India Broadband Forum

ShAdOwCoN

Well i finally got some time to play this game ! . So here s a review .


Windows XP (Service Pack 2 or greater):
3.0 GHz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent
512 MB of RAM
DirectX 9.0c Compatible 3D accelerated 128 MB Video card or equivalent
(see section 8. for a list of supported video card chipsets)
8X speed DVD-ROM drive (Disc Users only)
DirectX 9.0c Compatible Sound Card
Broadband connection for online activation and online gameplay
MS compatible mouse
Keyboard


Intel G45 chipset
Nvidia Geforce 6600 to GTX 280
ATI Radeon 9500 series to HD 4800 series


Installation was smooth as usual . After installation it asks you to register and then you can start playing . The icon is a simple red symbol on a whit background .


Menu System
The menu system is very simplified and varies from its predecessor greatly . Another difference i noticed is that , now you can access all options in the gameplay menu itself .Pressing Esc during playing brings up the gameplay menu . Here you can change graphics , jump to a quick race , change Audio etc

One annoying thing i noticed is that it did not properly detect my display and there was a huge black bar on the left side of my screen . I had to set up my monitor using the in game wizard so that the display was corrected .

The game starts of with 2 Helicopters flying across a river Hollywood style . Then it shows some videos of a street racer chased by the police and before you know it you are dropped bang in the middle of that chase !

I liked the way it started off , The video Cutscenes are a good way of involving you in the story .

Acting

Maggie Q does a good job as Detective Chase Linh . Some of the Villains i saw initially were pretty cheesy . Like wannabe villains

Tunes
Well i really liked some of the tunes featured in game ... especially the melodious kind and the soft rocks . They fit perfectly into the game , and also do not interfere with the gameplay and are enjoyable.
But i thought some of the Rhymes [Hip-Hop tracks] sucked .
The tune you get after winning a cop chase is really good .

Sound efects in the game are very good .
Difficulty
Like everybody said this is one of the easiest NFS games . In the default difficulty level there is nothing even remotely challenging .
The cop chases seem to have the same difficulty level as that of Most Wanted

Racing Modes
Till the level i played i noticed only 2 different racing modes .
-->Outrun
-->Highway Battle
Both of these are very similar to the Canyon racing featured in NFS Carbon .
Outrun :- In this 2 racers start of , you behind the other . Your job is to outrace him and hold the lead for a few minutes continously.

Highway Battle mode :-In this mode you again start of in similar fashion , only difference is that you have to outrace the other and put a 100 Feet lead between you and him in Bumper view mode ! .

GamePlay
Initially i did not see any difference between Most Wanted and undercover in terms of Gameplay . But here sometimes you have to complete GTA style missions i.e Steal a car and delivar it to a Chop Shop without damaging it too much . Ofcourse you ll have to first loose the cops ! .

To the best of my knowledge damage does not effect Performance of the car like in Prostreet and you dont have to repair your car .
Customizing options for the car are very minimal and similar to NFS Carbon .

Graphics
Graphics is good . Nice Shiny cars and great City view . But its not as high as some of the recent games , just high enough to keep most happy .

Overall I thought it would have been better if they had named it "NFS Most Wanted 2" .
Its a good game , better than both carbon and ProStreet . Its not much of a challenge to seasoned gamers . But a great game for people who have nt played NFS before .

COST
This ones pretty Cheap ! . A month after its release it just costs rs 800-900 [depending on where you buy] PC DVD

harsham05

The version for the psp sucks. Its similar to most wanted.

newprouser

Does the game crash often for you. I found that after i completed certain particular matches , the car is shown in the garage and the game freezes.

Also sometimes the car gets stuck on the road no matter wat u do, it jus stays there, meanwhile other vehicles,police cars etc are normal while my car is stuck

harsham05

are u talking about the psp/comp version?

newprouser

i'm using the PC version. I was wondering if the problem was in me not using a Discrete GPU or with the game itself.

Evander Leopold

the demands a pretty advanced gpu, i cant even play it with full grafix on my 7600gt.

ShAdOwCoN

Actually there are 3 problems

--> For this card you do need one of the advanced recommended GPU .... Otherwise your car will freeze , and hang etc .... I think it ll happen to 6 series and 7 series cards as well

--> No 2 the game itself has some problem where by during the game the surroundings are not rendered fast enough so that some times , before you there will be nothing and suddenly roads will appear out of no where ...

As per some reviews this happens even when you have a GTX200 series card and is some problem in the game itself

--> No 3 Whenever you do Heroic moves , The game will freeze for a second and show everything in black .

Evander Leopold

hmmm, i m just waiting for a new card. then i shall finish this one. i cant believe that cod5 is giving me troubles when in full settings. the last one ( cod4 -- best in the series and one of the best pc games ever ) ran smoothly on my same pc in the highest settings.

thats_me

Just one thing ... This game is a highly polished version of NFS Most Wanted... atleast thats how I felt. Only I enjoyed NFS MW much more than this one...

ShAdOwCoN

Heres a clever one

I too felt like that , but with a difference

I thought this was highly polished version of NFS Underground 2 .... without the Police ofcourse

What i mean is that sometimes while racing [without the police] it felt very much like UG2 ...It was as if NFS Undercover was made using the UG Engine

But i am sure i am wrong

pushy

so whats the score u r willing to give to Undercover? out of 5 or 10 or 100?

i didn't play this game, but i head it's not scalable, like poor frame rate issues and all...

ShAdOwCoN

out of 10

Graphics - 1/2 [Lots a bugs]
Sound - 1/2 [Some good tracks]
Gameplay - 0.5/2 [Too easy and nothing significantly new from the previous versions]
Story - 0/2 [Was there a story ?]
Cost - 1/2 [Not bad]

so according to me it scores a 3.5/10

saurav_k

what are the different & new features of the game that were not in most wanted and carbon?

ShAdOwCoN

Nothing much

-> Highway battle mode [like canyon racing in carbon]

-> car stealing missions [ its just a police chase actually]

-> Neutralising opponents by bashing their car [this is the only different and fun mission]

But these missions are so few and far between that they dont make the game interesting

saurav_k

thanks for the info ...