Better than ProStreet... that's not really saying much, is it?
But that seems a bit like a far-off dream. After all, this game had a longer development cycle than any recent Need for Speed game. You would think, with 18 months of development time rather than 12, that this game could be the game that saved the series. The game that would have put the past two sequels to shame.
But instead of trumping its predecessors, all it does is put itself, and the Need for Speed brand, to shame.
The game does one thing right by bringing back the beloved cop chases from the likes of Hot Pursuit, Most Wanted, and Carbon. However, the game is so glitchy, laggy, and unresponsive during these chases that it becomes impossible to appreciate them, and sometimes, even play them. The framerate seems to dip even worse during races with just 7 other opponents.
The story is convoluted and senseless, similar to the Most Wanted and Carbon stories. Unfortunately, it doesn't build on the stories of the past games, either. It's a new story with new characters in a new city. Too bad the game doesn't give you enough of an introduction to really care about the characters, their motives, or your own goal. At least in Most Wanted, your goal was clear and you always knew what to do next. In this game, you'll just do a bunch of random events, then trigger a cutscene, do a few more random events, trigger a cutscene, do more random events, then a cutscene, so on and so forth. It doesn't elaborate on most of the things you do, and the boss battles are so simple that they have no tension or emotional weight behind them. Heck, once the games "epic plot twist" happens, you won't care or want to see what happens next.
Speaking of simple, that seems to be what this game nails from start to finish. If you want the easiest racing game you can imagine, here it is. You will start a race and most of the time, you will have passed all seven of your opponents within 15 seconds of the race starting. It's almost maddening how stupid the game really thinks you are, and vice versa. The boss battles are called "highway battles" where you have to get ahead of your opponent by a certain distance, or be in first when the clock runs out to win. But even in these battles, you will fly ahead of your opponents effortlessly. There's no challenge and no real incentive to doing anything. All Undercover ends up being is a maze of event after event that ultimately lead to another boring event, until before you know it, the game's over.
I could write a book about how glitchy this game is, but come on. It's Need for Speed, what else is new? This game takes the meaning of glitchy to a new level. Your car will get stuck in walls, cops will disappear and appear out of nowhere, and events with a particular goal will become impossible to complete for no apparent reason. For example, one mission wanted me to slam into a car enough to total it before it got too far away. So I rammed it again and again, and eventually, I successfully totaled the car like I needed to. At this point, the event should have ended, and I should have gotten my rewards, or another cutscene, you know, some kind of confirmation that I did it right. Well it never came. The target car was totaled, but nothing was happening. I drove around and around, slammed into it more, did everything I could think of, but nothing happened. I had to restart and do it all over again. What a waste of time.
If you are interested in a racing game that feels unfinished, tells an uninteresting story, handles the framerate like crap, and practically mocks you with its unrealistically simple difficulty, then by all means, get this game. But if you want a real arcade racer with a decently interesting story, a premise, and a purpose, I'm going to give the same advice I gave in my ProStreet review: Get Most Wanted. It's half the price and 10 times more fun.