In addition to the basic exhibition modes, "Cops & Robbers" transplants capture the flag onto a racing track and the variant strikes the right balance between action and strategy as opponents try to broadside the flag carrier. This focus on combat also carries over to the highlight of Underground's respectable online features, the "Cops & Robbers" mode. While the game lacks the exploding cars and 50-car pileups of its peers, moments where players barrel down the highway at 200 mph, side-by-side with an opponent, and slam them into the tail end of a truck more than make up for it.
The police pursuit mode and a large portion of the story revolve around combat, as players use their car and pursuit breakers, predetermined locations that drop obstacles into the road, to eliminate enemies.Ĭompared to the caffeine-addled gameplay of games like the Burnout series, combat in Undercover moves at a slower, more deliberate pace, but that helps to give it an especially visceral nature.
#NFS UNDERCOVER EA NATION SERIES#
The biggest strength of the Need for Speed series has always been its vehicular combat though, and it has just as strong of a presence in Undercover. Sharp visuals and copious amounts of bloom help carry this diversity, though Undercover's tendency to chug when the on-screen action gets hectic kills the action. Undercover's presentation is especially slick, thanks to generous amounts of eye candy the single-player campaign features a massive overworld for the race events and the variation within the city's four districts, from sleek urban areas to grime-encrusted industrial districts, keeps things from becoming visually repetitive. Going through the career mode also opens up more opportunities to earn and buy progressively fancier cars it's definitely not something that most players will really care about, but the detail the game pays here makes it more than just a throwaway feature. While the wear and tear cars earn during races is purely aesthetic, performance improvements do actually matter, as adding new parts and adjusting various stats actually have tangible in-game weight. Like with most gearhead-centric games, this customizability is extensive, as players can adjust everything from engine type to the color of the spoilers on their cars. Especially on the lower tier cars, it's easy to end up spinning out into a concrete post after the slightest overdrift, though customization can help with some of these problems. While it's not hard to do tricks like whipping your car around while going in reverse, driving can feel imprecise. The accessible controls help to make wracking up points easy, though the casual bent does sacrifice some precision. Players earn experience points for performing tricks during races, which go towards improving performance during a race and progressing through the career mode. The game revolves around players competing in various events, strung together by a paper-thin narrative that's essentially The Fast and The Furious by way of a B-movie Undercover continues the franchise's tradition of live-action cut scenes, but the mess of a plot makes them more useful as a break between races than anything else. The Need for Speed series has kept a dogmatic adherence to its arcade-racing roots and while Undercover, the 16th entry in the franchise, does have some strengths within these limitations, it ultimately doesn't do much to break the mold. While publisher Electronic Arts has certainly had a streak towards the boutique lately, a studio can't survive on new titles alone and for that, titles like Need for Speed: Undercover exist. With the focus that current-generation consoles have placed on reinventing wheels, shifting paradigms and other promotional jargon, it's always interesting to find the occasional title that doesn't just avoid change but actively works against it.