Product Description

Need for Speed Undercover X360

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1120 in Video Games
• Brand: Electronic Arts
• Model: 15591
• Published on: 2008-11
• Released on: 2008-11-17
• ESRB Rating: Teen
• Platform: Xbox 360
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .59" h x 5.42" w x 7.52" l, .33 pounds

Features

• Go Deep Undercover - Race into an action-packed story of pursuit and betrayal. Take on jobs and compete in races to prove yourself as you infiltrate and take down an international crime syndicate
• Highway Battle - Fight off the cops and others as you take down your prey in high-speed, high stake multi-car chases. New and vastly improved AI mechanics mean more aggressive and intelligent cops focused on taking you out fast and by any means necessary
• Criminal Scramble - Be a cop and chase down criminals in the Criminal Scramble Mode
• Heroic Driving Engine - lets you pull off amazing moves for the ultimate driving edge

Customer Reviews

The Waste of All NFS Games Combined
I've had this game for a several days now and I can tell you--from the moment I put the game into my Xbox 360 I was unimpressed. I even got this game used for [...] bucks and I can't WAIT to pawn it off on the next sucker who falls for NFS's marketing ploy of this "hot new game".

The Cons:
-The game physics - GARBAGE. Several points in the map have you 'catching air'. About 1/3 of the time will undoubtedly send you careening out of control, flipped upside down, or pinned against a wall. Should you scrape up against a computer player or rub a wall, other racers will SCREAM past you--as if you've stopped--yet you've only lost perhaps 10mph of speed. AND YET...the AI is seemingly unaffected by their mistakes. Pit maneuvers don't work on AI, yet should an AI even bump you from directly behind you'll spin in a 180 with certain cars ultimately putting an end to that race if you're further in the game and the AI is faster.

-The AI is insanely easy at first. You can pretty much win any race half way into the game by racing off the line 10 minutes after the race has started. HOWEVER: half way into the game, the AI gets some sort of 'catch up' advantage and can blast by you! You're either ahead by a split time of 15 seconds (meaning if you parked your car during the race, it would take 15 seconds for the person behind you to catch and pass you), or you're struggling to keep them on your GPS map, let alone in plain view. Currently the game has my $20,000 dollar car pitted against 200,000 dollar cars--cars that are not even in the same galaxy in terms of class. There's absolutely no chance for me to win should I make even the slightest error (running over a cone, or braking around a hairpin turn). Kind of frustrating when this entire time you've been bored by winning races without any effort.

-The TRACKS! In another GIANT F-U to consumers, they've designed 'street racing' tracks that are closed circuit--YET have casual traffic on them. The tracks lack ANY feeling of street racing what so ever other than the simple fact that what you're racing on is a street/dirt road/highway. There is absolutely no doubt you're on a race track instead of a street. Yellow and black barricades block every corner. Imagine your surprise when you're rocketing down a formula 1 track and see a Buick Lesabre in your way. Again, half way through the game, should you hit just 1 of these cars, the race is over. Don't even bother to finish it, just restart or do as I do, and tomahawk your F***ing controller into the floor.

-Free roam is completely pointless. There's nothing to do and no purpose to it really since they've made the player lazy by simply pushing down on the D-pad you're cast off into the next 5minute loading screen. Now, there would be a GREAT purpose to the free roam feature if while you were driving around the game would be loading up the next race, but of course, this is not the case.

-Loading screens - hope you're old enough to drink or are in need of constantly checking the mail. For the hour or two that you might waste your time with this game, at least 15 solid minutes of your time is spent WAITING.

-The Story line is pathetic. It's full of holes, half the time you don't really know what is going on, and the tasks you have to do just go on and on and become monotonous and played out. It's the same thing over and over. "Go take out 5 cop cars by ramming into them and then we'll put you further into the underground world of 'street' racing." It's a load of garbage.

After playing this game and seeing other horrible NFS releases, I'm officially refusing to buy anything else those jerks put out. I'm a true car enthusiast and have played several games that were far superior to this--SEVERAL YEARS AGO! Do you remember Tokyo Extreme Racer for Dreamcast? That game was far superior to this in terms of customization, function, and fun. Even computer games that were made by budget companies like Valuesoft: Redline Racing...way better than Need for Speed: Undercover.

What next? Need for Speed: FU-Give us your money?

The only use this game serves is for selling it back to someone else. PERIOD.

