Most wanted with new graphics.

User Rating: 7.5 | Need for Speed: Undercover PC
By vega666 | Review Date:
Well here we are again, and it's like ProStreet never happened. In many ways, that's a very very good thing. Firstly, ye goode olde driving physics is back in all it's arcadish glory, and it is indeed very good. The sense of speed through the bumper cam is amazing, even on the mid-level rides. The graphics and sound in this iteration of NFS are both super-smooth, though I'd argue neither is as good as in for example GRID, which is a shame considering the poor framerate, even on a modern high-end rig. In a 3 minute race, you can expect to have the frame-rate drop to single digits several times, which is pretty jarring, and willl defenently take you out of the experience.

The gameplay itself is not without its fair share of annoyances and stupidity though. The one thing I absolutely LOVED about ProStreet was the conspicous lack of coppers, but of course they HAD to bring those frakkers back... *shakes fist at sky* If there's one thing that ruins this game, more than dropping frame-rate, it's the coppers. Example one, a regular police cruiser manages to keep up with a tuned Evo X... Whats that about? It's STUPID.
Example two, Spike-strips. WHAT THE HELL? Is there anything that's more like cheating than that? Imagine coming around a corner sideways, doing 280 km/h and there, 30 meters in front of you is a spike strip. You have NO WAY in hell of avoiding it (because you'll hit it in less than two tenths of a second), and once you hit it, there's NO ESCAPE WHATSOEVER. That's beyond stupid.
Example three, Police PORSHE's and GT-R's. There are too many stupid things about that to even begin listing, but suffice to say that the guy who came up with that specific design-flaw will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.
No, coppers has NO room in a racing game, and should be limited to games like GTA, because for gear-heads, speed freaks and petrol-lovers coppers are ONLY a distraction from what the game is really about: Driving really really fast. And in light of this, coppers can ONLY take away from the game-experience, and not add to it...

That said, driving really really fast in this game is a real hoot as long as you stay clear of the swine. It seems that most corners in the game are designed specifically so that you don't have to break before it, but only let the gass-pedal go for about a third of a second, or even simply nudge the hand-break to get through the corner. And hand-break turns in this game is spine-tingling fun when you get it just right, which brings me to the new "Heroic driving" moves. 360's, 540's (haven't managed to pull a 720 yet), J-Turns, burnouts, reverse driving; all these moves are fairly simple to pull off, and they are all extremely satisfying, especially during a one on one race or a take-down challenge.

All in all I must say that this game is mostly just a re-iteration of Most Wanted, with nothing much in the way of improvements or setbacks. If you like cop-chases, that's a good thing, and this game is defenently for you. If you, like me, enjoy racing games for the fun of driving a car really really fast, it's not so clear-cut, because the coppers take so much fun out of it, but it's still a game worth sinking a few hours into

Other Helpful Reviews for Need for Speed: Undercover

Load Comments (0)