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Need for Speed: Undercover is about two things: reaching ridiculous speeds in beautiful cars and outrunning the fuzz. It might not be innovative, and it certainly has a number of issues, but when it comes to its core intensions, the game delivers quick and dirty thrills with plenty of cinematic flair. The only real question is, “Will it make you feel the need?”

Just the Clichés, Ma’am

The game starts with a very Tony Scott-ish cinematic with police helicopters and cruisers in pursuit of a crazed street racer. As the camera swoops in on the swerving racer, the letterbox format widens and you’re instantly in control of the car. It’s so seamless that my bet is most people with have the same, “Oh crap!” reaction when they realize that the game has actually started. Now that’s quality design.

The story, however, is less satisfying. While I definitely appreciate a developer trying to give a racing game a compelling and enticing narrative (something I always say would be absolutely killer if someone could pull it off), the story never deviates from the beats you would expect in a story about a cop forced to go undercover to infiltrate a street racing ring that may or may not be involved in illegal smuggling.

Some people might feel a bit detached from the whole undercover process since most of the game’s exposition comes from brief live-action cut scenes where your police contact (played by Maggie Q) feeds you limited amounts of information  about your next objective (i.e. go here, do this race, take down this car, etc.). On the other side of law are the street-racers, who also address you in live-action cut scenes and tell you what your next series of objectives are. I don’t really have a problem with either of these presentation choices, because I’m guessing that real undercover agents are kept at a distant for their protection and so naturally they would feel a bit detached. And if you were the new racer on the block, you would only be told as much as you needed to know until you were the one calling the shots.

Open-World = Not So Open-World

The game takes place in the Northern California-inspired Tri-City Bay. The city consists of three (surprise!) separate islands connected by a series of highways and tunnels. Each of the sections feels unique (industrial sections, metropolitan areas, rurual stretches, etc.) and offers plenty of pavement to push. Sadly, the city doesn’t feel nearly as alive as it should for an open-world setting. This is one area where Midnight Club: Los Angeles comes to mind most, because that city was filled to the brim with the hustle and bustle of a living world. Tri-City Bay feels like a model city waiting for its citizens to arrive.

You’ll encounter traffic at various points during races (most of which will appear on the highways), but it feels arbitrarily placed rather than dynamically present. Sparse traffic does mean you get to enjoy the actual racing part of the game a lot more. After all, what’s the point of getting behind the wheel of a blistering fast ride if you can’t enjoy the thrill of opening it up across long stretches of road without having to worry about smashing into stuff every few yards?

Placing a racing game in an open-world is obviously nothing new, but at least in other titles, it works well and is designed in such a way that exploring the city outside of races is part of the fun. In Undercover though, the world is so bland that you won’t want to explore it at all. The game even flashes the closest race on the bottom of the screen, which you can then access by simply pushing down on the D-pad. There is a definite sense that the game wants to keep you moving through the story by pushing you from event to event. Because you can’t trigger events simply by driving to their location, you’re forced to select them from the map screen, further invalidating the game’s open-world approach.

Not Too Fast and Not Too Infuriating

Over the course of the single-player career mode, you’re given specific story-related objectives that need to be completed in order to move the story forward. There are also numerous other events that serve to help raise your reputation, earn you cash, and boost your skills. These events include typical circuit races, one-on-one races, which usually take place on a highway, and checkpoint challenges. The highway races are real nail bitters and offer the biggest challenge, since maneuvering around traffic at 150 mph can be a tad tricky (and a bit frustrating). There are also various challenges where you go head to head with the cops. These include losing or incapacitating a certain number of police cars or destroying a set amount of property, both within a given time limit. Because of their inherent intensity, the cop challenges are the most thrilling and enjoyable in the game, and you will most likely choose them first when it comes to finding your next challenge.

There is a leveling up system in career mode that tracks your performance during events and fills out various attributes accordingly (i.e. engine, nitrous, tires, car shop discounts, etc.). The system definitely favors skilled players, since winning events by big margins will rank you up faster. Fortunately, the first few hours of the game aren’t that difficult, so casual players need not worry about getting bottlenecked early on.

