Need for Speed: Undercover

I have a history of enjoying Need for Speed games that aren't well regarded by critics and the community. I thought Pro Street was an absolute delight despite its obvious control problems. Undercover is the same. This is pretty solid Need for Speed, often more than what I could ever ask for. Let's say this game feels a little more "stripped down" compared to the others, but the core is still intact.

It's a well known fact that any new Need for Speed will deliver. Much like the now defunct Tony Hawk series -- fingers crossed for new release. If arcade racing is your thing with none of those simulation crap then this is sure to please. You can always add a little more depth with stick instead of automatic. I'm guessing steering wheel instead of keyboard/controller for shift gearbox but there's nothing stopping you from feeling brave.

Since Underground 2 you can roam the city, but don't expect to be doing a lot of that. First the city isn't much all that inviting unless racing, and second, police will give you an extremely hard time outside races. Both seem to compensate each other, since there isn't much to see or explore there shouldn't be too much roaming around, which would keep the drawback off.

Unlike the great Burnout Paradise there isn't any kind of collectibles to be find, or destroy like you used to in Paradise City. That's a Burnout thing I understand. paradise city seems much grander and a lot more inviting to players. There were building which the player could enter and find insane jumps. Need for Speed should quench your thirst for speed and nothing more. At this is does a good job though.

Choose a race from the mini map and go. The story is actually interesting and the way they used real small movies to advance the plot is inventive. Sometimes it all feels like a B-movie Need for Speed, there doesn't seem to be much polish in anything except sheer racing and cop chases.

Cop chases for instance are still annoying, for me at least. It's bad enough that sometimes you just want to race and you have to evade cops that somehow escalate the situation with helicopters and road-spikes. That's never pleasant. At first only small-time regional police officers will heed the call of disturbance, after that federal start to storm in, road blocks in every corner, spikes to make you completely useless, unavoidable helicopters, the list goes on.

You have chase blockers around the map to help you get rid of cops, but even they start to get too under-powered when higher-rate police cars get jump into the fun. The helicopter is probably the most annoying of all, since you can't hit it you have to wait it run out of fuel and then evade. That feels cheap when you work your arse-off trying to loose the police only to find a helicopter that will hover your surrounding for a minute and a half to two minutes.

Something that never fails is the good taste of the Need for Speed team to choose its licensed music tracks. The tendency to pick out obscure rock, hardcore, electronic and hip-hop music is top-notch. You can hardly call it bad at any point, even if you're not much into any of the aforementioned genres, that's mostly your fault rather than the developer's. The songs go pretty well with the high-octane vibe of the game.

When you race you have regular circuit with number of laps that will differ from task to task. Sprint, a one-way run through a sketched path. And Checkpoint, having to reach the next one with whatever amount of time given. The paths for these challenges are set and you can't change it, much different than Burnouts premise, which involved a starting point and a finish line. Just for the record, there's no better system, both are good at what they offer.

In the cop chases tab we have also three different types of challenges. Cop takeout, which pretty much explains itself, you're given a number of cop to take down and you must follow. Cost to State, just cause mayhem endlessly throughout the city as fast as possible to win; it's also worth noticing that most of the time you'll be focusing on the police as well because they hand out the most points. And last, but not least, Police Evade. You're put in a situation of complete hopelessness and you must find peace.

There's quite a few different tasks, that is true, but most of the time you'll be doing the same thing in them. Racing in the racing ones, and taking/evading cops in the police tasks. The main story also presents some new stuff like taking down rival member of the gang you're investigating. As always, you'll have to climb your way through against egotistical bastards that think they're the center of the universe and unbeatable at driving.

You're put in this position after being taken by the police and a hotshot detective decides to put you undercover. Strangely you still get arrested and pay fines to get out of jail even though you're basically a cop as well now. You can upgrade and change the aesthetics of your car at will, if you're the kind of person willing to lose yourself in such mundane yet expensive indulgences, you'll find it offers good fun.

What actually serves as good incentive to keep you playing on and on even after everything is beaten are the domination times. To dominate an event you must do it fast enough, it can either be race or cop chases. Most of the times high-end cars will hand you domination easily, if you decide to go doing it as you play through it gets considerably harder. Every time you dominate an event you get skills. They usually improve a little bit of your general driving. Skills don't have anything to to with the car you're driving but how you drive any car.

So what's wrong with this game? There's nothing actually wrong with it. You might dislike cop chases like I do but there's no denying that it is part of the Need for Speed franchise. The races are good, the chases are enjoyable. What this game lacks, in fact, is pretentiousness. It feels bland at the end of the day without compromising any of its core aspects. It's a difficult sin to confess. The fun factor is something undeniable, but sometimes it goes farther than that.

The fact you can't "unscratch" your car after being busted by the police bothers me. The fact you will always lose a duel with the computer also does. If you bump into someone else's car chances are you're going down. If someone bumps into your car you're going down too. There's absolutely no way of driving people off track by crashing onto them. Something that Burnout Paradise did well, you always win triumphantly or lose miserably within the havoc you caused.

None of the downsides should stop you from trying this game out, it seems like the black sheep of recent post-Underground games but it's not at all, this game delivers good racing and heart-pumping action of police chases, it just focuses a lot on it and never looks back or even the sides. This is hardcore Need for Speed and should get more attention then what it got so far, at least that's my opinion.