Need for Speed: Undercover

The “Need for Speed” has been a long running series of driving games by EA Sports. As a casual gamer this is my first experience with the NFS series and I’m very impressed with “Undercover”. The game features periodical video clips that you unlock as you progress through the game of an agent (who sort of looks like Jason Statham) that goes undercover by participating in various races in a crime ring. His main contact is an agent played by the beautiful & sexy Asian model Maggie Q (from “Balls of Fury”).

The game features an impressive array of cars that you can purchase with bounty money you earn by participating in races or designated tasks. Some of the cars are Mustangs, Aston Martins, Lamborghinis and the usual Asian sport cars such as Nissans or Hondas. Cars can be customized with the money you earn by upgrading the performance with upgrades such as engine, turbines, nitrous, chassis, shocks, hoods and rear spoilers. The looks of the cars can also be customized by changing the paint, decals and window tints.

Besides racing against cars other tasks include evading police cars, chasing other cars as a police car, disabling other cars, driving a stolen car to specified locations and gaining points by causing damage to hitting oncoming traffic or by hitting signs/park benches. Some of the tasks get progressively harder as you get deeper in the game, but your cars also get better as you upgrade or buy better cars.

I really like the graphics & sounds of the game. Especially the sounds! Besides the usual engine roar and tire skidding sounds you also hear clear and distinctive police radio chatter when you are confronted by cop cars. Some of the police chatter is kind of funny to listen to. There are also music tracks included or you can customize and add your own music from your memory stick. Neat!

So far my only complaint of the game is the default controls for the nitrous. Usually I only shoot the nitrous during long straight-a-ways, but when you do use nitrous, you have to hold the X-button, L-button and steer with the analog stick at the same which sometimes feels awkward for left-hand steering. This sometimes results in some faulty steering by me when I use the nitrous as I struggle to hold two buttons & steer, but maybe others may not have this problem. Overall, I still enjoy this game very much for my PSP and I recommend it to others.