Need for Speed: Undercover

Summa:

Amazon Minimum Age: 144 months
Andmekandja: Video Game
Brand: Electronic Arts
EAN: 0014633358711
ESRB Age Rating: Teen
Item Dimensions: 607502000
Väljaandja: Electronic Arts
Manufacturer: Electronic Arts
Model: 15591
MPN: 15591
Platform: Xbox 360
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Ilmumise kuupäev: November 17, 2008
Stuudio: Electronic Arts
Seotud tooted:     Vaata veel
Toote
Product Description:

You never thought it would turn out like this?an all-out chase where you’re both the hunted and the hunter. Now you must get behind the wheel and risk everything to infiltrate a ruthless international crime syndicate and take them down. The man you’re after is a maniac behind the wheel, and he’s driving like his life depends on escape, which maybe it does. He’s the one with all the answers you need, so track him down. That fleet of police cruisers in your rearview mirror won’t make things any easier. It will take all of your experience?and every ounce of skill?to outrun the law, take down the enemy, and unlock the truth that puts an end to this chase once and for all.

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Arvustused
Rating: - Pretty good game, but could be better
I have to say, I’m pretty obsesive when it comes to Need for Speed. I’ve beaten each one for the 360, all 1000G, and have varying opinions on all of them. (Most Wanted definately best, Carbon worst# Overall, I think Undercover ius the second best racing game I’ve ever played after most wanted. The color scheme is excellent, graphics are excellent, and I love the way all the cars handle, and the wide variety of cars. Multi-Player is the best Need for Speed multi-player yet. The few things that really annoy me are the long, and frequent load times, the fact the cops just won’t die, and helicopters wont go away, and get this, there are 12 missing races. I have the completioninst #complete every race) achievement, but on my stats, it says I’ve completed 187/199 races, even though I have the completionist achievement. Which annoys the hell out of me. Overall, I’m glad I bought it, it’s a lot of fun, but don’t expect to beat all the races, and be prepared to wait. A lot.

Rating: - A Step Backwards from Need for Speed: Carbon
I’m a big fan of the NFS series, so I’ll make this short. There is no redeeming quality to this game, it doesn’t show anything new or special or amazing enough to keep your interest.

I liked Carbon, thought it was fun, had a few interesting ideas, I was sad to see they left out a few game modes like Drag. The customizable vinyls were a great invention here.

I liked Pro Street, but only because the graphics and customization was really detailed. The thing I *DID* like was, aside from different teirs of cars, all the performance parts and vinyls and paints were unlocked from the start, and the only thing holding you back was money. You could have a pretty cool looking car, even at the beginning. The gameplay was suffering in some areas, like controls being a little sloggish, and having no story other than *beat these races to unlock these races to unlock these races*.

—= And now for Need for Speed : Undercover. =—

First off, the controls suck, they’re WAY over sensetive. You have to understand, I play Pro Street with the handling turned on expert, and I know all about using the ebrake, taking corners, and powersliding. In this game, your car jerks left and right and turns on a dime, allowing you to take corners going 50 miles an hour with no difficulty at all. If you TRY to slow down and e-brake, your car will probably spinout and do a 180. The first 5 seconds of the game shoved me into a getaway chase, and i kept slamming into cars along the highway, because i’d TAP the arrow key only to jerk wildly and overshoot my delicate steering.

The graphics are a huge let-down. It’s not only a step back from Pro Street, but I honestly find myself wondering if Carbon looked better than this game.

The customization of your car has been CRIPPLED. All of the upgrades need unlocking, so you’re back to the “I have to drive a crappy looking car until i beat half the game” syndrome. Also, while in the shop for vinyls, a happy little popup informed me

“To Increase Online Performance, Vinyls will not be displayed in Multi-player Mode.”

…WHAT?! Fail. Fail fail fail.

Also, don’t be tricked by them telling you the game has open-free roam racing. You still have magical barriers that appear in races, making all the courses linear, unlike the Midnight Club games.

the ONLY good thing about the game, is that the map is huge. They took every complaint about Carbon being too short, and seem to have added 2-3 more city areas to the world map. Unfortunately, the game is so absolutely unbearable, that after playing for a few hours, I couldn’t take it anymore.

