Need for Speed Undercover Q&A: Return of the Fuzz
We chat with EA's Steve Barcia about the role of police in the latest Need for Speed game.
A Peek Undercover
Cops are coming to Tri City; check them out in this exclusive NFS movie.
Last year's Need for Speed ProStreet marked a change in direction for the long-running Need for Speed series. With a focus on race weekends and slightly more realistic driving mechanics, the game had some long-time NFS fans scratching their heads. Those fans are likely feeling much more comfortable with the upcoming game in the series: Need for Speed Undercover, which will feature a dramatic, cutscene-driven storyline and, perhaps more importantly, the return of the cops. Downplayed to a large extent in Need for Speed Carbon, the fuzz return with a vengeance in Undercover, hearkening back to cop-tastic Need for Speed Most Wanted. To learn more about how police will affect your undercover work, we hit up Undercover producer Steve Barcia.
GameSpot: First things first: How far along is the game, and what's been the biggest development surprise so far?
Steve Barcia: The game is complete, and we are weeks away from submitting the game to first party.
People throughout the studio have fallen in love with Highway Battle. From the start of development, we wanted to re-create the excitement of a Hollywood car chase on the freeway. It was then clear, as we were creating the Highway Battle experience, that we had something really special on our hands, capturing the hair-raising excitement of chasing an opponent through heavy highway traffic at 150 mph. To succeed, players will have to pick their holes, slide through traffic, and even create a traffic pileup in your wake to stop your opponent. And to cap it off, you're going to have to do all this while fleeing from the cops.
GS: NFS Undercover feels like a reaction of sorts from the previous game in the series, NFS Pro Street, with greater emphasis on story, the return of police, et cetera. That said, what gameplay aspects and/or lessons learned have carried over from ProStreet into Undercover?
SB: Not at all, Undercover was well into development while ProStreet was still being finished. The idea for Undercover was born from a desire to marry action racing found in Need for Speed with the overall energy of an epic action movie.
ProStreet drove our physics in a whole new direction for the franchise. In fact, the key learnings we gleaned from crafting realistic physics for ProStreet was used to help develop our Heroic Driving Engine. This revolutionary HDE technology allows the player to race with unprecedented control while being able to pull off heroic driving moves with ease--J-turns, 180s, 360s, et cetera.
GS: We've seen glimpses of the story in teaser videos. Care to shed any more light on what's happening in Tri City in Undercover?
SB: Undercover takes place in the southern Tri-City Bay area, which is comprised of three major cities: the metropolis city of Palm Harbor, the eastern rural town of Sunset Hills, and the main port city of Port Crescent.
Crime in Tri-City has gotten out of control, and you were sent in as a new-to-the-force undercover cop posing as a wheelman to infiltrate the local street gangs. Just as you are breaking into the scene, an FBI agent, Chase Linh, arrives to take charge and become your handler, sending you on a more important assignment. Your new job: go deep undercover to take down an international smuggling ring who have recently become involved with the street-racing scene.
GS: This game will mark the proper return of police cars into the series. How have police changed since NFS Most Wanted?
SB: Cops are back and they are smarter, more aggressive, and more realistic than ever--as a result, players will have to be on guard and ready to use their heroic driving moves to avoid the cops.
The new AI and realistic physics helped us escalate the cop's abilities to make them more of a threat than ever before. In fact, the cops are using actual high-pursuit techniques such as PIT maneuvers and blocking tactics to take the player out.
GS: If Undercover is introducing smarter, more aggressive cops, what tricks will you have in your arsenal to avoid them? Does the player's "role" as an undercover cop help him or hurt him in this respect?
SB: As a deep-undercover cop, your identity has been kept a total secret. Lt. Keller and Inspector Chase Linh are the only two in the whole police departments who know who you are and what your mission is. To the police force, you are just a criminal and will be treated like one.
GS: How finicky are the cops when it comes to engaging pursuit? Are they sticklers for the finer points of traffic safety, or will they let you get away with nearly anything?
The cops will ignore you as long as you haven't done anything wrong; however, committing an infraction in front of them such as speeding or striking a traffic car will immediately have the cops on you. Likewise, if you are wanted by the cops (high heat level) because of all of the cost of state damage you have done, they will pursue you on sight. If you want to avoid having them recognize you, change out your car or visually customize it so the cops won't identify your ride.
GS: Tell us about the race events in Undercover. How much time is spent breaking the law (such as stealing police vehicles) versus more traditional race events? Are the goals fairly linear in order to progress the story, or do you have some choice in how you play your character?
