Need for Speed: Undercover (2008)
PC (Microsoft Windows) · PlayStation 3 · Xbox 360
2.91 from 740 ratings
1902 members have it in their collection · 22 playing now · 338 backlogged · 110 wish listed
How long? Main story 30h · with extras 15h (from 3 logged playthroughs)
The Need for Speed series got another dose of Hollywood magic with the release of Undercover. Take on jobs and compete in races to prove yourself as you infiltrate and take down an international crime syndicate.
As you win each race, you’ll go deeper into the underworld web that rules Tri-City… and then tear it apart right under their noses. …
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The Need for Speed series got another dose of Hollywood magic with the release of Undercover. Take on jobs and compete in races to prove yourself as you infiltrate and take down an international crime syndicate.
As you win each race, you’ll go deeper into the underworld web that rules Tri-City… and then tear it apart right under their noses. You make the calls, but don’t break your cover: inside the car or out of it, one mistake here could be your last.
Read less
Details
- Developers
- EA Black Box
- Publishers
- Electronic Arts
- Genres
- Arcade, Racing
- Themes
- Action, Open world
- Franchises
- Need for Speed
- Series
- Need for Speed
- Events
- EA E3 2008 Press Conference, Xbox 360 E308 Media Briefing
- Steam
- View on Steam
Release dates
- Nov 18, 2008 (Full Release) (North_America) PC (Microsoft Windows), PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
- Nov 20, 2008 (Full Release) (Australia) PC (Microsoft Windows), PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
- Nov 21, 2008 (Full Release) (Europe) PC (Microsoft Windows), PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
- Dec 18, 2008 (Full Release) (Japan) PC (Microsoft Windows), PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
Also available on
- Need for Speed: Undercover (2008) · Wii
- Need for Speed: Undercover (2008) · DS
- Need for Speed: Undercover (2008) · PS2
- Need for Speed: Undercover (2008) · PSP
- Need for Speed: Undercover (2009) · blackberry, WP, iOS
Featured in lists
Rating distribution
5 stars
48
4 stars
131
3 stars
315
2 stars
197
1 star
49
Community All Reviews Statuses
Review whalee 3/5 · Nov 12, 2022
Nostalgia City
Wasn't as good as Underground 2 and had a generic ass story but damn it was enjoyable.
I haven't played an arcade style driving game in a long while and it was quite fun to do it again, will have to give more a go.
Status 112percent Aug 12, 2022
Completion Status:
Finished every event in the game.
Review Haxiel 2/5 · Aug 8, 2019
An evolutionary misstep
Undercover is the 12th installment in the Need For Speed franchise. In terms of gameplay, it attempts to follow the open-world, story-driven installments that came before, such as Underground 2, Most Wanted (2005), and Carbon.
The core gameplay of Undercover is unsatisfying. Cars barely have a sense of weight, and you can make tight, 180 degree turns …
Undercover is the 12th installment in the Need For Speed franchise. In terms of gameplay, it attempts to follow the open-world, story-driven installments that came before, such as Underground 2, Most Wanted (2005), and Carbon.
The core gameplay of Undercover is unsatisfying. Cars barely have a sense of weight, and you can make tight, 180 degree turns at more than 200 kmph without even applying the brakes. There is a decent selection of cars, but some grinding is required to purchase the cars and their upgrades. Races in an area tend to be repetitive because the track sections are reused. The police events are too simplistic and offer no challenge, even at higher heat levels.
The interface of the game is also rather awkward. Events are launched from the map, which takes away any motivation for free roaming. Cars are classified into tiers, but they're displayed in the store as one big list and sorted by geography (which is irrelevant to the game). The mini-map is essential when playing through some events, but it has poor visibility and shows very limited information.
Visually, Undercover is a mess. Saturated colors, a yellowish tint, and ridiculous levels of bloom combine in a way that's simply unpleasant to look at. It's possible to use mods to disable all of this (as I did), but that exposes the underlying textures of the world - which look pretty bad on their own.
There's an overarching story here about going undercover as a wheelman, but it's nothing remarkable. All the drama in the story does not translate over to the gameplay. If you fail a job, you simply get a pop-up screen from where you can restart that event. This approach removes any kind of stakes from the player's side, and the story falls flat as a result.
In summary, Undercover feels like a fumbled opportunity. There's some fun to be had in driving a high-speed sports car around a big map, but that's about it. Personally, the only thing I could really appreciate from this game were the 'master' racing events, since they offered some of the tense, white-knuckle moments I expect from a racing game.
Status Intervigilium Mar 21, 2016
Una copia muy pobre del muy superior most wanted (al mejor estilo de EA), si bien posee un nivel grafico superior al de sus antesesores la interfaz carece de algunas de las funcionalidades que ofrecia en juegos anteriores, la IA es pobre y deja mucho que desear, poca innovacion en los modos de juego y la re-re-repetividad de la historia.