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Need For Speed Undercover Review
On a fundamental level, we don't need a whole lot of reasons to play a racing game. Mashing the gas and running from Johnny Law (or smashing into them at top speed) just comes naturally to most of us. Still, I'm always intrigued by racing games that try to incorporate some kind of story in an attempt to smooth the rails of the player's progression. Need for Speed tries to address both aspects of racing games, but the problem with Underground isn't its attempt to provide context for your actions. Even though I've got the gas pedal down as far as it'll go, the game fails to satiate either the need or speed parts of the equation.
Part of the problem with Undercover is that it has no clear focus. After taking a detour with NFS: ProStreet, EA seems content to return to the pre-ProStreet era like it never happened. While this may not be a bad thing, Undercover refuses to move the needle forward from 2006's NFS: Carbon, and in some ways is a step back. The game's biggest assets are its large world, which encompasses three cities, and the way you can freely pick up races of different types at any time. This lets you experience things continuously (unlike Burnout Paradise, for example), but there could have been more payoff in the races. You earn Wheelman reputation points that improve your handling and lower the cost of parts, but you don't get to apply them yourself and you never know what kind of points you're racing for until the event is over.
This disconnect is furthered by the uneven racing. While some thrilling races up the ante with trigger points in the environment that rain down destruction on chasing cops, it's also hampered by a lack of polish. Environmental pop-up, even for objects as important as oncoming traffic, is common. Despite the bucket full of visual effects, the graphics only make the game jump off your screen in a bad way. Our review build suffered from serious framerate issues, which I hope are ironed out before the game releases.
Where EA goes from here is anyone's guess. Will we see ProStreet or Carbon return? I'm not going to make a prediction, although whatever it is, it better have more acceleration than this game does.
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