Need for Speed Undercover is a 2008 racing video game, the twelfth installment in the Need for Speed series. Developed by EA Black Box and published by Electronic Arts, it was released on 18 November 2008 for PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo DS, and a number of mobile phone platforms; an edition of the game for iOS was later released on April 27, 2009. The game sees players conducting illegal street races within the fictional Tri-City Area, with the main mode’s story focused on the player operating as an undercover police officer to investigate links between a criminal syndicate, stolen cars, and street racers.
Gameplay operates on the same manner as previous entries such as Need for Speed: Most Wanted and Need for Speed: Carbon, now including a larger selection of licensed real-world cars, and RPG-styled system in the game’s main mode. Upon its release, the game received mixed reviews, many of which criticized the game’s difficulty setting and repetitive elements, with some editions receiving lower scores due to severe issues. It was later succeeded by Need for Speed: Shift in 2009, and Need for Speed: World in 2010.
In the game, players take part in illegal street races that focus on different styles of races, utilizing a variety of licensed real-world cars (available at the time of the game’s development and release) that can be upgraded and customized with new parts, while contending with the involvement of the police in their efforts to impede the player. Racing events featured in the game include the series’ standard of circuit, point-to-point, and checkpoint races, alongside the return of Police Pursuit events featured in Most Wanted. In addition, Undercover includes new events such as “Outrun” – players must overtake a rival and stay ahead of them for a period of time – and “Highway Battle” – similar to Carbon‘s “Duel” event, players attempt to stay ahead of a rival on a highway, battling against both them and local traffic, winning instantly if they pull far ahead and losing for the exact opposite – with its game modes consisting of Career, Single Event, and Multiplayer; both the PlayStation 2 and Wii editions also feature a fourth mode, Challenge Series, which operates similar in function as in Most Wanted and Carbon.
In Career mode, players take on the role of an undercover police officer seeking to break up a syndicate operating within the underground street race world. Like Most Wanted, players achieve this by completing both Racing Events and Pursuit events – the majority of events in this mode include the opportunity to “dominate” them by completing them faster than a specified time record for domination. In Undercover, progress in the story involves completing events that not only earn money, but also experience (or Wheelman Rep) and a special performance bonus – these bonuses either improve the player’s driving abilities with all cars or provide other bonuses to the player’s playthrough (i.e. an increase in race earnings). Earning enough experience levels up the player’s Wheelman level, unlocking a larger performance bonus, new cars and upgrade parts, as well additional events including Jobs – special story-based missions in which the player must complete a specific task such as taking down a criminal’s car. Police pursuits in this mode function like in previous editions, though the player’s Wheelman level directly impacts how aggressive the police are when in pursuit of the player; the higher the level, the more tactics and vehicle types used in the pursuit.
Players can freely select any event from the game’s map, or by using a hotkey to move on to a highlighted event after completing their current one, and are able to replay previous events but only for a reduced amount of cash. The game features a wide variety of licensed real-world cars which are divided into three tiers of performance and four classes – Exotic, Tuner, Muscle, and Sport. Players begin Career mode with a limited selection of cars to use and purchase, but unlock more as they level up and can earn additional cars by defeating criminals in the story. Cars, upgrades and customisation can now be done by visiting the player’s safehouse, rather than separate stores, with fine-tuning of a car’s performance also conducted in this manner. For the Nintendo DS, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, and Wii editions of the game, players can also use police vehicles but only upon unlocking them during the main mode. Cars receive only cosmetic damage during the game, except in Highway Battles and Job events, where it is possible to “total” a car in these event, the latter per specific parameters assigned to the Job the player is undertaking.
Multiplayer mode varies across the platforms the game was launched on – online multiplayer is possible on Windows, PlayStation 3 , Xbox 360 and DS editions; PlayStation 2 and Wii editions feature split-screen multiplayer; while mobile phone platforms do not include the game mode. For online multiplayer, events consist of multiplayer versions of Sprint racing and Highway Battle, along with a team-based event entitled “Cops and Robbers” – two teams of players compete against each other to score points across two rounds; in the first round, the “Robbers” collect flags and deliver them to specified areas to score points, while the “Cops” attempt to arrest them to earn points, whereupon in the second round, the teams switch roles, with the team with the highest score winning the match. While the PlayStation 2 and Wii features Cops and Robbers in its multiplayer mode, albeit with fewer players allowed, they also feature two exclusive events – “Lap Knockout”, in which players compete across a circuit, with the last player at the end of a lap being knocked out and the winner being the remaining player at the end; and “Timed Circuit”, in which players compete across a circuit over a predetermined length of laps and time, with the player in first place at the end winning the event.
