Electronic Arts' long running and popular racing series returns once again to all major platforms with Need for Speed Undercover.
After experimenting with some new ideas in Carbon and Prostreet, Undercover finally returns to gameplay elements introduced in Most Wanted, which is by far the best NFS game to date. But even though Undercover tries to emulate Most Wanted, it is in the end not the better of the two and ultimately ends up being a very easy and average racer.
In the game you play the role of an undercover cop tasked to infiltrate a gang of street racers from Tri-City Bay Area, the fictitious city of Undercover, who have gotten involved in an international smuggling racket. After infiltrating the gang, you earn their trust by racing for them or with them, and then taking out gang members one at a time.
Race events in the game include regular events such as lap races, checkpoint races and sprint races to name a few while new racing events such as highway battles, 'follow the leader' and 'marked man' type of events among others make their debut in Undercover.
In highway battles you race one-on-one with a single opponent from point A to point B in which you not only have to win but dodge high speed traffic on the highways of Tri-City Bay area. The tricky part being that if you crash into a car or bus at high speed, your car is totaled and the race ends instantly. Follow the leader type events also have you racing against a single opponent in which you first have to overtake your opponent and then ensure that he/she stays behind you for a specific amount of time. Finally, marked man type events task you with taking out rival drivers by ramming into their cars until their health is fully depleted.
While the game features plenty of race modes they aren't very challenging. Undercover is one of the easiest NFS games which you will be able to blast through in two or three days. The AI drivers hardly pose a challenge and you will be able to beat the opposition every time if you have a fast car which you usually do.
Cop chases also return but they aren't very exciting either because the cops don't perform any maneuvers other than ramming your car from the sides and hoping that you will collide into something, thus making you an easier target to stop.
The best thing about Undercover is that it features more than 50 plus cars from different manufacturers. Another good thing about the game is that you can jump right into the nearest event at a press of a button instead of roaming the city in search of one.
When it comes to graphics there isn't much to talk about because Undercover is pretty much like the previous games in the series with all the cars looking great and the city having distinct design in different areas like the cities in Carbon and Most Wanted.
In the audio department, the game does a fairly good job with each car having unique engine noise while the soundtrack consists of music from various genres such as rock, pop, hip hop, etc.
In the end, Undercover is yet another NFS game that fails to achieve greatness due to problems such as a weak story, easy rivals, some buggy visual design and more. Although not such a bad game, fans of the series will feel disappointed with what Undercover offers.
— Sohail Saleem
