First Thirty: Need for Speed Undercover
By Joe Haygood | November 12, 2008
Who knew that the UPS man delivers on Veterans Day here in the US. But the delivery guy’s misfortune is your gain, as I have played through the first thirty minutes of Need for Speed Undercover, and I have a fair amount of good with a few grains of bad mixed in.
The game starts you off in a hurry jumping you right into a car chase where you have to escape from the cops. Speed is portrayed very nicely, and there is a lot of juking and jiving in between traffic on the freeway. From here, we get to see some of the well produced video cutscenes that really give the game a high polish feel. Races are pretty easy to jump into, with you either driving to them, or just selecting them from the map or a pop up list. The city is enormous, with the map taking quite some time to scroll over. I only have one section unlocked, but this is a game that could take some time from looking at that map.
I ran into my first mini-boss, and it was not too tough. You take on these races to boost street cred and get in with the gangs. I have yet to get into a cop chase after the very first intro level, but I think the game really sets you on an extended tutorial in the beginning.
Lastly, I did notice some frame stutters here and there. Most of the time it was hardly noticable, but at the end of my thirty minutes, I did have a slight headache, giving me the feeling that there were more frames dropped than I thought. Could just be me, as I am normally use to playing racing games on a smaller PC screen than my TV. But look for a full review in the coming days.
Tags: electronic arts, fast, first thirty, full motion video, mini-boss, need for speed: undercover, speed























