REVIEW: Need for Speed: Undercover

So, if you can't tell by the title, I picked up the new Need for Speed game, NFS: Undercover.

I had heard some pretty mixed reviews about the game prior to purchasing it, but figured I'd give it a shot anyways just for the hell of it. I must say that I am "impressed" that they listened to people from the shitty NFS: Carbon driving experience. EA took the driving and gameplay aspect of NFS: Most Wanted, the car customization from NFS: Carbon, and a little dash of driving from NFS: ProStreet (also a fairly terrible game).

The story isn't terrible, it's just been done before many times in the Need for Speed series. Undercover cop/agent who needs to infiltrate a street racing syndicate, gather evidence and shit, turn to the dark side, escape. The graphics got a slight upgrade (nothing like EA to skimp out....bastards), car tuning got a nice boost, and the AI got a little better.

I can say that the game feels easy though. I played for 3 hours yesterday evening, picked up about 5 achievements and made it racer level 6 (whatever that does that for you). I did not lose a single race, in fact I shattered all competition. Now, I'm not bad by any means at racing games, I'm one of the better people I know, but it was ridiculous as to the length I could get between 1st and 2nd place. I was winning races by near 30-40 seconds. I feel the game has been dumbed down slightly to accommodate to someone who needed it. That's fine, but a difficulty setting would be sweet...

Money is very easy to get once you break the number 3 rank. $75,000+ isn't hard to grab in just a few short races which can be used immediately for performance upgrades via instant teleport to Part Shops now. But, for all the cheaters out there, there are a few codes for money and certain cars that can be input mid-game. As for as I have read, these codes will not disable the gaining of achievements, but I choose not to test this personally, so good luck to you if you so choose to cheat. CHEATER!

I have not tested out the Multiplayer yet because I want to progress further into the Career to unlock better vehicles and performance parts first. I can't be going online and getting slaughtered... That's just embarrassing. Once I do decide to roll up to the EA servers, I'll give a quick review of the Multiplayer too.

Overall, I'd recommend at least giving it a rent just to fuck around with. It's got some better graphics, gameplay is nice and easy, and evading the cops can actually almost get challenging in some situations. It's a fairly easy game with WAY easier achievements than Carbon or ProStreet, if that's your cookie.