Need for Speed Undercover (PSP)

Electronic Arts tries to sell you a lemon
12/3/2008 7:28 PM | 0 Comments | Page 1 of 2

To its credit, Need for Speed Undercover for the PlayStation Portable isn't as bad as the versions that are available for other systems. I can give it the faint praise that this is one of the least bad versions of Need for Speed Undercover (along with the Nintendo Wii version). But it's still scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to the driving games you could be playing on your slick little Sony handheld.

Unlike in the bigger versions of the game, the storyline is just an afterthought here, told occasionally through text messages and cut scenes. The full motion video is really dopey, but it looks quite good on the PSP's sharp screen. The open-city concept is gone in this version, which instead presents a much more straightforward series of races and events. You simply pick them from the map and drive them, with no pretension towards an open world. Races are grouped into clusters that have to be mostly finished before you move on to the next cluster. The whole game is divided into three regions of the city that you'll unlock sequentially.

As you drive, you'll earn bounty, which makes new cars available, and money, which you'll spend to buy and upgrade vehicles. It's a pretty straightforward and slimmed-down presentation that puts the focus where it belongs: squarely on the driving.

And the driving is easily this game's strong point. There's a feeling of weight to these cars that makes their handling unique. When they hit a bump and catch air, there's a real sense of being out of control. The powerful muscle cars feel different from the nimble tuners. The races are often about building up and sustaining speed, so proper use of brakes is crucial. To get around tight corners, you'll also have to take full advantage of your "Speedbreaker," which is Need for Speed's equivalent of bullet time.

Unfortunately, the game looks lifeless and dated. It's hard to make out any details in the distance. Streets are empty, with only the occasional car appearing in the middle distance and then sliding by uneventfully. Roads run past coarse graphics of generic buildings, closed off by invulnerable guard rails. It doesn't do much good to put solid driving physics in such an ugly and limited place. The sound is good, though, which makes this one worth playing with earphones.

Many of the events are frustratingly difficult until you grind to earn enough money for a better car or expensive upgrades. The system for improving vehicles is convoluted, and the options for customization are strangely limited. Some of the events seem broken, as if they were intended for a different game and accidentally worked their way into this one. For instance, there are no "Pursuit Breakers" to evade police cars, which is a staple of the recent Need for Speed games. You simply hit a straightaway and bide your time until the artificial-intelligence cars fall behind. And the missions in which you have to disable police cars are absurdly difficult -- you have no choice but to ram them, and if you stop too long near a police car, you'll fail. So it's all about setting up glancing blows, which is hard to do to cars that are cruising along behind you. The moderately satisfying racing comes to a screeching halt when you hit these missions.