It’s not often that I make mistakes when it comes to gaming. I am an informed gamer who usually has a good feel for the quality of games coming out. However, sometimes I can let my excitement over ride my better judgment which often leads to mistakes. This was very much the case with Need for Speed: Undercover. I was excited for this game, so much so that I made a mistake that I’m still ruing today; and I’m encouraging you not to make the same mistake. Learn from me, my friends, learn from me.
Here’s what happened: When I heard that Need for Speed: Undercover was coming out, and that it would feature a large, open-world to race around in, and that it would bring back the police chases of previous games; I got very excited. I had just finished playing the heck out of Burnout: Paradise, and NFS seemed to offer an alluring alternative to a game that I had played into the ground. Granted, Burnout: Paradise was getting regular updates, and it was also going to get a new island to race around and explore here in 2009, but I thought that NFS would offer a few things that Burnout didn’t. Things like licensed cars that I can customize and the fun of being chased by police and trying to escape them. That was one of my favorite features of NFS: Most Wanted, and I was thrilled about doing that all over again. However, what I didn’t realize was that Undercover’s “open world” was more of an illusion than a reality, and that although the police chases were back, what NFS didn’t bring back was any sort of sense or speed that could compete with Burnout: Paradise. In short, I traded Burnout for NFS, and that was a huge mistake that you should not make. Licensed cars and police chases are great, but Burnout is fast, fun, exciting, and most importantly getting better with each offering of DLC; so which do you think I should have stayed with?
Look, it’s not that NFS: Undercover is a bad game, it’s a decent racer in its own right. It’s just that it had so much in common with Burnout: Paradise that comparisons are unavoidable; and when they’re compared, NFS comes up short. Take the open world design, for example. When Burnout went that direction, it was a radically change and a huge risk for the franchise, but one I think paid off. Personally I love being given two points to race between, and then leaving it up to my skills and familiarity with the city to get the first any way I can. NFS: Undercover has an “open world”, but it doesn’t need it. You can jump instantly into races, so you dont’ have to cruise the city to find them like in Burnout, and once you start a race, the course is all blocked off for you. You may be in an open city, but you have to follow the course, with the exception of a few short cuts. It’s a design choice that flies in the face of the “open world” concept and makes the game feel like it’s set in anything but an open world.
Another commonality is traffic. The traffic in Burnout makes that games racing experience intense and exciting. The traffic in NFS is a joke and feels like an after thought. I don’t feel that one car on the road qualifies as “traffic”; especially when I’m tearing down a “highway” that apparently no one “uses”. Okay, maybe that’s unfair, there is generally more traffic on the highways, but not any where near the same level as in Burnout. Some of you may find that a relief, I found it distracting. I’m racing through a major city, and there aren’t any other cars around; that’s a little odd. Going hand in hand with traffic are crashes. Your cars take real-time damage in both games. In Burnout, it’s looks extreme and the crashes are brutal. Heck, crashing is half the fun of Burnout; you race big, you risk big, you crash big. In NFS, your cars also take real time damage and you can wreck, but it’s all very low key and not all that exciting. In fact, crashing is just an annoyance in NFS; which it can be in Burnout as well, but at least it’s exciting and you get some cool slow-mo effects to heighten the destruction. Overall, Burnout just offers a faster, more exciting, more satisfying open world racing experience.
Need for Speed: Undercover does have some unique advantages, however. It does bring back the police chases, which are pretty fun. However, the lack of traffic about town keeps them from being as exciting as they could be, and then there’s the police AI. When your notoriety reaches higher levels, it can be almost impossible to lose the cops; even more so than in Most Wanted. Then the police chases go from fun to frustrating, and they just made me miss the Marked Man matches of Burnout. Another advantage of NFS is you get real cars that you can really customize. You can tune them to perform how you want, and you can add spoilers and decals and custom paint jobs and trick them out to look exactly how you want. That’s always been one of my favorite aspects of NFS; the chance to drive cars I’d never get a chance to drive, and to make them look exactly they way I like. In previous games, you’d have to drive to shop to do that. In Undercover, just hit the pause button and you can do all of that out of the main menu. Again, that kind of defeats the purpose of having an open world. You don’t have to drive any where to do anything; so what’s the point. I find it ironic that a last gen NFS, Most Wanted, was actually more of an open world racer than this next-gen version.
