So much for the promised 'intelligent new artificial intelligence mechanic that delivers a realistic and high-energy action driving experience'. This is especially true given the standard of your opposition, which is stupid enough to slam into oncoming vehicles on a regular basis but somehow can also magically outpace and outmanoeuvre you even when in exactly the same car. It's so arbitrary, in fact, that the few times you do actually lose a race, you feel like you've been cheated. You don't even need to brake most of the time, just let the often invisible boundary walls bounce you back onto the track. Luckily (or not), most races are so insultingly easy it doesn't really matter how the cars drive. It feels like you're controlling a shopping trolley rather than a high performance car – and given the unpredictable handling, one that's been haunting the bottom of a river bed for the last few months. Despite clearly being designed as an arcade racer rather than a simulation, the vehicle handling is dreadful. Unfortunately, though, in order to make space, it seems EA has had to take out much the fun as well as any hint of realism. Mysteriously the past couple of Need for Speed games removed the danger of being chased by police but thankfully that element is reintroduced here. You start out with a rickety old banger and slowly gain better rides by winning races and earning money.

Whether you're meant to be undercover or not, the game uses exactly the same structure as all street racers. Some of the high quality (if cheesy) live action cut-scenes from the home console games are included on the PSP version, but most of the time you'll be advancing the plot by skipping through a few lines of mobile phone conversation that tell you what to do next. Despite the same developer being continuously employed – EA's internal Black Box studio – this is one series that needs a complete overhaul.īut whatever the quality of the gameplay, the backstory has always been ropey, so ripping off The Fast and the Furious yet again, in Need for Speed Undercover you play as an undercover cop infiltrating a bunch of street racing smugglers. And with the release of Undercover, that's now certainly the case with Need for Speed (which, if we're going to get detailed, is a franchise that has been struggling on home console, too). This attitude to detail has been less noticeable in the pocket gaming world, however, where the quality of EA's output tends to oscillate wildly from year to year.

Times have changed though, and now the 'evil empire' actually cares what punters think about its games – even when it comes to franchises that are churned out on an annual basic such as Madden, FIFA, Tiger Woods and Need for Speed.

The easiest way to pretend you were part of the video game cognoscenti used to be namedrop a few obscure Japanese developers and badmouth EA.

Need for speed undercover google drive