Skip this game, DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY ON IT. WAIT UNTIL THEY PRODUCE A DECENT GAME, AND NOT THIS SHODDY-RIPOFF. I’ll be waiting for the next in the series. They’ve let me down, and I’ll hope they learn their lesson to please the fans, not screw us over.

Rating: - Another Let-down for the Year
[I HAVE played this game on BOTH the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 - thus am posting this review on both consoles.]

*sigh* I had hopes. In fact I had high hopes, and that’s what makes it so dissapointing.

It’s been said a lot - Most Wanted was a great game. A fantastic game. One of the very few games I decided to play through twice just to try a different approach.

What made Most Wanted different for a driving game was a compelling story. It wasn’t even a very deep story, but you had conflict right from the get-go and it made you eager - no, determined - to get revenge. It gave you a clear, linear story - 8 “bad guys” (I think it was eight…) to take on until you reached the baddest dude of all - the guy who took your car, took your reputation, even tried to take your girl… But in between those linear points, the game was a free-for-all. You had set things you had to do, but you could do them in any order, you could do them however you wanted. You always knew were the next objective was, but still had that freedom.

Undercover is just a cluster. There’s roads everywhere, cops everywhere, races everywhere… You have no idea what to do. The story is clear only because we’ve read about it here on Amazon, on other review sites… Honestly, the game has never told ME that I’m an undercover cop.

The came starts with a car chase - you at the wheel - and a million cops behind you. You’re in a 350z, pretty decked out, Red. Suddenly you get away. Then you’re watching a clandestine meeting between a woman and a shadowy, male figure. She says he’s going to be their driver. It wasn’t until my second re-start (tried a different console) that I realized, “Oh, I guess I’m that guy…” Next thing you know you’re sitting on the street in a POS Nissan. What happened to the 350z? What am I doing? What’s the objective? Who am I??

So you start running races - easy to do, just push down on the D-pad and it’ll automatically launch the next race. You’ll run a few races and then get a short, somewhat vague cut-scene. That’ll open up a unique race - which you’ll run - and nothing special will happen. So you’ll do a few more races, then something else suddenly happens… It’s really only curiosity that keeps you playing. There’s no motivation, no apparent pay-off… I’ve played now for a bunch of hours and still have only unlocked a small handful of parts. I never understood that theory - you have enough money to buy something but it won’t let you. The game just levels up the opponent cars anyways - let me buy whatever I can afford!

As far as actual game play goes, it’s… …alright. Graphics are okay up close, but distances get real vague. There are a LOT of aliasing issues, and items appear very blocky and granular. I’ve had a couple frame-rate issues during auto-saves and what-not - VERY frustrating in a driving game while you’re drifting a corner at 140 miles per hour. Technical tracks become challenging because you can’t see far ahead. You can, but you can’t make out what you’re looking at. Is that a turn? Oh, no - it’s a bridge abutment… Oh and forget the map. The cities of Undercover are pretty convoluted, which is nice, except that the map doesn’t detail elevation changes. So an intersection that appears on the map could actually be a bridge going over another road. Oh yeah - that’s fun when you’re trying to dart a corner while running from cops… *SMASH* - oh, THAT road is BENEATH me!!! Thanks for the help! You’re under arrest…

I of course have no idea how far into the game I am, but it’s not very challenging. I’ve won every race, and have “dominated” all but a few of the “jobs.” The cops are present, but they lack that… …je ne c’est pas… They have no spirit - no soul. They appear out of nowhere - hit a chase-breaker (usually a road-side object that you can hit to stop chasing police cars) and the game goes into a quick cut-scene to watch the destruction. That’s always fun, except that I’ve come out of those cut scenes only to plow into a road block that appeared out of nowhere. Very frustrating. **UPDATE** Even MORE frustrating when those roadblocks include a spike strip in later levels of the game… Sure ended THAT chase pretty quickly. Thanks EA!!! **/UPDATE** The [cops] seem to pit-maneuver you pretty easily - suddenly accelerating out of nowhere… But if you keep dodging, taking corners instead of following the road, this isn’t much of an issue. They just don’t have the organization of Most Wanted. When you think you’re about to escape, more will appear out of NOWHERE. When you finally do escape, they literally dissapear! In instances when you’re TRYING to rack up more points, more cop-car-kills, more damage, etc, you can’t!