One other thing that Undercover has that Burnout doesn’t is a story; although I wouldn’t classify it as an advantage. You are some driver dude who’s picked up by the cops and used by them to get inside some car racing, thieving, smuggling ring. Of course the way to do this is to drive and win to get noticed. The cut scenes are live action, which is fun, and have a cheesy 24 vibe to them. I think the main reason they’re there is so dudes can see Maggie Q strut about in outfits that have nothing to do with what her character is doing at the time. (i.e. she’s doing research in a hotel room on her computer while wearing a very elegant and revealing gown. I wonder what she wears when she goes out on the town.) The story is done well enough, but ultimately doesn’t really matter and really doesn’t have any impact.
The one thing that bugged me about the story was in between each race while looking at a loading screen, the words kept fading in out of the screen “you aren’t good, and you aren’t bad”. Some more followed it, and I think they were there to remind the gamer of who you were in the game and what you were trying to do. However, I found that relativistic attitude to be pretty annoying. I’m helping the cops by committing crimes to bust a criminal syndicate that I join while being undercover. So I’m not really a good guy (because that’s not really cool any more), and I’m not really a bad guy (after all, I’m the “hero” of the story); and none of that really matters because it’s all about racing. While it may not be quite as bleak as Fallout 3, NFS: Undercover is subtly just as morally ambiguous as that other game; and that bothers me. I don’t like this trend of games saying that moral absolutes either don’t exist or don’t matter. That’s just going to lead to trouble, and in fact, it already has. Despite what may seem trendy or edgy in gaming and pop culture these days, the truth is absolutes do exist, good and evil do exist and they are clearly defined. Most importantly, you are either on one side or the other; there is no middle ground. Jesus himself said it quite plainly, if you aren’t with him you’re against him (Matthew 12:30). It couldn’t be any clearer, and there’s absolutely no room for ambiguity. Does good and bad matter? Absolutely they do, because if you get caught on the wrong side of that equation, if you think the morally relative, absolutes don’t exist or at least aren’t en vogue, you’ll find yourself in for a rude awakening when eternity finally arrives; and who knows when that might be. So contrary to NFS: Undercover’s exhortation that you aren’t good or bad, the fact is you are very much one or the other. Fortunately, the choice is up to you; and by the way, not choosing is still a choice.
Need for Speed: Undercover isn’t the game I was hoping it would be. I hoped it would be a fun replacement for Burnout: Paradise, but instead it made me realize just how special Burnout really is. Again, NFS has several unique strengths, and taken on its own merits it is a decent racer. However, when stacked up against the competition, it just falls flat and it falls short. I was excited for NFS, but now I’m just irritated at it because I feel like it tricked me into ditching one of the best racers of 2008 that’s only improving more in 2009. Still, if you haven’t played Burnout, if you love tuning and customizing cars, if you don’t have the patience to learn how to get around a city and like having a track tell you where to go, if you don’t want to have to actually drive to races and enjoy the thrill of having the cops on your tail; Need for Speed: Undercover will fit the bill.
Score out of 7:
Graphics: 5 – The cars look great; nicely detailed with real time reflections. There’s some really nice lighting effects. Frame rate isn’t as smooth as it could be, also some annoying pop-in during races. It’s distracting to be racing into nothing and then suddenly have the city appear. The cut scenes are live action, but they look good.
Sound: 6 – Cars sound distinctive and unique. Police chatter sound realistic and can help you evade them if you pay attention. Soundtrack is a mix of instrumental grooves, pop and rock. It’s okay, but it can get annoying.
Control: 6 – Controls are tight and responsive, which is helpful when evading the police.
Gameplay: 5 – Good variety of race types, with some really interesting one’s like stealing a car and trying to evade the cops. Poor (read almost non-existent) use of the open world concept. Loading times are a little lengthy (just in case you’re the impatient type).
Content: 4 – Maggie Q is the eye candy of the game, and she does exactly what eye candy is supposed to do. Still, the sensuality is mild compared to some racers, but it’s still an issue. There’s also some questionable lyrics in the songs, but you can always turn the soundtrack off.
Overall: 4 – I’m just so frustrated with Need For Speed: Undercover. Here I was hoping for another fun, open world racer to fill in for my played-out Burnout: Paradise, and instead what I got was a game that just made me appreciate how awesome Burnout really is. There’s a good racer in this game, but some minor technical glitches and poor design keep it from shining through.
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