sometimes you simply have to get there on time while escaping the police, sometimes escape the police without causing too much damage to your vehicle and more. There are also missions which require you to take people out by ramming into them. At first they are nice diversions and feel like a Burnout game, but as you play through the game and these missions become harder, they feel monotonous as it can take up to ten minutes to complete these missions and it can be annoying if you have police on you or there are other drivers trying to stop you from completing the mission. That said, the jobs are a nice break from racing and feel more like mission-based driving rather than street racing.

The best feature of Undercover is by far the return of the fuzz. Ever since Most Wanted hit stores in 2005, EA seem to be ignoring the police as in Carbon they made barely any impact, and in Prostreet were flat out not included. However, they are back and in full circle in Undercover. You must encounter the police, as there are missions revolved around police. These include merely escaping them, destroying a number of cars, doing a certain amount of damage to cost as much money as possible and more. You can start pursuits in free-roam but it can be hard to. The reason why the cops were so successful the first time around was because of the intensity of chases, the speed of which they speed up to and more. This remains true here and means the game is even more fun.

Unfortunately, some serious issues hurt the fun of Undercover. Aside from the open world issues, the biggest problem with Undercover is its difficulty curve. Let's face it, Midnight Club LA and Burnout Paradise were both challenging, especially LA, but when you play Undercover, the difficulty is actually pathetic. Undercover is a cakewalk, thanks to some disappointing A.I. and some odd car balancing. When you can beat a Lamborghini with an Audi TT, something is a bit wrong here. If you're in a car of the same quality as a Lamborghini, then you will dominate the race and the competition won't stand a chance. It's not that the A.I. is terrible-they can get a lead and keep it for a good amount of time and can catch up to you sometimes, but most of the time, once you've caught a lead then you can usually just plough ahead and dominate the race. There is also no difficulty option which means veterans will be bored.

The car customization returns, but is a bit disappointing here. There are more than 50 cars to use, including American, Japanese and European cars. Each car can be customized from performance to visual. The performance is easy and accessible, meaning you don't have to waste time upgrading the car, while the visual options are disappointing and basic. You get a small selection of vinyl options, a selection of body kit upgrades and can change the body upgrades using the sculpting system, but overall the customization options are very basic and nowhere near as deep as Midnight Club LA's options and especially disappointing compared to the previous games. However, there is a good selection of cars to choose from and at least there is a customization option available. It's just disappointing to see that you couldn't make a more unique vehicle. P.S. vinyl's don't show up online so don't bother looking cool online.

There's also online multiplayer for 8 players over Xbox live only. The lack of split-screen is disappointing because most of the NFS games on the platform have had split-screen. Moving on, the online multiplayer is decent, if not as good as other competitors. There are standard modes but by far the most interesting mode is the cops and robbers mode, where you play as the robbers and must deliver the money or the cops as you bust the robbers. It's a great, fun and interesting mode which should be played a few times if you're going online. However, the weird things like the community days are annoying. The Photo mode is awkward and for some reason, you can use Microsoft points to create money in-game which is useless because money is at easy access anyways. In the end, Undercover's online won't keep you busy for months, but is decent.

The graphics in Undercover are uneven. The cars look great, if a bit jagged at the edges, the sense of speed is great and the environments look pretty good, but there are some serious issues with the graphics both technically and artistically. There are some poor animations when you use the pursuit breakers, which didn't look too bad in 2005 on Most Wanted, but in 2008 look horrible. The sun is also rather dominant here, as you are constantly blinded by the sun as there is no day/night cycle. The sun is constantly bright, shining off the streets. It's pretty, but rather distracting. You can easily crash into the rare oncoming traffic as the sun blinds you. The biggest issue with Undercover, however, is the terrible frame rate. Constantly the game is stuttering and splurting, and sometimes the game outright crashes on you which is annoying. This is weird because there isn't much traffic at all or onside events, yet Midnight Club LA had lots of traffic, pedestrians and detailed environments yet that ran quite steady. Undercover could have done with more polish.

The sound, however, fares much better than the graphics. While the acting is laughably bad and doesn't really entertain, the rest of the sound is good. The vehicles sound great, with roaring engines in the more powerful vehicles, and the other effects like the sound of crashing into cop cars and the cop sirens are pretty good. The music is great, with a nice mix of rocking music and pumping techno music which suits the game very well though the sound mixing could have done with some more work. Overall, the sound is great and definitely much better than the graphics.

There is quite a bit of content for you to invest in. The game's story will take about ten hours to complete, and you can add another five or ten hours if you try to complete every event in the game. There is a 100 gamerscore waiting for you if you can, which brings me onto the next point of the achievements. There are 50 achievements for 1000 gamerscore, which is divided into completing the game, playing online; performing certain tasks in police chases. You can earn a good 500GS on your first playthrough, yet take the time to play through the whole of the game and go online for a decent amount of time, and you can earn the full 1000. It is a rather perfect balance between ease yet challenge and the achievements are great.

Is Need for Speed: Undercover good, bad or ugly?

For two years, big fans of Most Wanted have been disappointed with Carbon and Prostreet as they strayed away from what made Most Wanted really good, and yet despite the fact that Undercover has gone back to what made 2005's entry good, this doesn't mean that Undercover is great. In fact, Undercover makes some rather rookie mistakes that will deter hardcore players and some rather lame technical issues hold back the game more. Yet, thanks to exciting police chases, a decent racing system, okay online play and great sound make up for some of the issues with Undercover. If you're a fan of the series (especially Most Wanted) then this is worth a purchase, but if you're new to the series or preferred Burnout Paradise or Midnight Club LA, then this is worth a mere rental or cheap buy in a sale. It's far from poor, and not as bad as Carbon or Prostreet, but Undercover is yet another Need for Speed which disappoints compared to Most Wanted.

Controls: 9
Gameplay: 7
Graphics: 6
Sound: 8
Value: 8
Overall: 7.6

This was released on November 21st, 2008 for Xbox 360, PS3, PS2, PSP, Wii, DS and PC. This is rated 12+ for language and can be bought for £30 and upwards.

Summary: EA needs to give this franchises a couple of years to evolve the series before it's too late...