Need for Speed: Undercover

The latest installment of Electronic Art's hugely popular racing franchise has taken a step backwards from the debacle that was Pro Street and has returned to the style that made the previous titles in the series such fun to play. Need for Speed: Undercover approaches the benchmark of Most Wanted yet again by putting players into an open world to race and avoid the cops in the finest NFS style.

Taking place in the impressively large environs of the Tri-City Bay Area, which is Electronic Art's generic version of almost any major American metropolitan city situated on the coast. Black Box, the Vancouver-based gaming studio responsible of Undercover, has brought back the cops and open-road chases. They have promised a more advanced Al for the chase, with police being more intelligent and aggressive in their campaign to stop the manic drivers that are sure to hit the streets once the game is released. Even the standard everyday drivers that were once shunted with impunity may get some of their own back this time around. The game world features 80 miles or 128 kilometers of road to burn rubber on, with more sweeping highways to hit top speed on.

Undercover boasts speeds of up to and over 180 miles per hour (300 kilometers per hour) on the highway and byways of the Tri-City Bay Area. Need for Speed has, as always, some really wicked cars licensed for Undercover with the Audi R8, BMW M6 and Lexus IS-F making an appearance along with the Nissan GT-R, Porsche 911 Turbo and Audi S5 being confirmed additions, amongst others. The Shelby GT500KR, Nissan 370Z and a string of Porsches are sort of, kind of confirmed but with nothing official floating around just yet.

There is a little bit of a twist to the storyline this time around, with players taking on the role of an undercover agent, recruited and trained by the lovely Maggie Q, known as Federal Agent Chase Lihn, trying to topple a crime syndicate from within. This does sound a little similar to the plot of the first The Fast and the Furious movie but we are confident that it will not head off in that direction.

The developers have been a little tight-lipped about what they are calling the Heroic Driving Engine, which allows for better, more spectacular stunts and tricks at high speeds. We strongly suspect that it will function a little like the Racebreaker system from previous titles, with a load more control and fancified tricks involved. Apparently 180-spins; high-speed, controlled 360s and heightened manual traction control will be the order of the day for Speed junkies.

We are glad Electronic Art’s have shifted focus from the ‘safe’ driving of the previous title that was more concerned with physics than fun and have gone back to what Need for Speed does best. Open world, open roads and did we mention that there may be a little mission-based gameplay in amongst the races? Don't quote us but it may be there. We only hope that the torque-driven two-wheeled pull-offs from the starting line make it across from Pro Street. That feature was kinda cool.