Look elsewhere...
I was really excited about this game when I first heard about it. After the uncreative NFS Pro Street, NFS Under Cover was suppose to take the game back to its roots. The only problem is, I didn't expect them to go all the way back to the early 90's.

I started the game out, and right away I notice loading, loading, and more loading. Do you want to look at the map to see the next race, loading, do you want to go to your garage, loading, do you want to start a race, loading. Everything you do has a load screen...EVERYTHING. I managed to start playing and I was a little excited. That was until I took over the car. The cut scenes look good, but the game is a mess. There are problems with the frame rate, there are issues was the way the cars look, and the general graphics are poor. If they would have used the graphics from say NFS Hot Pursuit I would have been happier.

The main issue I had was the constant freezing. I finished the first race, but that was it. I could not start another race. Anytime I would pick anything, the loading screen would come up and freeze the entire game. A few times I managed to start a race, but the game would freeze during the race. I was more than let down. I was pissed.

Naturaly, I looked online for others with similar problems, and there are a ton of people. The freezing, frame rates, are all common problems. Some people have been blessed with the lack of problems, but others like me not so much.

One last note. After having the freezing problems, I installed the game to the xbox hard drive. After playing thru a few races I can say that this has, so far, fixed the freezing issues I was having. I am sure a patch will be released to fix most of the games issues, but the only patch worth waiting for is a better game.

11-22-08 EDIT

An auto update was released for the game which may fix some issues. As my biggest issues was the constant freezing, and I fixed that by installing on the hard drive, I am unsure as to what bugs got fixed. I can say the overall the game does not feel as fragile as it had at first.

11-24-08 UPDATE

After getting some time to actually play the game, I will discuss my additional thoughts. The game itself is a lot like the older NFS, where you have an open world with some street races and of course the police chases. The game, as described in another review, can be summed up as LAZY. You actually don't have to do any open world driving. You can pick races from the "GPS" screen, or you can race the closest event by hitting down on your d pad. I felt bad, because it really puts the open world usage to shame. I have not customized any part of my car yet, as its not as fun as it used to be, or should be. Also, anytime you purchase anything in the game it asks if you want to use "In game cash" or "Microsoft Points". I would hate to see how many points it would cost.

The open world consists of three "Cities" each with their own races, and groups to take out. The races seem repetative, more so than in the past. Most of the police cut scenes are the same, as are the begining of most every race. I have only progressed thru the first city, and am on the second.

ONLINE PLAY

I did get to play a few matches of cops and robbers online. I must say that this was very fun. The object is to "steal" the money and take it to your hidout before you get busted by the cops. There are up to 8 people playing, 4 robbers and 4 cops. The game is pretty straight forward, and easy to pick up on. I have not yet had a chance to play any other modes. Even though this is fun, I wouldn't pay more then $10 to get this mode. The game just isn't where it should be.

Based on the games progress I would re-rate this MAYBE 2-2.5 stars. However, if you are still not sure about spending the money, I would still wait. Had I have played a demo before hand, or rented the copy first, I would not have purchased. I have yet to recommend this game to anyone, and would still tell people to avoid this title.

Hugely disappointed
I am a huge fan of the NFS series and consider them classics and was really looking forward for this year's release. However I was disappointed with the final product. Need for Speed Undercover is clearly an attempt to cash in on the success of 2005's Most Wanted after ProStreet flopped with critics and fans. The game itself is as straightforward as you'd expect; race, come first, win cash, buy new cars. The underlying story is you're an undercover cop working for the police, quite straight foward. Everything seems to work as it should - the racing is fast and frenetic; the sense of speed is swell and the cars look mostly nice and slick. The biggest problem with Undercover, and it's a fundamental one, is that it's lazy.

Undercover features a great range of cars, but it's a simple cut-and-paste job from ProStreet and the cars that followed its release. There just isn't enough new here, and you'll likely have driven nearly every ride on offer here in a previous iteration of the series. The cops have basically clicked and dragged from the three-year-old Most Wanted and also the cities (there are three of them) are big, criss-crossed with wide, but they lack personality and they all begin to look the same.

NFS of old was about hot cars, hot pursuits and miles and miles of open road, a very fine example of this is the addictive NFS Most Wanted. Undercover make a semi-successful fist of recapturing some of this magic. Looks great, plays fine. There's no getting around the fact, however, that Undercover is basically Most Wanted with a new lick of paint.

It is time to consider a new look for this one is repetitive and boring.