If there's one thing that Need For Speed fans have been clamoring for, it's a return to the race-from-the-cops gameplay of NFS: Most Wanted, arguably the high water mark of the franchise. Undercover delivers that, with plenty of overenthusiastic police pursuits. But it doesn't add any memorable new features to the formula, and a plethora of minor annoyances make it feel like the franchise has substituted nostalgia for innovation and polish.

Undercover puts you in the role of an undercover cop posing as a wheelman to infiltrate a street-racing ring that has connections to even more nefarious criminal activity. You need to earn the trust of the racers in the circuit by winning races, racking up property damage, and generally making life miserable for the Tri-Bay Area's finest. It's basically "Reservoir Dogs" meets "The Fast and the Furious" with a tenth of the creativity and a hundredth of the budget.

It's not the first time cheesy live-action cutscenes have been featured prominently in NFS, but there's nothing campy or fun about Undercover's. They just advance an unremarkable plot with clichéd dialogue, mediocre acting, and unbelievably cheap production values. Sitting through a loading screen just so you can watch yet another ten-second clip of your sexy agency contact sitting in a dark, smoky office gets old quickly.


And speaking of loading screens: there are a lot of them. Or, as one non-gamer bystander remarked, "There seems to be a lot of stopping and starting for a racing game." Maybe they wouldn't have seemed so bad two or three years ago, but they're especially unbearable after Midnight Club: Los Angeles's zero-loading screen presentation.

New Wheels or Retreads?

The NFS faithful will be happy to hear that Undercover's point-and-shoot style of racing is faithful to the franchise. Turn or slide in the direction you want to go, hammer on the throttle, and you're off. And those who considered Midnight Club: LA to be too difficult will enjoy Undercover's gentle learning curve, where the AI doesn't get very aggressive until several hours into the story mode.