Need for Speed Undercover (PS3) Review

Posted by Armando Rodriguez on 12.31.2008

A decent racing game marred by technical issues.



Game: Need for Speed Undercover
Developer: EA Vancouver
Published by Electronic Arts
Type: Racing
Rated T for Teen


I admit it. I am a huge fan of Need for Speed. As a former Playstation 2 owner, I believe the entire series was good in the PS2. From Hot Pursuit 2, both Undergrounds and Most Wanted, the series was on a roll. I loved the concept of car tuning and tuner culture that Underground brought and to this day I believe Most Wanted is the pinnacle of the series. Then came Need for Speed Carbon. I felt it was decent, but was a step down from Most Wanted. But EA felt it was time for a change and created Pro Street. I believe this was the low point for the series (I never reviewed it for the site, but I give it a 4.0 overall), a game so bad I barely played it for a few hours (5 hours total) before I was ready to trade it in and forget it ever existed. Now comes Undercover, a game that promises to take us back to the Most Wanted days. Is it a return to form? Not quite so, but it is a step in the right direction.



Gameplay


If we compare the features list of both, Undercover and Most Wanted side to side, they seem like the same game. Open city? Check. Hokey cut-scenes? Check. Cop chases? Check.

The story is nothing to write home about and seems ripped straight from a Fast and the Furious movie. You are an undercover cop that follows a gang of street racers that are also involved in a smuggling ring. Hmmm….suspiciously similar to the first Fast and the Furious isn’t it? It might not be good or original, but it serves a purpose: it provides the hokey, B movie-like cut scenes that fans seem to love and the fact that there is an actual story makes you feel like there is a purpose to the races. The car list is pretty awesome in itself with a good combination of Japanese, European and American models. We are talking about everything from the Lamborghini Gallardo to 70’s American muscle cars like the Dodge Hemi-Cuda or Chevy Camaro. As awesome as this list is, I can’t help it but miss several favorites of the tuner culture like the Honda Civic. Cars drive pretty well, with notable differences. The Lotus Elise is quick and has good control, but trying to turn a heavy muscle car like a Chevy Camaro at 150mph seems like trying to steer a brick through a tight turn.



The events the game offers are pretty standard for the series. You have your sprint and circuit races and your cop chase challenges (like dealing certain amounts of “cost to state” damage during the police chases). There are a few new modes too, like races where you need to stay in the lead for a specific amount of time (such as “stay in the lead for two minutes”) to “outrun” style events in which you start behind a single opponent and need not only to pass him, but have a lead of a certain distance in order to win. The cop chases also get a new event in which you drive a “hot car” (stolen car) and have to deliver it to a shop where they will sell it. Not only do you need to evade the cops in this event, but also make it to the shop with a pristine car. You get a damage meter in the right corner and if you fill this meter its game over. This makes cop chases more tactical and less about ramming them off the road. Overall I think the events in this game are great. Online you can also compete in drag events and a fantastic cops and robbers mode that brings back fond memories of Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit from several years back. Lag can be an issue online, but overall, it was pretty stable in my experience.

The game sounds fantastic so far, but it has many issues that prevented me from really enjoying the game. Car handling felt a bit too bouncy and unrealistic. I hated Pro Street because I never felt traction with the cars, they felt like they where floating over the road. Undercover fixes this issue, but the driving is still not as tight as it was on Most Wanted or even on EA’s own Burnout Paradise. Also you cannot change the controls to anything you want, you have to select from a small amount of presets. None of them felt particularly comfortable to me. There is one that is similar to the Most Wanted setup, but not quite. The one I used for Most Wanted had the shift down and up buttons in L1 and R1 with the handbrake in R2 and the nitrous boost in L2. The only one that came close changes the nitrous to the circle button and the L2 button is actually the “look back” button, which felt weird. I think that games overall should allow the user to map the controls to any button they want (PC games do this all the time, so why not consoles?).Another thing is that the early part of the game is really boring. You start with a Nissan 240 that is incredibly slow. Outside of changing the paint job, you cannot buy any upgrades until about two hours into the game, so you are stuck with a slow car that doesn’t control well either. What happened to the option of picking from several cars like in the old games? I don’t expect to start with a Lamborghini right away, but the option to choose my initial car (from maybe 3 or 4 cheap ones) should have been there. Another problem I have is that the game fails to exploit the open-world city in which it is based. You can choose events from a GPS map without the need to drive to them and when you start a race the rest of the city is locked with cement walls so that it becomes like a race track (although races have short-cuts, there is no “find your own path” feel) so it feels like there is no purpose whatsoever to learning the city or even having the open city part. Yes, cop chases take place on open city mode, but since you only have to worry about escaping and everything you need is conveniently marked on your GPS, I don’t think knowing the city makes a difference. Cop Chases (outside of some “hot car” ones) are way too easy. I remember in the latter part of Most Wanted I could be in a cop chase that lasted over half an hour trying to get rid of those pesky cops, but here the AI is so dumb that I never spent more than a couple of minutes in one. In the entire game I NEVER saw the cops use spike strips and since there are so many tunnels, it is easy to loose the chopper as well. Cop chases are still exciting, but not as much as in the past, and since you escape because of dumb AI most of the time, it takes away the feeling of accomplishment from them. Finally, the game introduces a “Wheelman Level” that goes up when you dominate races and it earns you skill points. Each race has a specific “Domination” time. Beat the race faster than this time and you earn Wheelman Skills that increase such things as Engine and Forced Induction. They are supposed to make you a better driver, but the effect is not notable at all. But the biggest blunder is that most races are not exciting at all. Most of the time you will get a big lead early and never see another car. I found myself with an 11-13 second lead in most cases and even with a horrible crash that took me a long time to recover, I still finished first place comfortably. In the latter part of the game they become more competitive, but I still found myself winning all the time. I probably restarted an event because I was about to loose three times total in ten or so hours of gameplay.

