Need for Speed Undercover Exclusive Preview

[kostis1993]

Bojan, any info about the music?? I read somewhere that specific songs will come up on different situations. Is that true?

[FrankieGthang]

who needs three f-u-c-k-i-n-g versions of porsche!!!and pontiac solstice and a few more!
they should have put more new rides instead:D

[Zonda_Z]

who needs three f-u-c-k-i-n-g versions of porsche!!!and pontiac solstice and a few more!
they should have put more new rides instead:D

I would have to disagree with you on that. Older rides (Take the Plymouth for example) form a special part of NFS. Not many racing games have such a motherload of old school muscles to tune and race or simply roam in.

Porsche on the other hand, is lisenced to EA, so it is reasonable that Undercover has quite a number of Porsches. And it is good to have a larger variety of cars in the game. If there are too many new cars, it would make the game fake.(it's just my opinion)!

[Dunko]

@Zonda

My thoughts exactly. I'm just hoping for a '69 Mustang Boss or Mach 1 now.

Probably won't be one, though.

[Zonda_Z]

@Zonda

My thoughts exactly. I'm just hoping for a '69 Mustang Boss or Mach 1 now.

Probably won't be one, though.

You've Still got the chance friend...i think the car list won't expire for another week or so. I reckon there will be another Mustang or somewhat simular. EA really has done a lot with Ford and Shelby this Year. Not to mention Nissan too, with that heck of a release for the 370Z.

[prince1142003]

55 cars sounds very reasonable considering we've had 36 cars officially revealed so far (not including the 370Z, Terlingua Mustang, and Renault Mégane Coupé), and there are 2 weeks left till Undercover comes out. That's 36+12=48 cars. An additional 7 can be accounted for by "special" cars that EA won't reveal till the game's out.

[SpeedFreak21]

Bojan, did u figure out if there r any special editions available that u can buy????? By the way nice article By the way i hope all of the console versions r the same !!!!!!!!

[vZv]

Great review, but I'm hell'a dissapointed that there is catch-up, it's so freagin annoing !!! Yet thank you, really thank you for review Bojan

[Bojan]

Nobody said anything about LAN eh?

Thanks for a wonderful review Bojan.

Sorry, completely forgot to mention that. No LAN play out of the box. Maybe a patch later, but not sure.

As for the graphics, there are so many gameplay videos out there, even in HD, that I think you can get a pretty good impression how the graphics look like from there. Check out our videos section.

[vZv]

I forget to ask, what about graphics engine optimization for PC, is game going to run same good on max as PoorStreet did on same computer ???

[BNR34]

Ok Bojan.

But. What is your score for the NFS Undercover and the NFS Most Wanted?

Please tell us

[x]

Hi Bojan
There are nearly no videos showing really Ingamefootage so far with exception of the recently released "Escape the Cops Video" and a few recorded Videos from some past exhibitions.
All other Stuff isn't representative for the final Ingamefootage including the "Car Videos" released by EA every day.
Furthermore, You've seen the final Build on the Community day and I want you to state what's your impressions about the final-build-graphic and the technic.
Regarding your Review you didn't mention some very crucial aspects like graphic, lightning and technic. It seems EA don't want you to talk about several aspects ..... Am I right ?
If I am right, unfortunately I have to wait until the Game is released ....
Best regards
x

[prince1142003]

Most of those videos are recorded using the in-game engine, so are pretty indicative of the graphics to expect in the final version.

[baumaxx1]

I'm struggling to get my head around EA.
Now... why didn't Gran Turismo have Ferrari until now? EA had Ferrari's exclusive license and it just expired recently... so amongst all the exotica in Most Wanted, Carbon and prostreet... why didn't we ever get a Ferrari?
Second, car-list. We forgave them in Underground because of the sheer amount of visual options, but when they start reducing the amount of parts, make then pretty much the same across all cars, and only have a car list of 55, which is beaten by Juiced, Forza, Midnight Club, and the like... even Gran Turismo 5 Prologue which is a glorified Demo, and has even more detail per car than NFS, what's happening?

However, all that will be forgiven if it's a fun game, and it looks action packed, like there's a reasonable plot and like it'd satisfy the 8 year old in me... The car characteristics sound reasonable as long as they're not over exaggerated... which worries me when I hear AWD cars understeer like hell, even though they're rear biased. About muscle drifting easy... even the slow, weak and heavy ones? And does that mean even mega power imports will grip forever? >_<

means that you will only be gently taking your finger off acceleration in corners. Since the world design focuses on wide roads and few sharp turns, you will hardly ever be using the brakes especially because in the tight sections and sharp corners you can simply hit the speedbreaker button

to pull off good runs you will need to know the tracks well as there are a lot of shortcuts and tricky sections of track where for example your car can get airtime making you lose control

pass 100mph the picture blurs slightly and the world starts flying past you.

here is a lot of traffic so it will be a challenge just to keep going over 200mph, but the satisfaction of flying through small gaps in traffic at high speed is simply amazing.

Game modes seem wild.

Too bad for the PS3 guys: there will be no trophies in the game.

They can go... I know I probably wouldn't use them... but why don't devs give a stuff about the PS3? No trophies, no using your own music, no chat...

There is no separate bumpers and sideskirts as promised earlier, but just about 3 bodykits per car.

EA lying/breaking promises? Never! I'll forgive them if the kits are unique to each car though.

What is new this year is the painting options, which allow you to paint separate parts of the car.

Yeah... so? We had that in Prostreet, Underground 2 to an extent... What, can we paint mirrors this year?

