Mr.Deflok's Profile

I’ve lost count of how many bad Need for Speed’s we’ve played on the PSP but Undercover is the first good one. Undercover has a more cinematic style having your wheelman make his way through the game's story missions to build up his level, which can be done in a variety of ways. You can add points by just cruising around the open-world Tri-City Bay setting and performing heroic driving maneuvers, which is developer Black Box's term for driving on the distant edge of safety without quite falling off. Full-speed 180s, powerslides, nitrous drifts, and brakestands are a few of the heroic driving maneuvers that can be done to add wheelman rep points. This also has the side benefit of giving you driver skills, which increase your abilities with a car outside the usual garage modifications done to the cars themselves.

Anyone new to the world of racing games should find Need for Speed Undercover to be a relatively accessible experience. The handling of the cars is on the forgiving side, events never achieve frustrating status, and police chases are grueling but totally winnable with enough patience and clever route-taking. You can also tip the odds in your favor in both police chases and street races by using pursuit breakers, which are essentially booby traps you can trigger to sabotage competitors. For example, driving through a billboard stand might send the signage toppling onto those tailing you, while clipping a stand holding up concrete pipes could create a similar result.

Altogether, Need for Speed is an excellent package. It's an open-world racer where you can keep the action going at all times, and its accessibility is complemented by a wide variety of maneuvers and plenty of real-life cars.