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NEED FOR SPEED: UNDERCOVER (PS3)
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Publisher: EA.
Developer: EA Black Box. Released: November 2008. Genre: Racing. Other versions: X360; PC; WII; PS2; PSP; DS. Posted 18th July 2021. By Tom Clare © 2021 |
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Similarly to a number of early seventh generation titles and PlayStation 3 ports in particular, Black Box’s Need For Speed: Undercover was a bit of a mess. Looking at it glass-half-full, however, it renders the developer’s excellent follow-up, The Run, all the more impressive for how complete an overhaul it would represent. Undercover delivers fast cars, a silly-but-fun storyline and some sturdy city racing, but its promise is completely buried under a catalogue of design flaws and bugs.
The setup’s a recognisable one to anyone familiar with Need for Speed games post-Underground. It’s the usual, somewhat contradictory dual role of an illegal street racer and an undercover cop. You’ll partake in dangerous, adrenaline-charged races whilst allegedly maintaining the moral high ground by shutting down crime and selling out your newfound friends. One of those friends is your confidante Carmen, played by Christina Milian in a sequence of video sequences and who, considering she’s limited to the murky shadows of a garage, does a pretty decent job. Likely through a mix of contractual reasons and for the sake of storyline continuity, the law opts to turn a blind eye to her involvement. Instead, she's left to become increasingly unnerved by the complete and systematic disappearance of all her pals, whilst never suspecting you were responsible for it all. I do love a feel-good narrative.
Undercover is really, really orange. It's a look that hasn't aged well and didn't look great at the time, either
EA also splashed the cash on Maggie Q, who assumes the role of the main protagonist’s contact, Chase Linh. Sadly, her acting talents are rather wasted, as she’s confined to a hotel room where her legs are granted as much camera time as her dialogues. Still, it’s a recognisable setup: you’ve one foot in the cop camp, the other in the street racers’ den. You’re neither good nor bad, as the game itself likes to remind you.
It’s not quite cops ‘n’ robbers though, like Most Wanted or Hot Pursuit. Undercover is just, well... robbers. I mean in the sense that, whilst you can very occasional drive a police car, there aren’t any missions from a law enforcement perspective (except online). Nevertheless, the dubiously named Tri-City Bay (based on Miami) delivers all the freeways, bridges, tunnels and coastal passes you’d expect of a city driving game, without any of it standing out.
It’s not quite cops ‘n’ robbers though, like Most Wanted or Hot Pursuit. Undercover is just, well... robbers. I mean in the sense that, whilst you can very occasional drive a police car, there aren’t any missions from a law enforcement perspective (except online). Nevertheless, the dubiously named Tri-City Bay (based on Miami) delivers all the freeways, bridges, tunnels and coastal passes you’d expect of a city driving game, without any of it standing out.
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Most of Undercover’s otherwise enjoyable game modes are negatively impacted by significant technical faults or frustrating peripheral issues. Cop takedown events are a good bit of fun when they work properly. When they don’t however, they're a pain. Prone to loading without any police presence whatsoever, this issue is compounded further due to the absence of a restart option present in nearly every other game setup. This leaves you either to drive around in bewilderment for several minutes, wondering why no one is interested that you’re ruining the city’s carefully arranged network of lamp posts, or reset the game. Meanwhile, Outrun races (essentially a one-vs-one with another street racer) prove amusingly problematic. Race routes are dictated ad-hoc by the car that’s leading on the road. Thus sneaking ahead and instantly taking a sharp turn routinely flummoxes your opponent.
Then there’s less amusing stuff, like the highway sprints. These are pretty exciting for the first half of the game. Speedy, bonnet-cam dashes that see you and a rival snake in and around traffic, trying to build a 300m lead and win the duel. As the game progresses, however, things start to go awry. As you upgrade your cars, so too does the opposition become more competitive. This makes sense, up to the point where your 400+km/h Bugatti Veyron is struggling to keep pace at top speed. The only way to gain the necessary lead in later races is to rely on, or indeed instigate, a crash for your opponent.
Then there’s less amusing stuff, like the highway sprints. These are pretty exciting for the first half of the game. Speedy, bonnet-cam dashes that see you and a rival snake in and around traffic, trying to build a 300m lead and win the duel. As the game progresses, however, things start to go awry. As you upgrade your cars, so too does the opposition become more competitive. This makes sense, up to the point where your 400+km/h Bugatti Veyron is struggling to keep pace at top speed. The only way to gain the necessary lead in later races is to rely on, or indeed instigate, a crash for your opponent.
