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Need for Speed: Undercover: The Demo from Hell

• By Travis Moses
• August 21, 2008 09:50 AM PST
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Ripping off Burnout and tacking on a hot Asian action star -- these are the innovations of the latest Need for Speed.

At a recent event in San Francisco, EA Games invited every single journalist and PR rep in the industry to check out a hot Asian actress - oh, yeah, and the new Burnout Need for Speed Undergroundcover game. Unfortunately, Undercover appears to be the same Hot Pursuit concept EA has been grinding gears on for the past ten years. Judging by my experiences with Undercover, there's little to get excited about, with the possible exception of in-game live-action cutscenes (hurray).

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Before the masses were set loose to play the game, EA introduced Undercover through a series of cheesy live-action video clips. And I'm talking rank, limburger-grade videos that give me nightmare flashbacks to the days of Night Trap and every crummy "movie" game excreted from Digital Pictures' pixilated colon. Apparently, EA and developer Black Box want to deliver better "stories" in video games. A noble goal, perhaps, but is a racing game really the place to tell elaborate stories? Reality check: racing fans aren't looking for in-depth plots. They're looking for racing! When Undercover releases this fall, how many players are going to sit through these live-action HD cinemas? Let's be honest here: racing fans going to skip right past these cinemas like a Ferrari blasting through a small town red light.

But EA has a plan. A ridiculous plan, mind you. If you dangle a hot girl in front of geeks (maybe throwing in a bit of gratuitous T&A) people will ignore the fact we're getting the (jail)bait and switch.

Who is Maggie Q?

Maggie Who?

Who is Maggie Q? Obviously you didn't see the gravitas she brought to Balls of Fury as a ninja ping pong player. Maybe you missed her star turns in Live Free or Die Hard and Mission Impossible III. I sure as hell didn't know her until I IMDB'ed the tiny actress (True, Maggie's smokin' hot, but a strong breeze could knock this girl over). Miss Maggie even had a few words to say at the Undercover event. "I don't really play video games," she giggled, "but I just played before you all got here and I screamed like a little girl." Cue nervous laughter from the audience. Yeesh. Maggie was well spoken, and is no doubt a talented actress in film, but come on... what's the point? Why is she in this game? /End rant, part one.

The point, in the game at least, is that Maggie Q plays a hardass cop and your only lifeline to the police. You play as an undercover cop investigating the criminal syndicate of the Tri-City area. Tri-City is a free-roaming fictional city, much like Burnout's Paradise City, and is loosely based on San Francisco. You can drive wherever and whenever you want in Tri-City. EA Black Box compares Undercover's open-world, sandbox style of gameplay to NFS: Most Wanted, with the addition of a new highway battle mode that looks as literal as it sounds - it's two cars smashing into each other on a highway. Woop dee doo!

Need For Being Impressed

From what I can tell, Undercover will appease fans of the series, but why settle for appeasement? Racing fans have seen this shtick before -- cars go vroom and the graphics look pretty. Undercover has definitely taken some major cues from Burnout. Bumping traffic from the front (and from the rear) boinks cars out of the way, and the vehicle handling is fast and loose. So far, so good. But in a boneheaded design decision, one that we pray gets cut from the final version, cop cars bring the game to a standstill. When a cop spots you driving illegally, the game inexplicably pauses - mid-action, mind you -- and the camera refocuses on the cop car as he slams into pursuit mode. It's nice to know where cops are coming from, but how about that truck I'm about to slam into at 90mph?

Look, I know this is a very early look at Need for Speed: Undercover. We certainly haven't seen everything in the game, and there are some cool possibilities such as a "photo mode" I spotted lurking in the pause menu. My gut, though, is telling me that something just ain't right here. At least, not yet. The developers are going to have to switch to high-octane gas (Chevron with Techron?) to win over fast and furious racing fans with the (so far) underwhelming Undercover.

Read also: LittleBigPlanet: The Demo from Hell and Hottie Maggie Q on NFS: Undercover

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