nfs undercover - an honest review

I am a pretty big fan of the need for speed series, right from nfs (the one
that runs in DOS, 1995). I enjoyed nfs carbon a while back. I briefly tried
pro-street, but felt that the nfs concept was dead in it. If this weren't a
failure, why would EA go back to the illegal street-racing theme for
nfs undercover??

So how is nfs undercover?? It is a load of utter crap!!! If you are thinking
of spending money on it, please don't. If you are thinking of pirating it,
please don't. Save yourself the time and effort and play Burnout instead.

I have been trying to find something I like in this edition of nfs.. really
tough i say.. Lets start with the graphics. Undercover sports a new
graphics engine. Things look like a pile of cow-dung with graffiti spray
paint on it. If you have never seen a car racing game, it will blow your
socks off. For the rest of us, its an annoying game!! It looks plastic!!
It looks fake!! Its crammed with specular highlights, blurs and lotsa
gaudy crap!! Its so bright that you can barely see your car, leave alone
the road in front. It blows effects onto your face at a speed that even
an eagle can't catch up. Why all this.. even the GPS map is shiny..
you cant see where you are headed because the map also has a glare!!
Everything in the game seems to be painted with the brightest,
obnoxious shade available within the laws of physics.
Ramarajan getup e paravaa illai nu thonum!!

Despite all this shock n awe, the game is ugly. Buildings look like they ve
been built by a 5 year old using some lego kit. Everything looks plastic..
as if they ve all been downloaded from some free website with 3d studio
max models.

And now, about the physics and handling. There's none!! The very first
nfs had better sense of these. Cars are as responsive as bricks. The Lotus
Elise, which is a very nimble and aggressive car in reality, handles like a
Ford Mustang. It takes eons to accelerate, has an awful tendency to skid
and oversteer. I have seen wet soaps thrown in the shower that had better
handling than most cars. I guess the upside is that the Mustang handles
better in the game than real life. Now, I know that nfs had ditched the
concept of racing simulation long ago and had concentrated on arcade
style racing instead, but why does that have to mean physics from an
early 90's arcade game?? Just let an opponent bang you from the back,
and he will drag you wherever he goes.

Add to this, the fact that everything that isn't a car whizzes past you at a
million miles per hour. All the menus, transitions look like they ve been
drawn in EGA graphics!! Its ugly as hell.. The menu system is illogical.
You have to start a game before you can change even the basic setting as
resolution. This means, you have to sit through the crappy intro movie and
the stupid intro drive before you can change anything. The icing on top of
the cake is the fact that you cant change your name from 'player' to
anything else!!

This brings me neatly on to the story of the game. If you can imagine a
even dumber version of Fast and the Furious, which personally I cannot.
EA managed to pull it off. They paid a lot of money to maggie q to 'act'
and make it even bigger n real. The full-motion cut scenes are amazingly
stupid and add absolutely nothing to the story. Oh ya.. these scenes cant
be skipped. Because they are sooo cool, you never wanna miss them.

It seemed as if there were 5-6 teams who developed different things in
the game and none of them communicated with each other. They just
made their piece of the cake and some final team just slapped everything
together and sent it for shipping. There's no style, no substance, no
coherence in the game. Nothing holds the concepts together.
Enamo 'dasavatharam' patha mari irunthuthu!!

Nfs Undercover.. this had better remained under the covers!!!