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The elastic AI is severe in the extreme, some of the worst I’ve come across in a video game. Sprint and circuit races late on are messy and grossly unfair, as opponents float around corners at absurd speeds. You’ll beat an event’s ‘Domination’ time by sometimes more than a minute, but it all counts for nothing if you don’t finish first.
Graphically, it’s a surprisingly weak outing for Need for Speed. I get that it’s based in a Florida-like setting and it’s nice to accentuate sunshine, but everything is bathed in an aggressive orange hue that looks naff. Whilst the racing is reasonably sturdy in terms of the frame rate, the game has serious problems keeping abreast of the action, regularly seeing the player catch up with the still-to-be-loaded track, resulting in an awkward pause and an unwelcome distraction. Crashes and collisions are alright until you start having them at 300km/h and then the physics engine seemingly can’t cope. Sometimes, when selecting a mission, the entire environment fails to load in. You’re left with the player’s car and the sky, as far as the eye can see...
From a purely gameplay-focused perspective, Undercover harboured enough potential to count as a decent Need for Speed. The handling is nippy, whilst upgrading and buying new exotic cars, remains a satisfying endeavour. However, it’s hard to stress just how poorly optimised Undercover is. Bafflingly, whilst its glaring issues remain to this day, it was one of the few early PS3 games to have trophies patched-in retrospectively. The lack of fixes is a blot against EA, it’s very unusual rare to see a game so unpolished appearing under its branding.
Graphically, it’s a surprisingly weak outing for Need for Speed. I get that it’s based in a Florida-like setting and it’s nice to accentuate sunshine, but everything is bathed in an aggressive orange hue that looks naff. Whilst the racing is reasonably sturdy in terms of the frame rate, the game has serious problems keeping abreast of the action, regularly seeing the player catch up with the still-to-be-loaded track, resulting in an awkward pause and an unwelcome distraction. Crashes and collisions are alright until you start having them at 300km/h and then the physics engine seemingly can’t cope. Sometimes, when selecting a mission, the entire environment fails to load in. You’re left with the player’s car and the sky, as far as the eye can see...
From a purely gameplay-focused perspective, Undercover harboured enough potential to count as a decent Need for Speed. The handling is nippy, whilst upgrading and buying new exotic cars, remains a satisfying endeavour. However, it’s hard to stress just how poorly optimised Undercover is. Bafflingly, whilst its glaring issues remain to this day, it was one of the few early PS3 games to have trophies patched-in retrospectively. The lack of fixes is a blot against EA, it’s very unusual rare to see a game so unpolished appearing under its branding.
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There are loads of events, but the city starts to look overly-familiar before long
Its soundtrack is very noughties-EA, with a liberal dose of anonymous licensed songs, venturing little from its club hip-hop and angsty rock comfort zone. The result is a fairly predictable and repetitive soundtrack, though there are a couple of standout tracks in Justice’s “Genesis” and Ladytron’s “Ghosts”. There are almost two hundred events to tackle in all, meaning that, alongside a reasonable online suite, Undercover has plenty of fuel in its proverbial tank. However, events liberally reuse stretches of road and whilst it’s possible you’ll see the game through to the end of the story, for many, earning all the Domination awards will likely to prove too arduous a task.
Undercover represents a low ebb for Need for Speed. Released during a difficult crossover period between the sixth and seventh generations of gaming, the brand was going through the motions, seemingly starved of ideas. Parachuting in some recognisable figures from the worlds of film and music was little more than a smoke-screen, failing to provide the sprinkling of inspiration Undercover so desperately needed. In retrospect, most of us would have settled for a thorough patch, but we didn’t get that either.
Undercover represents a low ebb for Need for Speed. Released during a difficult crossover period between the sixth and seventh generations of gaming, the brand was going through the motions, seemingly starved of ideas. Parachuting in some recognisable figures from the worlds of film and music was little more than a smoke-screen, failing to provide the sprinkling of inspiration Undercover so desperately needed. In retrospect, most of us would have settled for a thorough patch, but we didn’t get that either.
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VERDICT
"Most of Undercover’s otherwise enjoyable game modes are negatively impacted by significant technical faults or frustrating peripheral issues. A low ebb for the brand, starved of ideas and in desperate need of fixes we would never get" OVERALL: 4/10 |
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Formula 1 98 (1998, PlayStation)
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Ridge Racer Unbounded (2012, PlayStation 3)
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