You can now see all the vinyls in the menu before you apply them to your car, meaning that browsing around the huge selection of vinyls (around 12 groups of up to 60 vinyls) will be much faster and easier.

Nice

The vinyl layer limit is 20 again.

This could be very problematic if decals aren't separate. I understand that on PS2 and Wii, but can't they up it for PS3,360 and PC? Forza 2 copes on 512mb of ram on a 360... and that's got tons of layers.

In the build I was playing there was no mirror vinyl button, meaning you had to put the same vinyl on your car twice to show up on both sides.

Make them put it in! lol. I mean that's retarded... why remove that from the previous years... it was useful.

So basically they've managed to make visual tuning worse... God EA >_<

Performance tuning... not as exciting for the car nerd in me... but yeah, Prostreet tuning made no sense anyway... I'll stick with Gran Turismo.

Online looks good, may get it on the PS3.

What I did notice though was quite a big lack of entry-level cars.

no Hondas!

Yeah, what's wrong with an integra to start with, and an NSX... I mean we have a focus, a megane... Gimme a DC5 and DC2!

no Impreza

Wha! That's like a tuner icon!

No LAN play out of the box.

Because apparently gamers do not have friends... BTW... is there splitscreen at least? Unlike GRID.

I read somewhere that specific songs will come up on different situations.

Meh want my own tracks... EA TRacks are lame anyway.

who needs three versions of porsche

Yeah... like dudes... I'd forgive it if it was GT and you have differen't spec levels, as long as there are 800 other cars in the game, but 3 of the 55 are virtually the same car...

I reckon there will be another Mustang or somewhat similar.

Yeah, there should be an old one, it's classic. But yeah, I mean the normal 1 + Terulinga... why >_< They both end up the same when tuned.

No, there is no rear view mirror

MC:LA is also on a console, and EA designs games that are cross-compatible with PCs.

Yeah... PC>>Console in terms of power.

[driverx15]

whoever it is above me, (i forget your name) but you need to chill out my friend.
all you are looking for is what EA does wrong. How about you look at the things they did right for a change?
have you ever watched a gameplay video? the gameplay looks amazing. so what theres only 55 cars, im sure to get through the game you will NEVER use all of those 55 cars.
i bet you will use about 10
3 for getting through tier 1 2 and 3, then the other 7 for cars that you have just for fun.
so quit complining about little things that really dont matter, and look at this amazing game that EA has created.

p.s, Bojan, will we be able to switch the transmission from automatic, to manual, to manual clutch again?
i had so much fun with manual clutch in prostreet.

[Bojan]

Sorry I never went in so far to the options menu, but I think there is no manual clutch (manual transmission should be available though).

[baumaxx1]

whoever it is above me, (i forget your name) but you need to chill out my friend.
all you are looking for is what EA does wrong. How about you look at the things they did right for a change?
have you ever watched a gameplay video? the gameplay looks amazing. so what theres only 55 cars, im sure to get through the game you will NEVER use all of those 55 cars.
i bet you will use about 10
3 for getting through tier 1 2 and 3, then the other 7 for cars that you have just for fun.
so quit complining about little things that really dont matter, and look at this amazing game that EA has created.

I did point out some good points. I said I like the crazy high speed thrill, the edge of seat concentration, the game modes, the improved vinyl menu, performance tuning should be good and simple so you can focus on game play and I like the story.

Now, my rant there about some points was just sheer disappointment. I thought they were going to try and release a more refined game this year and release something we could get excited about, but now we find out that they didn't deliver on their promises and there are some features that might be missing from prostreet, such as a mirror vinyl button which will effectively limit the layer numbers to 10 per side... we had 40 in total in prostreet and mirror and that still wasn't a whole lot.

[Zonda_Z]

Sorry I never went in so far to the options menu, but I think there is no manual clutch (manual transmission should be available though).

I'd go better without the clutch. I've tried the clutch option in Test Drive Unlimited...too much to handle, too little time...

[Andre_online]

If you're on keyboard, then yes, it'll be too hard to co-ordinate your brain to press all the buttons just to get the car moving. But if you have a gamepad the clutch is just a tap away.

Actually the clutch helps a lot. I've been using it lately. It helps to keep up your speed after landing from jumps. It helps to drift better too.

[Zonda_Z]

If you're on keyboard, then yes, it'll be too hard to co-ordinate your brain to press all the buttons just to get the car moving. But if you have a gamepad the clutch is just a tap away.

Actually the clutch helps a lot. I've been using it lately. It helps to keep up your speed after landing from jumps. It helps to drift better too.

Yeah...therefore i purchased "the bomb" - The Logitec G25

[Fishwhiz]

I HAVE A BIG QUESTION-

will there be a 'my cars' for offline quickplay and is there a quickplay freeroam? if there isn't, then the game is pretty pointless. at least my cars had better be in there.

[Bojan]

My cars are in there. And there's also no special parts for career meaning that once you unlock the cars and parts, you can make as fast car in my cars as in career.

[Fishwhiz]

My cars are in there. And there's also no special parts for career meaning that once you unlock the cars and parts, you can make as fast car in my cars as in career.

thank you ea! and bojan

is there a free roam though?

[vZv]

2 Bojan
I have question, are you familiar with this year's tier system?? I meant do you know is previous tier, max tuned, car can compete against higher tier, max tuned, car ???

P.S. I would be grathefull if you answer my question...

[Bojan]

Free roam is in of course.

Not sure about tiers though; my guess is that AI opponents adjust to the tier you currently have.