Graphics



The graphics are a mixed bag. In HD, cars models look fantastic (although a bit too shiny) and the city itself is well designed. The game offers some nice vistas when you are driving close to the coast and the cut-scenes look really good as well. The main problems with the graphics are all involved with the frame rate. It is one of the worse frame rates I have ever seen in a non-PC game. Sometimes the game slows down and pauses for a full second or so before it abruptly resumes and it looks like the car jumped forward. This can make controlling your car tricky, especially if these drops occur when you are taking a tight turn. Seriously, it feels like when you are trying to run a high-end PC game on a low-end PC with max settings on. It’s that bad. The entire game features a sepia-like effect that is supposed to give the game a more movie-like feel, but I found it distracting. It really adds nothing to the presentation anyway, so I am baffled by its inclusion.

Sound

EA has always been known for good game soundtracks and this game is no exception. The music fits the atmosphere of the game well. Everything sounds like something you would see in a Fast and the Furious movie, which is exactly how I pictured a Need for Speed soundtrack to be. The sound effects and voice dialogue is also well done (although sometimes poorly acted, but I guess this was on purpose to keep the campy B-movie feel). The sound is definitively a standout of the game.

Lasting Appeal

The single player game takes about a dozen hours to complete, which is a pretty long time for a racing game. Multiplayer online is good as well, so if you can withstand the game’s nagging issues, you will play it for a good, long while.

Fun Factor

Undercover can provide short bursts of fun. The early part of the single player experience is a drag and might turn you off before you get to the good parts. Once you can get a better car and can buy some decent upgrades, the fun picks up. Online is also really good. But like I mentioned before, most of the single player experience is too easy and unexciting.

The 411

Need for Speed Undercover is a step on the right direction. It is much better than Pro Street and slightly better than Carbon, but it sill fails to match the greatness of Most Wanted. Coupled with technical issues and unexciting races, it comes way short of other racing games in the system, most notably EA’s Burnout Paradise. Criterion Games ripped off a lot of Most Wanted (especially the open-world gameplay) to make Burnout Paradise and now I think it would be wise for EA Vancouver (or whoever develops the next Need for Speed game) to take a good look at what Criterion did with Burnout and emulate it to some degree. For fans of Most Wanted, Undercover is worth a purchase for nostalgia purposes alone. For the rest of the world, stay in Paradise City.

Graphics	7.2	Car models and the city iself look great, but the constant frame rate drops and the annoying sepia effect are a real bump in the road.
Gameplay	6.5	The return of Cop chases and the fun online multiplayer are a blast, but most of the game comes off as too easy and unexciting.
Sound	8.5	Excellent soundtrack that fits the atmosphere of the game well. Sound effects are also well done with differences in engine sounds being a standout.
Lasting Appeal	7.2	If you overcome the technical problems the game has, you will find a long single player experience and a decent multiplayer. However, once you beat the single player mode, there is not any incentive to play again.
Fun Factor	6.8	There is some fun to be had with NFS Undercover, but it seems that you have to go through a lot of boring stuff and a lot of technical problems to find it.
Overall	6.8   [ Average ]

Screenshots
All 5 Need for Speed: Undercover Screenshots