SB: Your goal is to build your reputation as a wheelman to infiltrate the local street gangs. So, first you have to make a name for yourself on the street by challenging the locals to circuit, sprint, checkpoint, highway battle, and outrun races. In addition, you can mess with the cops with cost to state, escape, and cop take-down missions that will build you up as a more notorious criminal on the street. Once you have been introduced to the gangs, you can then do jobs for them to get in deeper, such as stealing cars and delivering packages. Ultimately, the player can choose how they build their wheelman reputation up, whether through street racing, doing jobs, or messing with the cops, and there is always a large selection of each for them to choose from.
GS: How are you dividing difficulty in Undercover? What will define a higher level of difficulty in this game: more aggressive AI, less forgiving controls, more challenging goals, et cetera?
SB: Difficulty in races comes down to the skill of your opponents and the power of the cars they drive. As with most games, the further into the career you go, the more challenging your adversaries; but something unique to Undercover for the NFS franchise are the Master Race events this year, events which are very challenging for their level. In addition, we have domination record times for each race, which if you can beat, will reward you with special driver skills that allow you to tune you car to even higher levels of performance.
For the cop challenges, the difficulty comes from the threat level of cops you will face, all the way from street civic cops up to the powerful Rhino SUVs. Each cop type has unique moves they pull off as well as control over how aggressive their tactics will be, and at the highest level of cop threat, the police force will even send out the police helicopters to hunt you down.
GS: Thanks for your time.
160 comments
cirrus-time's running out, is a good soundtrack to put the pedal to metal in NFS Undercover. (It was also in twisted metal 4 which was/still is a pretty good game)
A great song to drive to, Getaway Driver by Maino, it was in GTA4, I love listening to that song while i'm driving 80 to 100 down the highway.
i cant wait to burn your arses on the highway battle, pwn your puny skills to the ground. Mark my psn: TheSentient. I think music should be customizable. I mean...there is no way for them to know what sound turns me on, but i know! so they should let me do the honors.
Sounds awesome, and their car list is great. Now all they need to do is add the right song for the cop chases (Ridin Dirty by Chamillionaire). We can only hope its as good as it sounds and looks
I think the series went downhill after most wanted but this might bring it back (although its gotta compete with midnight club)
I hope EA at lease provide a full gameplay on here without the actors cuts scene. can't get a feel of the game
@ punkdsk8erdude I agree with you I think MC:LA will win this battle, i know for a fact im pickin up that game. And i most likely will rent this first b/c they aren;t giving us a demo, unfortunately. That's saying something, no demo. Cause they had one for MW, Carbon, AND Prostreet....too scared its gunna suck? eh. i hope not.................................. I dont think EA have confidence in this game their self. not having a demo.. thats like buying a new car without test driving it first or buying a used car without taking it to a mechanic first to check out everything to make sure its in proper order. so best thing for my money is go with M.C.LA AND GRID AND WAIT ON GT5... mean time I'll buy a formula 1 race game. I truly hope undercover don't suck either but if it do its over for NFS for me
i cant wait for this game to come out! Most wanted was the best game of the series. its about time they made another game with cop chases, That was the best part of most wanted! GTA's cop chases don't come anywhere near the awsomeness of the NFS:MW cop chases.
Question - Steal Cars? Does this mean there is going to be an out of car experience with this edition of NFS?
thanks, hotrider12. yeah it makes sense for no demo, thats the exact reason we should get one though. if they really expect this to do better than prostreet, they should release a demo to reasure us gamers that we wont waste our money, that it is good, ya know? NFS has always been good. I like their older games better. Hot Pursuit 2, porche unleashed. Underground blew monkey butt, underground 2 they finally got it semi -right (what they tried to do w/ underground 1) and as the first freeroaming game it was awesome, Most Wanted was the best thing to happen since HP2, Carbon tried to do what Most Wanted did again but with a worse story, fail of the canyon races, crappier cars and such, no upgrade to the graphics, it was an epic failure. and we all know NFS took for granted the fact that their fans are fans of ARCADE racers, and tried to make it too realisitic, crashed and burned. This game has potential, i just hope its half as good as Most Wanted or HP2. The graphics look like an upgrade from MW, but just based on the screens and vids, i can't tell if its quite on par with prostreet. it probably is, but even prostreet wasnt AMAZING graphics. I think MC:LA will win this battle, i know for a fact im pickin up that game. And i most likely will rent this first b/c they aren;t giving us a demo, unfortunately. That's saying something, no demo. Cause they had one for MW, Carbon, AND Prostreet....too scared its gunna suck? eh. i hope not...
