Against my better judgment, I decided to purchase Undercover and see what it was like for myself. I honestly do want to like Need For Speed. I have a lot of nostalgia for it. Not to mention, I know how NFS games behave in terms of price. The price won't drop dramatically until the next NFS game is out, and I don't feel like waiting a whole year just to save $40, when I don't spend $1,000 out of my monthly takehome pay.

Anyway...I've just started in. I'm going to treat this topic as kind of like a blog, where I write my impressions as I go. I think I'm starting to like this review style, because it's neat to see what I thought when I started the game, midway through, and at the end, all side by side.

At the beginning of the game, Maggie Q from Die Hard 4 tells you to infiltrate this smuggling ring that happens to do street racing too. They set you up with a Nissan 240SX, which I like. It's definitely one of my favorite starter cars in just about any career racing game.

The steering seems really sensitive, compared to Pro Street. In Pro Street the cars felt like boats, but now it feels like they've overcompensated by making it to where you could almost blow on the control stick to steer the car. I'm going to look through the options menu and see if I can adjust that. It's murder on the highway races, where you know you only need slight adjustments rather than sharp turns.

The highway races are okay so far... It's kind of like Tokyo Xtreme Racer's style of racing. You just have to get 1,000 feet ahead of the other guy, or you have to be in the lead when the time limit runs out. It's the most difficult race type I've seen so far...although that's my car's fault rather than mine. Right now the highest top speed I can attain is roughly 140 MPH, and most of your opponents in these races can easily match or beat that. And after playing Midnight Club Los Angeles so much, the traffic honestly doesn't pose much of a threat to me. Problem is the CPU doesn't have much trouble either. At this point...my winning is more of a matter of them making mistakes rather than my playing skill.

But overall this game feels really easy after MCLA. A lot of races you just fly ahead of your opponents at the starting line and then you'll usually never see them again. Most roads are very wide open and it's rare to see other traffic cars. And even if you do hit a car it usually won't knock you off course or slow you down that much. Compare to MCLA where if you hit a traffic car you spin wildly in circles...and the traffic level often feels like it's getting close to real life traffic levels in LA.

Anyway, it's really easy to "dominate" races...where you beat some kind of benchmark like finishing the race in under a time limit. That increases your car's stats...somehow. It's kind of hard to understand why crushing the opposition in a race will suddenly make your car better, even if you haven't modified it.

What I'm really looking forward to is the missions where I get to drive the police cars. I've heard about those and that sounds really fun. Supposedly you even have working lights and sirens. Although a "Be the Cop" mode would be even cooler. I miss that a lot....the last time it showed up was in Hot Pursuit 2.

Anyway, back to the game. I'm enjoying my new Ford Escort Cosworth. It's a neat car...I wish they'd feature it in more games.

i bought it for a doller (7000 rupia) baby

but im yet to play it .Im going home tonight tho

Was it a bootleg or something, or is the exchange rate just really good where you are?

i'm hoping to get UC soon....

would love to be able to drive an IS-F

is it free-roam like its counterparts? (oh then again....EA will probably fail and make the cars i want exclusive to the next gen or special edition)

bootleg..if it sucks ill get the real thing ..i also got test drive unlimited

meh TDU sucked....its near impossible to complete, no fun unless you have it on next gen, no fun unless you have internet, no tuning....it's just not a Tuner-type game....and if you give it enough time, the races are very easy....

otaku chek your mail!!

I think I might trade UC in, and try and get RR6, sure its old, but I remeber having RR7 on the PS3 when I had one, and what a game

YEA the new ridge racer games rock ...your talking about ridge racer right?

The game is free roam, but there's almost no point to it. You can't join any races or anything from free roam. You have to do it through the map screen. There's also no secrets or hidden things to find if you decide to explore the map on your own. The only thing it's really good for is messing around with cops, and that's it.

I do know there is a Lexus IS of some kind in the game though.

Sadly there were no copies of RR6, and I got Fable 2 and R6V2 instead, heh.