Driver Harder

On the other hand, when the game’s difficulty does ramp up, it can be brutal. Not so much on the racing side though. In fact, the game avoids many of the classic scaling and rubber banding issues that plague pretty much every racing game, which means you won’t lose quite as often as you’re probably used to. You’ll still have to deal with nearly flawless AI opponents, and you’ll get used to losing races two turns from the finish line, but fortunately, it rarely feels cheap. You’ll see the computer spin out, crash into other cars, swerve realistically to avoid traffic, and, get this, even give up leads. Unlike other racing games, this one actually rewards you for driving well and rarely feels artificially difficult.

When it comes to dealing with the fast arm of the law, things get downright punishing, especially at the later stages in the game. Trying to compete with a fleet of suped-up FBI SUVs can be nearly impossible if you aren’t constantly thinking a few steps ahead. This is due in large part to the realistic tactics the enemy AI employs to block your path and box you in whenever possible. The cops work together at every turn to bring you down, and they don’t mess around when it comes to stopping you.

The most glaring issue with the police AI is their ridiculous ability to reach and maintain speeds that even the fastest cars in the game can’t reach. There’s nothing odder than seeing an SUV outrun a Bugatti or a Lamborghini on an open stretch of highway. If the chases themselves weren’t so stylishly presented and intentionally ridiculous, these issues would be a major downer. While there are plenty of “Oh come on!” moments to be had, the chases have that classic Need for Speed quality to them that just make them consistently exciting, even if they aren’t that believable. 

Shiny Thing Go Fast

The game’s presentation is one of its strongest features. As I mentioned earlier, it seamlessly blends cinematics with gameplay, and the cut-scenes give the racing a bit of welcomed grounding. The game’s frame rate, however, stands as its major graphical failing. It never reached a point where the game was unplayable, and there were only a few instances where I actually lost control of my car because of it, but it’s still noticeable and disappointing. Also, the game’s load times are far too long. Players should not have to wait several seconds for the map screen to pop up, especially when they have to access at it so often.

Perhaps the game’s biggest success is its sound design and music. The soundtrack is appropriately pulse pounding and reminiscent of the Hollywood films that serve as inspiration for the series. The cars roar, screech and scream around the tracks, adding greatly to the game’s overall sense of sheer speed and power. There is also a nice rumble effect whenever you whip by other cars that are so subtly that most players probably won’t even notice it at first. Overall though, it’s a fairly average looking game by current-gen standards, and the stuttering frame rate will have a lot of players putting this game in park.

Hitting the (Online) Streets

On the multiplayer side, there aren’t too many options. The two straight race modes (Sprint and Circuit) are as standard as they come. You face off against up to eight other drivers, you battle for a few laps or so, and that’s all there is to it. The third mode (Cops and Robbers) is easily the most enjoyable and plays out like CTF in cars. The cops bash and smash the robbers as they try to stop the robbers from transporting cash from one point on the map to another. It never reaches GTA IV levels of madness, but it’s satisfying enough to entertain players looking for a quick multiplayer fix. However, with only three modes and not much else to offer in terms of unique online play, the game falls well short of offering a memorable or lengthy multiplayer experience. It runs well, with little to no lag during my time with it, and the races can be frantic and intense, but after ten or twelve races, you’ll want to mix it up and you just won’t be able to.

Need for Meh

Need for Speed: Undercover is a game that both satisfies and disappoints on a regular basis. While the chases provide top-notch thrills and spills, you can’t help but feel like you’ve just done it too many times to really care anymore. There are plenty of events and races to complete, and the story keeps you from having to cruise around the bland city by pushing you from objective to objective, both of which should keep casual players happy. As for the online multiplayer, it’s light on options and gets old fast. However, as a sheer vehicle for quick and enjoyable vehicular thrills, Undercover is a decent title that only just fills that need for speed.

Article Written By: Jake Gaskill