Conclusions

So far it all sounds good and there really is a lot to like about Need for Speed Undercover – it’s fast paced and easy to get into, taking the best bits from previous games in the series.

We also have to admit that we really like how easy the game is to get into. There are no lengthy tutorials and unlike in games like Burnout Paradise it's always easy to find a race. There’s none of this revving engines at crossroads at a certain time of day or in a certain car nonsense. You just press D-pad down to jump into the nearest race, or use the map to select one.

Unfortunately, where the game starts to fall down is in the events themselves, which quickly become repetitive and dull. The cities you race through are bland and uninteresting, with the same old, same old hazards to avoid and traps to trigger on your pursuers.

The cop chases, while initially exciting and interesting, quickly become tired and irritating. The fact that you’re constantly confined to your car means you can’t put your own personal tactics and tricks into effect like you might in Grand Theft Auto IV. Evading the cops quickly becomes of stringing your handbrake turns together and exploiting the Spiderman-like grip afforded by your slow-motion abilities.

The framerate isn’t all that it should be either, which is a little surprising given that the graphics for the game aren’t exactly jaw-dropping. They aren’t bad at all, but they won’t blow your socks off either. Combine that with a closed system and predictable game situations and you’ll once again see why we think framerate drops on a console are pretty unforgiveable.


The repetitiveness which plagues the game is unfortunate too, as you can at points see that the development team was desperately trying to make the game a little more varied and interesting by adding in new objectives and race types. What they’ve failed to realise though is that the fault doesn’t lie with the race types themselves, but with the courses.

The sprints, highway battles, races and escapes are all fine – it’s the largely dull and unimpressive environment they are all set in that quickly gets old. The ‘golden hour’ lighting effect which dusts the landscape of the game does a good job of making it look pretty, but you still eventually get the feeling that you’ve raced the same street over and over.

The Tri-City area is, in other words, remarkably devoid of landmarks as well as pedestrians and the fact that there are often good ten-minute stretches without any traffic to dodge through doesn’t help.

At the start of the review we said that the two important keywords for the Need for Speed series are style and brevity. You could argue that ‘speed’ should belong there too, but it kind of goes without saying. The issue with Undercover though is that it’s started to show us just how shallow those things can be.

It quickly becomes obvious that when you finally do get under the covers with Need for Speed then it’s all sack and no substance. That’s not enough to impress my girlfriend and it’s not enough to impress me either.

Score Guide