Need For Speed: Undercover - Reception

Reception

Need for Speed: Undercover was met with mixed reviews. Aggregating review websites GameRankings and Metacritic gave the Xbox 360 version 64.58% and 64/100, the PlayStation 3 version 62.66% and 59/100, the PC version 61.70% and 65/100, the Nintendo DS version 58.20% and 59/100, the PlayStation 2 version 58.00% the Wii version 53.92% and 54/100, and the PlayStation Portable version 50.50% and 52/100. There were complaints about the game's easy difficulty, repetitiveness, and poor texture maintenance. One reviewer went as far as recommending the game's rivals such as Rockstar Games' Midnight Club: Los Angeles and EA's own Burnout Paradise.

The IGN review was critical of the PS3 version of Undercover giving it a 4/10, calling it a "poor game with a ton of problems" and with "practically no redeeming qualities". IGN also commented on how the reason for having an open world environment was lost because a player could only start an event from the map. However, the Xbox 360 and the PC versions received a higher score in contrast to the PS3 version in the IGN review, due to the fewer severe problems that occurred.

The 1UP.com review called the game only "fairly successful," but praised the games selection of cars and tighter handling on the vehicles. However, the "leveling" system that unlocks cars and upgrades was criticized for resembling "grinding".

In general, sparse traffic, wide-open roads, and poor AI led to complaints about extremely low difficulty, however, one reviewer commented on how this may have been a marketing ploy to target a wider audience.

The reception to the live-action cut scenes was almost universally negative, with many critics noting that the videos were poorly acted and lacked purpose. Many have even compared the cut scenes to a "Michael Bay or Roland Emmerich film". The lack of connection between the crime fighting undercover cop story and the racing game play was particularly criticized by IGN who said, "You ... run missions where you steal cars, make 'special' deliveries and things like this now and again, but you never actually see any sequences that show how the cops are putting the evidence together or anything of that sort. Chase Linh will tell you you need to do to get on the inside of a racing group in order to get dirt on them, and then after a race she'll say 'We have enough, let's move in.' " Finally, the in-game frame rate received little praise, and GameSpot particularly criticized the PS3 version for this problem resulting in a lower score on the platform compared to the Xbox 360 and PC versions.