A lot of the game just seems tacked on. Remember the first “Underground” NFS games? There were shops everywhere that focused on specific areas, like body parts, performance parts, certain brands of cars… Now you just push start [pause] and select “Cars.” You basically buy cars and customize them from the pause menu. How pathetic is that?? And if you actually go to a shop, you see the EXACT same screen.

The “crews” from Carbon are gone - thank God. You don’t have to hire certain staff members just to customize your car. Autosculpting is available immediately and that’s a welcome change.

Need for Speed Undercover quickly becomes boring. You run a race, unlock some new races, run some of them, and maybe if you’re lucky you’ll trigger the next story sequence. But you have no idea, you have no motivation, and all you’re left with is another highly anticipated let-down.

Stop doing this, gaming industry. Quit focusing on the dollar and make us some games that are worth playing. We’re tired of looking behind us at “what was.” Give us something to look forward to, or quit wasting our money. I’m tired of the $60-dollar coasters.

**UPDATE**

I have to say, the last 1/4 to 1/3 of this game was nearly unplayable. These games are completely unrealistic when it comes to high-speed “simulation.”

Throughout the game you have “highway battles.” On these challenges, you race against a singular AI opponenet, and have to usually get 1000 feet ahead of them to “win.” Of course you start off behind them, and - big surprise, they’re automatically pulling away from you.” In the begining they were easy, towards the middle they were challenging, and at the end they were impossible. Why? Well, because you’re allegedly going 230 miles an hour, going over blind hills and around blind corners in a see of traffic, up against an opponent who of course has impeccable reaction and timing. The only way you could win these was to get lucky and have the AI “goof,” smacking into a car at the exact same time that you got a clear straightaway to put some distance between you. But many times I’d pile up into a STACK of AI “traffic” cars, and watch as the opponent deftly weaved around them like it was a cakewalk. Completely unrealistic, completely impossible, and utterly frustrating. I beat the game, and gave up on the rest of the “completion” achievements.

I cannot explain how HAPPY I am that I rented this game.

Rating: - not all its cranked up to be
The Need for Speed: Undercover game in and of itself is fun. The cars are the same ol’ line of cars you’re used to, with a few additions. A few problems with the Need for Speed: Undercover game.

1. The large line up of cars is really pointless. The theme of the game is that you are an undercover cop who is posing as a car thief. So you are mainly driving someone else’s car. The only time you use your car…is when your racing to level up or get cash.

2. The Need for Speed: Undercover game is relatively short. Xbox, I have noticed, has been making potentally good games into really short games that leave with a “wanting more” feeling. The main idea is so you will play the xbox live fee and play online. Disappointing.

If you are looking for a “new and improved” need for speed game. This is not your game. The cops are the same. The cars are the same. The roads are different. So if you want to try the game out…rent it.

Rating: - Almost as bad as Prostreet
I tried to be as fair as possible in reviewing and rating this Need for Speed: Undercover game, but there are just so many flaws to this game that you can’t help but to not want to play it. I appreciate that the creators tried to take it back to the Need for Speed Most Wanted style, but it seems they have fallen short yet once again. Actually this game makes Most wanted look and feel even better then it ever did before. Most wanted came out back in 2005, and yet it’s polished graphics, framrate, and dynamics are better than undercover, wtf???

The story is less than intriguing, with the exception of a couple hot women that they threw in the mix, but I found myself somehat frustrated with the controls, loading times, and even lack of a main menu. Not to completely bash a game, I will it say the new highway system is enjoyable, doing highway battles and evading the cops in a “most shocking” way. But in an overview it’s not as enjoyable as MOst wanted, they even took away from exploring the city because in-beteen races you will have an icon blinking under your car to jump into the next race. So even if you want to cruise, you have to be annoyed by this reminder. The graphics aren’t very impressive, in comparison to other racers on the market. The controls are a little more stiff and rigid than previous games in the series. The story lacks to warp me in and get me excited to race, and the loading times are very annoying.

I got word that the creators at EA seperated into 2 teams, one team was finishing up prostreet, and the other working on undercover. How about whom ever is cutting these people checks, either slash their salary, or get some new minds in the circle. Seriously, it’s obvious these games are not well thought out, with only half effort being put into both.

In conclusion, this is pretty much a renter and /or wait until the price drops and pick it up used.

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Tags: Fantastic, Hunter, Club, car, Console

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