I swear this better not suck like other need for speeds the last good 1 was need for speed underground which is so old now
I swear this better not suck like other need for speeds the last good 1 was need for speed underground which is so old now
The fact that the majority of NFS fans say Most Wanted was the best in recent years, and EA have obviously listened to that is good imo. Add a few more modes to Most Wanted, fix the floaty/slidey physics at low speed and unpredictable collision on roadblocks and I'm happy tbh :)
Demos are a big risk for EA right now, especially with NFS...I get the sense from this interview a lot of elements from Most Wanted are reintroduced into UnderCover; I mean you can't deviate or develop a substantial amount ontop of what MW already did, besides cut scenes and a few In-game driving tweaks. That's not to say those tweaks won't be cool, because who knows they might throw a little "Burnout" essence in there too.
Still, I'll just sit on my hands and rent it before I buy. EA's got a lot of redemption to pull off with this one.
xXDemeosXx Posted Oct 6, 2008 8:10 pm GMT im kinda wondering about this game because carbon and prostreet sucked. but with midnight club coming it makes it hard to try see what game to get. nfs let me down two times in row but with midnight club it has never been a let down.. your not the only one has been let down by EA I've been disappointed since underground
punkdsk8erdude Posted Oct 5, 2008 9:05 pm GMT will we get a demo for this one? we got one for most wanted, carbon and for prostreet...but ive yet to see anything appear on XBL... sorry, but nope no demo becuz prostreet sucked and EA is afraid to make a demo for undercover, gamers might not like it. do you blame gamers????
the only racer game thats really good from EA is Burnout Paradise thats all i got to say btw danciu dont be to judgemental its a new year for NFS things could change
im kinda wondering about this game because carbon and prostreet sucked. but with midnight club coming it makes it hard to try see what game to get. nfs let me down two times in row but with midnight club it has never been a let down...........idk :\
Wow everybody says that this one will do great,open your eyes people,do you even see the graphics of this game?NFS is over and it's been this way since Most Wanted.How can they even compete with GT5,or Forza Motorsport,or Midnight Club LA?I'm sorry EA but just stick to the shooters and sports because you aren't even at the same level with other driving games.
Not to sound like such a ricer...but i really liked the idea of customizing your ride... inside and out... i liked the free roaming city...i wouldn't mind the cops aslong as it didnt center around always having to get rid of them...because then they would have to allow me to pull an uzi out of my window to shoot out their tires or something...
ever since hot pursuit 2 i've been into the nfs series and of all the games they've come out with since then, i've played most wanted black edition the most. this game looks to be hella tight and hopefully it will be
will we get a demo for this one? we got one for most wanted, carbon and for prostreet...but ive yet to see anything appear on XBL...
dude i have been into nfs since practically the beginning and i was really dissappointed by prostreet no cops = no fun but theyre bringing them back! good move...
most wanted was a good game....they better have the new 2009 BMW M3 in the game...and PLEASE do away with the cheezy one-liners and dialogue
Good, they are going back to its most successful roots of cop chases. Thats what turned me on to the series and most likely other players too.
This looks like good news to me. i hope itll be as good as Most Wanted. does anyone know if there is any customizing in the game? (ex: most wanted)
Most Wanted was definitely a rebirth of the franchise. What they need to do is not oversaturate the market by constantly coming out with a new game every year. Every 2 and 1/2 years sounds about right, maybe even three years since we're dealing with cars and not sports.
I didn't like Most Wanted that much, didn't appeal to me. I Liked NFS: Hot Pursuit 2 way more. Though this game is looking up to be pomising, hopefully it won't disappoint like Carbon did.
this reminds me of most wanted,best nfs ever.Period! carbon was ok,imo,but nfs prostreet sucked! Hopefully,this game will be as good as most wanted Amen.....
This is starting starting to sound like an awesome game here.I hope they don't mess it up like the did Pro Street.
This game better be like Most Wanted and Underground the best need for speed games ever it better not disappoint me like pro street did
read what is he saying about prostreet "With a focus on race weekends and slightly more realistic driving mechanics" he says more realistic driving > it would be realistic if cars steers from the rear wheels :) .
read what is he saying about prostreet "With a focus on race weekends and slightly more realistic driving mechanics" he says more realistic driving > it would be realistic if cars steers from the rear wheels :) .
Conversation powered by Livefyre
Review Scores
| Platform | GameSpot | Metacritic / User Score |
|---|---|---|
Game Info
- Release Date: Nov 17, 2008 (US)
- ESRB: TTitles rated T (Teen) have content that may be suitable for ages 13 and older.
- Release Date: Sep 18, 2008 (US)
- Release Date: May 7, 2009 (US)
- Release Date: Aug 26, 2009 (US)
Need for Speed Undercover
- Publisher(s): Electronic Arts
- Developer(s): EA Black Box
- Genre: Driving
- Release:
- ESRB: T
NFS Undercover Navigation
Games You May Like
- Promoted Title
Neverwinter (PC) 
Users who looked at content for this game also looked at these games.
See More Similar Games
