Throughout EA’s multiple releases of the Need For Speed franchise since I can remember, or more specifically, since NFS: Most Wanted I’ve found myself playing yet another release of the maverick racing title thinking to myself “Well, this is exactly like the last Need For Speed game I paid £40 for, ouch" . Leaving the sore imprint in my head of “Why didn’t they stick to the Most Wanted formula?" and I’m relatively confident I speak for a lot of you out there when I say that, particularly having the same discussion with colleagues, friends and even some friendly chums on XBL I get the impression that I am not alone on this one.
Well it’s not all bad news with Electronic Arts’ newest impression of the franchise, as it appears that they have taken notice to their demographic audience and tried to address this issue with what I’d remark on as a re-incarnation of the elements and conventions that created ‘Need For Speed: Most Wanted’ and stuck a brand new label on it.Inventively enough, in the latest instalment of NFS, you assume the part of; yep, an undercover officer, accompanied by the luscious agent ‘Chase Linh’. Your objective throughout this hollow plot is to foil an assemblage of street racers that have managed to get their fingers in the financial pleasantry that is an international smuggling syndicate. The predictable storyline is communicated through an ensemble of cheesy cutscenes that appear to barely motivate you to play through the next race.
It’s evident that they’ve tried to imitate that cliché saturated, corny approach that Most Wanted had, and yet it somehow doesn’t make such a positive impression as it’s predecessor did, I think it has become too evident that Undercover has attempted to play on the success of the NFS: Most Wanted version of the franchise, and therefore does manage to as much of an appeal due to lack of originality in that respect.As like the previous NFS titles, you’re backdrop for roaming and racing is set in an open-world environment, with Undercover being set in the fictional city of ‘Try-City Bay’. The game, again like previous titles, will begin you with a shoddy set of wheels even ‘ma and ‘pa will crack a smirk at, however it’s only for a short period before you’ll bag yourself a ride even Xibit, or specifically Westwood won’t have a thing negative to say about.
You’ll earn yourself some serious dollar as you progress throughout the game, in which you can use to unlock a plethora of over 50 vehicles from a multitude of manufacturers, to acknowledge a few favourites such as Nissan, Lamborghini, Aston Martin, Dodge and many more.Tuning you’re car can have different levels of granularity, meaning you can purchase upgrade packages with your not-so hard earned dollar to improve the performance of your ride without any particular detail, comparatively however you can also tune and tweak individual components of your ride if you’re a bit of a petrol head and enjoy tuning in that level of detail, so it’s nice to see an option of detail for gamers who may or may not want to tune their rides in as much or as little detail.As progression takes place through the game, earning money, purchasing new vehicles and upgrading them accordingly. You can also earn ‘driving points’ for ‘dominating’ an event/race, which essentially doesn’t involve much more additional skill than driving fast all the time.
Earning these driving points will allow you to upgrade your driving attributes, which is a nice feature to include; the only problem being is that they do not appear to have an affect on your driving performance what so ever. A be a legend soccer hack game also makes a certain emphasis on driving with style and quality, such as drifting, near misses and driving dangerously close to other cars, however this doesn’t make a particularly significant impact on your overall performance apart from giving you a nifty nitrous boost, so apart from that there isn’t much incentive to drive the way the game wants you to.
However the game has a new feature of being able to make a ‘J-Turn’ which is an extremely nifty little touch that will aid you in both evasion and chasing scenarios alike, but that’s about as far as that goes as well.The authorities have returned in NFS: Undercover, with what I can only describe as a happy one. Tasks which include the takedown of numerous police vehicles and racking up some serious financial damage is entertaining to say the least, also there are some nice little objects during these tasks you can be inventive with to destroy and wreck the cars such as towers, billboards, trucks etc. Some of these objects can create some fairly cool looking results, but a lot of the time you barely get to see a police car collide with a log truck, but still somehow manage to totally obliterate the pursuing vehicles? It’s some odd discrepancies like this in the game that do decrease the gameplay quality and evokes the sense that the game wasn’t thoroughly checked through during or after development to pickup on these abnormalities.
Like the reported instances on various websites and blogs that comment during police chases it’s possible to just stand still without being found or caught, police have the ability to immobilise you with some road spikes, but yet during my experience, along with other instances that I have read about, they do seem very reluctant to do this throughout the game, as well as the lack of ‘ferocity’ the police seem to come at you with, they just appear to be very tame and restricted in their offensive in taking you out, which all contributes to a lower quality of gameplay.
A huge downside with this title is it’s frame rate, when I began reviewing the game I thought that either my 360 was about to red light or that my cache was in serious need of clearing out, but after some browsing online I found that this game has been notorious for it’s slow frame rate, which has been reported to be even slower on the Playstation 3, which personally interrupted the handling on some of the cars and generally the gameplay experience, along with some aliasing on the cars and the graphics don’t appear to have had much of a re-vamp, there seems to be no apparent reason for such a slow frame rate, which may suggest that the game’s development was rushed to ensure it’s release for the Christmas period, maybe…?Comparison aside, the game does manage to produce some fun gameplay that will keep you mildly entertained, fans of previous releases of Need For Speed may love it, or find it a replica of previous games they have spent their hard-earned cash on, although if you’re a fan of the Most Wanted instalment of NFS, I’m sure you enjoy a lot of aspects in this game, in which case I would recommend it.
However if originality and new thrills is what you’re after then purchasing this game I’m afraid may be a mistake you may want to avoid. In summary the game is entertaining for periods, along with some nifty little tools like the GPS map and the quick-jump feature which allows you to jump to the race within closest proximity is relatively nifty and some pretty cool multiplayer too. But the game just appears to have used its predecessor’s successful image to rely on its success rather than originality along with some evidently rushed development, which I’m afraid this time around hasn’t been a particularly winning combination.Likes:Stays true to the Need for Speed seriesBugatti Veyron appearance will be appreciated by petrol heads.As always, Need for Speed has an impressive array of customization.Dislikes:Choppy framerateNo Anti-Aliasing, resulting in the most jagged game ever to be released on Xbox 360.No 'real' innovations have been made in this title, it just feels like a copy & paste of Most Wanted.Online play, again, hasn't been given the changes the franchise has needed since Underground.The game will only appeal to people who haven't heard of Midnight Club.
No comments:
Post a Comment