Need for Speed Undercover

It’s a classic tale told in countless Hollywood teen films and sitcoms. The geeky guy pines after the pretty and popular girl, who snubs his attentions for too long. By the time she wises up to his charms, and swans in nonchalantly, expecting him to swoon at her feet, a prettier and altogether more committed girl has established herself in his affections.

Such is the position the Need for Speed franchise finds itself in on N-Gage. Nseries owners have pined for a version of the popular street-racing series since the platform’s launch. Now, almost a year later, Need for Speed Undercover appears with its familiar mix of accessible racing and urban-cool.

The trouble is, an altogether more attractive package has already embedded itself in N-Gager users’ hearts.

For all of Need for Speed Undercover’s attributes, it has not one but two Asphalt games ahead of it in the pecking order - and it comes in a distant third in almost every way.

Which is a shame, because NFSU (as it shall hence be known) is far from a bad game.

Those who have played any of the mobile versions will recall the series’ distinctive take on power-sliding, with a stab of the ‘OK’ key sending your ride into a fixed drift, which needs to be kept in check by making micro-adjustments to a jittery slide-gauge with the left and right keys.

This system remains intact and, with the matter of acceleration taken out of the player’s hands, NFSU is an immediately engaging experience.

With the bonus boost you receive from executing a slide successfully, along with the additional boosts afforded by the nitro and slipstream systems, NFSU becomes less a question of taking the racing line and more a case of sustaining a chain of speed-enhancing moves.

Which can make it annoying when a member of the public tootles into you mid-corner and mid-slide, leaving you with virtually no time to react.

Outside the usual races, NFSU sets you a handful of other tasks to complete across each of the four zones. Max Power readers and anarchists alike will rejoice at the opportunity to take on the law, whereby you have to ram squad cars until their green stamina bar is entirely depleted.

Similarly destructive, if far less satisfying, is the mission where you have to bash into everything around you in order to cause as much damage as possible. When even the slightest clip from a passing car can at times send you crashing out during races, it seems like a clunky about-turn to then be able to plough indiscriminately into traffic.

There are also such fun tasks to partake in as clocking the highest speed possible across a number of speed cameras, as well as last-man-standing eliminators.

Once you’ve completed all of the tasks in a particular zone you gain access to a boss character. Here you engage in a one-on-one race with a smack talking idiot (sample quote: “I hear things about you. Fast things.”) for the right to move on to the next zone, as well as to unlock their snazzy car in the game’s garage.

There are eight of these beasts to purchase using the funds acquired from your on-track success, ranging from the humble default VW Golf to a Porsche 911 Turbo. If you don’t fancy any of these, or just don’t have the pennies, you can take your current ride into the garage and upgrade it.

It might sound dauntingly technical, but it's just a series of sliders representing Handling, Top Speed, Acceleration and Nitro. Oh, and Body Kit, but that’s just for the boy racers among you. Invest a few grand in any area and your car will be punching well above its weight in no time.

There’s nothing particularly wrong with any of these elements we’ve described - they’re as solid as they ever were on mobile. But when you look at what Asphalt 4 has to offer, including more than three times the cars and a far more varied range of locations, it’s hard to get too excited by the NFSU package.

Graphically too, the game can’t hold a candle to its rival, featuring some downright ugly car models, blurry textures and some drab track design. Compare that with Asphalt’s bright and sharp presentation and sprawling, undulating tracks, and NFSU looks quite the plain Jane.

The game also suffers from absolutely woeful sound - well below the standard we’ve come to expect from recent N-Gage offerings. Some of the music is ear-bleedingly bad, and the sound effects lack any kind of persistent engine noise other than a brief whoosh when a nitro boost is activated.

All in all, Need for Speed Undercover on N-Gage smacks of a half-hearted mobile port, with only the barest concession to the more-capable N-Gage platform.

It might sound like we’re being overly harsh on EA's latest N-Gage title, as it’s still a fun little game. But as we hit the year milestone for the N-Gage platform, such a blatant lack of ambition no longer cuts it.

Need for Speed Undercover

A solid racer with a decent boosting mechanic, Need for Speed Undercover nevertheless comes across as a cynical and unambitious effort, which comes in a distant third amongst N-Gage racers
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Jon Mundy
Jon Mundy
Jon is a consummate expert in adventure, action, and sports games. Which is just as well, as in real life he's timid, lazy, and unfit. It's amazing how these things even themselves out.