When you say you can't join races from free roam, what about when they come up at the bottom? I mean, its not like NFS of old where theres a specific race spot on the road, but sort of a 'general' area. I mean I found that way I would be getting from races to races quickly, as I would not need to open up the map or anything. Well, don't need to worry about it now, I got the Buggati, I did what I needed to do and it was finished for me

Yeah, you can press down to join the closest race or enter the closest shop. Of course though, it may not necessarily be the one you want. I suppose you could count that as joining a race through free roam. But still, free roam is largely pointless, because you can handle going to any race or shop through the map screen...and if you want to go to a different race besides the nearest one it's always faster to just go to the map.

So far, I suppose I do find the story interesting...if cliche. I do like being an undercover police officer, versus some generic racer that comes in and kicks everybody's ass.

But I am really looking forward to the day when we get to see something new and original in a street racing game's story. EA once again is recycling their standard roster of NFS characters, in addition to borrowing from rosters of other games like Midnight Club. There’s the Hot Babe you build a relationship with, the White Guy who’s the antagonist (at least they made this guy a former cop, which gives him *slightly* more depth than normal), the Hispanic Guy (this is about the third Hector I’ve seen in street racing games too), the Black Guy… I honestly don’t care who these people are because they have absolutely no originality. At least the game was nice enough to let you take down Hector (as in arrest him) early on, so we don’t have to be bothered by him.

But even TXR3's vague, weird, mysterious plot alluding to samurai and wars and dragons and such was more interesting than this. It made no sense but it still kept me paying attention, just to see what kind of weird haiku the game would give me next.

Midnight Club Los Angeles did better too. The game focuses on a small core group of racers, and you interact with these people throughout the entire game. Because of that, the game’s able to flesh them out more and develop their personalities. It’s also fun to see them interact and exchange witty banter with your unnamed player character.

I mean…your player endlessly teasing Karol about being middle aged, with Karol teasing back about the player being young is hilarious. I really would have liked to see more of that. Same with the player making fun of how the city champ likes to dress like he’s about to play golf.

But with NFS Undercover, I can’t even remember what the hell anybody’s named, because I just don’t care about any of them.

Stories in games are becoming more and more forgettable. I remember Battlefield: Bad Company had a great plot (Your guy is stuck in B squad with 3 others) and they just didn't develop the story further, it was just go here, blow this up, go here, protect this. Its sad games now hardly ever have a really good story, leaving you wanting more, as now they have just become profit making tools for large companies. We hand over the cash expecting a great game which had lots of hype, and we are left with a bland game. Its quite sad to see after seeing games from the 90's having better stories...

ok boys im about to play undercover...wish me luck

well that sucks...i cant play them

now i have to find sumone to do a chip for my ps2

LOL thought you needed an emulator....

guess it's not costing you one dollar any more

lol..ill just buy the real aoto modelista and enthusia then

shit wow once again i confuse everyone ..

insted of buying undercover and test drive again i will buy the real auto modelista and the real enthusia

x) good luck finding em.....amazon/ebay ftw

back on subject: i am most likely gonna get this game for X-Mas.....

i literally want it just for the ISF

I got it for the Bugatti I have some pictures of me driving it somewhere on the internet...

bugatti is cheater car!

I'll have to put off looking at this game for now. My 360 got the dreaded Red Ring of Death, and now I'm about to mail it off for repairs. It's still under warranty, thank goodness. Glad I invested in that. This'll be my third 360 here.

It's a real shame. Some black Lexus ISF's have been turning up during career missions lately, and they've been trying to kill me and Hot Babe. I was wanting to find out who they were. It wasn't anything from the police, considering Maggie Q said she didn't know who sent those cars.

just to spoil u. its the last bad guy

The Bugatti ain't the cheater car, well, when you earned enough to buy it and mod it, it ain't The people who buy their cars with MS points are the cheaters

MR2, could you please use spoiler tags in the future? I mean...right now, the only thing I really have to look forward to in Undercover is watching the story.