[Multiplatform] Need For Speed: Underboob

After the rather disasterous Pro Street EA are returning to more familiar territory with the next entry in the Need For Speed series, Need For Speed: Undercover.

Joystiq have a hands-on online (here), and with a strong story element, cop chases, FMV (featuring Maggie Q) and traffic back it sounds like Most Wanted in feel:

Quote:

At this point, Need For Speed Undercover feels like Need For Speed: Most Wanted with a new paint job. With EA itself admitting a focus on story in this game, we can only hope that a rewarding gameplay experience doesn't simply become an epilogue.

Personally I'd say that's no bad thing, as Most Wanted was the first game in the series I'd played in a long time and one I thoroughly enjoyed. This is one I will certainly keep an eye on, and if it's a proper return to the fun cop-chase style of Most Wanted then it's one I'll be quite willing to splash cash on.

Trailer:

YouTube Video

Anyone else interested, or excited, by the prospect of this? Or do you think it's time for the Need For Speed games to take a break?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Shin

This can't be any worse than Pro-Street though which was the most boring demo I think I ever played.

So very true. I couldn't believe they could take the driving systems from the previous NfS games and make them feel so sedate.

Originally Posted by Shin

If this uses a free roaming thing like Burnout Paradise then I definitely won't buy it. Some people like driving up and down every road on teh map to find all the events and enjoy having the opportunity to take wrong turns during a race but personally I don't. I'd rather have a list of races to choose from and a fairly clear-cut route of how to get there laid out.

I would be very surprised if the it didn't implement free-roaming in the same way Most Wanted and Carbon did, optional ways to get around and play with, but could be completely avoided with the in-game menu system, and with races locked to particular courses. Burnout already has the complete free-roam territory locked down, there'd be no point trying to challenge them for it (unless you weren't all there in the head).

I disagree that racing games have no-where to go, I would argue that racing games have pushed themselves into fairly narrow categories and there's plenty of room to expand and play. GRID does a decent job of making races feel competitive, but there's still big holes in its AI, and there's massive scope for improvement on that front. GRID also tries to manufacture a team feel, but it's slight half-arsed really and could be improved on hugely (I've yet to play a racing game that provides me with even a decent seasonal 'career' mode that makes me feel like I'm a proper rookie driver arriving on the scene, being hired by a team, being head-hunted, working up to owning a team if you like, etc).

Again, GRID provides a small dose of destruction derby racing, but we don't have anything that really fits that category any more. You could argue Burnout, but I'm talking classic PlayStation Destruction Derby style stock car races. We've not had anything like a great Micromachines game (OK, there might have been crappy attempts, but nothing good). Rally games are another area that have faded recently, with the most recent rally titles having watered down the core idea and almost seem embarrassed to offer the full rally stage type experience.

I've perhaps not given the best examples, but my rough point is that there's plenty of room to expand, even within the realms of what has gone before, so I think there's plenty of scope in racing genre, it just requires designers with a bit of vision and a publisher brave enough to give it a shot.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Shin

YIt's not perfect by any means (Ridiculous rubber-banding, designed to keep you scrapping all the way round but really annoying on the Le-Mans track where you just can't catch back up yourself if you fuck up and a tendency to ignore you when you brake in front of them) but it's in a whole different league to everything else out there at the moment.

Nailed on the head. There are holes in GRID's AI, definitely (I've found most issue with how your team mate actively works against you sometimes), but it's leaps and bounds ahead of any other racing game I've played. To their credit Codies have made a racing game where it feels like a proper race is taking place, the AI feels challenging, but yet is fallible.

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