Need for Speed Undercover Preview
An exclusive first look of Need for Speed Undercover
Open world action driving adventure
The sentence above is a sum up of all the key features of the game. Let's cover it one by one!
Open world
[img=http://media.nfsunlimited.net/upload/b03b15ca0a.jpg]
Free roam is back! This time it's a tri-city area consisting of Palm Harbor, Port Crescent and Sunset Hills Mountains. Each area is unique in it's own way: we have commercial downtown, industrial harbor area and rural farmland area. All are connected with an interstate highway ring connecting all three together. It is a rather large area with the interstate loop taking about 8 minutes to complete at high speed. We won't just be racing downtown and on highways, expect paths through factories, canyons, suburbs, construction sites, mountains and more. There will be plenty of shortcuts and alternative routes to evade cops and to help you further, pursuit breakers are returning (pursuit breaker is an object that when you hit it, it usually crashes down on cars following you).
Time of the day is set to the so called "Magic hour" - around 6am when the light is low casting long shadows - which gives the game a slight yellowish tone, a bit similar to Need for Speed Most Wanted.
Action driving
[img=http://media.nfsunlimited.net/upload/0a22ed2e6e.jpg]
One thing that I was quite impressed with Need for Speed Undercover was the driving physics. They took the physics model out of ProStreet, upgraded and tuned it. Cars now feel lighter to drive and stick to the road better, making the game easier to drive which ultimately results in higher speeds and what the title says, action driving. To make the handling even more action, they made performing stunts really easy! See cops coming at you? No problem, just hit ebrake and pull off a 180 spin - easily done from going backwards as well. Like drifting? Putting your car sideways shouldn't be a problem, but keeping it sideways will require a bit of practice.
But let's hope you don't like drifting too much - it is not a part of this game. Game modes consist of the standard circuits, sprints, canyon runs and the all new Highway battle which is essentially a one on one race on the highway against extremely dense traffic. Traffic is supposed to be more intelligent in Undercover: expect it to drive according to the speed limit, use blinkers when changing lanes and try to avoid the crashes made by you or your opponents.
Nitrous is back (this time with multiple shots) as well as Speed breaker (a feature in Most Wanted and Carbon where you could slow down the time to perform more extreme maneuvres) - which you will have to use all at once before it recharges again. Another feature that made it back is drafting - drive behind opponents and use the lesser drag to gain speed. And speaking of drag, it's not one of the game modes in Undercover.
Adventure
[img=http://media.nfsunlimited.net/upload/e2eec34d00.jpg]
What we never had in a Need for Speed game is a good story line. Need for Speed Undercover will try to improve the series' reputation in that area with a big and complex story line revolving around the player who is an undercover cop. His only contact with the outside world an agent played by Maggie Q, who is the main star of the game. The cast includes other actors including Christina Milian, but I suggest you check out the IMDB page for more info. The filming was done in Hollywood and is a combination of real film with digital effect applied to it which results in a very unique look. Check out the trailer to see what I mean. To progress through the stories you'll have to play different missions which will be visible on your map. You'll be able to select missions right from the map, or the old fashioned way by driving to the location of the mission.
[img=http://media.nfsunlimited.net/upload/9ff5239f2d.jpg]
Those are the main features, but they do not cover all the game has to offer. I'm sure a lot of you are a bit worried right now whether there is any customization in the game: yes there is! Autosculpt is back, they are also promising separate bumper and sideskirt kits (along with full body kits), there's improvements to the paint system allowing you to paint different areas of the car (just the bumper for instance). Performance tuning is in as well. So is damage, but it is pretty much just visual. But like always, we won't get a perfect game this year. There is no rear view mirror, no dashboard camera (they did center the hood cam though), no split screen. Photomode is back but I wouldn't be hoping for replay mode (I will try to get an official answer whether replay is in though). Cops are in, but don't expect to drive in a cop car, although that could be in one of the multiplayer modes (which haven't been revealed yet).
It seems that with Undercover EA took the best features of the previous games and put them all together into one game which could as well be called Most Wanted 2. And as Most Wanted was one of the best Need for Speed games, Undercover could as well turn out to be one cool game!
If you'd like to see more of NFS Undercover I suggest you take a look at the following image galleries:
Also there's the updated screenshots section.
Author: Bojan
Created on on 19. August 2008 13:05
Comments
by oshaylinux
on 2. September 2008 20:32
personally the storyline just sound like a do over of MW to me. what's a good storyline without someone dieing in it? here's my opinion of a good storyline:imagine you're watching tv in your living room and a news brocast cut in- you see police tapping off the scene of a crime, "as you look, you notice the place", "hey that's my (friends) place, Ryan Cooper!", you shout. right then the reporter on scene says, "Ryan Cooper has just been found dead in his garage, it appears to be a robbery gone bad! This is Michele Broom reporting for TCTV, downtown Try City." you quickly book a flight to Try City. You're first stop is to the police station to find out do they have a suspect, you ask to see the detective in charge-some fat man in a polyester suite ask you,"whattcha want kid?" and you say, "Ryan Coopers' murder", "look kid we don't have time to hunt down the killer of some punk street racer.", the detective tell you. You then storm out of the police station and catch a cab to Ryan Cooper's garage, you inter the barrage and look down on the floor and see the outline of Ryan Coopers' body. then you look around the empty garage, and you noticed it's not as empty as it seems, you see sitting in the far corner a huge torp "what's this you say? pulling off the torp. "Hey this is the Camero SS, Ryan Cooper and I rebuilt back in our younger days", you say. Right then your phone rings, you answer it, "hello," "yeah kid, i hear you're looking for Ryan Cooper's murderer, and i can help you," the voice on the other end of phone says. you then say, "i dont know you, and how do you know my number," "well lets just say i know Ryan from Rock Port," the voice says.....
well that's all i feel like typing now
by Robert
on 14. September 2008 23:55
driving on highways with dense traffic isnt exactly fun ! 
you will more likely lose lots of speed crashing into traffic rather than enjoying the blurrr..dont you guys agree?
by hemanthjava
on 21. September 2008 07:03
Check out the Need for Speed UnderCover Car List ;* 2008 Audi R8
* 2008 BMW M6
* 2006 Ford Mustang GT
* 2006 Mitsubishi Lancer EVOLUTION X
* 2006 Porsche 911 Turbo
* 1998 Toyota Supra
[link]
![[img=http://media.nfsunlimited.net/upload/b03b15ca0a.jpg]](http://www.nfsunlimited.net/news/MAP_Final_2008-07-31_final_3k.jpg){kind=link}
by macca_2092
on 29. September 2008 07:36
can't wait for it to come out. hope they add a lot more cars this time, prob gonna be best on ps3 lol Post comment
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Comments posted: 8
Date joined: July 2008
Location: US
Last active: 3 hours ago