KMGR of "Need for Speed: Undercover"

IMHO, NFS:Undercover Mobile has completely ruined the premise of the game. There's no intro about you're working undercover. You're just a generic racer, with this chick giving you info on what races you've unlocked and maybe a tip or two before the race.

At least the graphics are impressive... The cars are more impressive than its nearest rival: Fast and Furious: Pink Slip. However, the streets aren't quite as good.

You basically start with a crappy car: The VW Golf R32, a decent boy racer, but not exactly in the same league cars as Porsche 911 or Nissan GT-R R35... You race through six districts in a variety of races: circuits, knockout circuits, sprints, take out the cops, speed camera, and new to the series... highway battle. The idea is you get ahead of the other guy and get ahead by more than 50 yards.

Oh, only first place counts. However, you can restart or redo any race you wish. If you win, you can replay the race later, with any car, but the winnings will be MUCH less.

As a result of that, you can only get maybe 3 cars and fully outfit them when you play through all districts, but there are like 8 cars in the game. (Hint: get the Nissans and you'll be fine)

Game relies a LOT of nitro and proper application thereof. There's some drifting, but drifting at speed in traffic is suicide. Also, the game double mapped the action button... in straights the OK button activates "bullet time". In curves it activates "drift balance", like NFS:ProStreet. So the wrong thing always gets activated at the wrong time. (Argh!) Personally, I'd forget about drifting altogether. (Won without drifting at all) Save the nitro for near the end, except you don't know where the end is, as there's no "progress indicator"! (Unlike F&F:PS)

However, driving feel is excellent, and the roads are long, and scenary is excellent from district to district. With F&F:PS the different areas look alike, just different portions and different times of day. The different amount of nitro does make a difference, as with Nitro you can probably hit 250+ miles, essential for speed cams and such top speed runs.

All in all, NFS:Undercover is just another racer, as the new mode was already on the PC version of NFS:Carbon as "mountain battle" (inspired by Initial D's "Touge Battles") And there's no "plot" at all. In fact, you're told to 'continue the mission with the console or the PC version'. Argh! It's nothing special, and while visually impressive, it's nonetheless NOT a winner.

Overall rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: good cars, great graphics, lots of road racing in traffic, upgrades
Cons: some races very hard, nothing really new here at all