My car sizzles along a highway, marginally evading interfering traffic in a thrilling freeway pursuit. A beautiful girl tells me my goal, and then I’m sitting in a vehicle as the pavement rushes beneath me. I’m playing Need for Speed Undercover, the latest of the popular racer series, due out in November of 2008.
“A lot of people liked [Need for Speed] Pro Street, and a lot of people didn’t, so we’re returning to the starting point of the series – back to the action, cop chases, and open world – everyone can be happy”
says Justin Oliveres of Electronic Arts while gracefully demonstrating a new mode called “highway battle.”
If EA wants to recover from Pro Street, go head to head with Midnight Club, and reassert dominance in the racing landscape, they need a story to go with the new gameplay. For the first time ever in Need for Speed you’ll play both sides of the law – burning rubber in police cruisers, undercover cop cars, and tuners. “We want to build a more sophisticated storyline. We’re going to have you playing an undercover cop infiltrating a criminal car smuggling ring,” Oliveres informs us.
And while I was quick to ask how they planned on integrating traditional racing with busting crime rings, Oliveres came back with, “You’ve got to race to build trust.”
With initial chat out of the way, I (quite literally) cut to the chase, and sat down in the molded car shell behind a screen and an Xbox 360 racing wheel for my chance to “highway battle.” The controls were somewhat overly responsive, but EA was quick to point out that this was an extremely early “pre-Alpha” build, and we’d see an increase in performance and handling come November.
The game carries a familiar Need for Speed aesthetic – the car models and city detailing are nice, while civilian traffic on the road doesn’t warrant any special praise graphically speaking. I raced across the finish line with flying colors, and stepped away, allowing someone else to test drive it.
With a demonstration out of the way, I posed one final question: “A cop can’t bust crime rings exclusively from behind the wheel; will we get to leave our car?” Oliveres pauses, “this is a racing game that takes place entirely in car.”
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