EA has been pretty clear that Need for Speed Undercover is more of a
spiritual successor to Most Wanted than a follow-up to last year's
iteration, ProStreet. It has brought back police pursuits, but it's
also bringing the series up to date with what it claims will be an
expansive open world and a deeper story mode, complete with a lead
character who gains experience along the way.

Undercover takes place in three distinct cities in the fictional
Tri-City Bay. Gold Coast Mountain, Sunset Hills, and Palm Harbor will
offer three different regions to explore, and all of them are
accessible from a main interstate highway. To give you an idea of the
size of the world, the game's developers at EA Black Box said it would
take eight minutes to navigate across at top speed, and 160km of
drivable roads are available. Black Box is working on a streaming world
that loads as needed, and with the main menu also loaded into the world
(appearing as a pop-up) there will be no breaks from the action, unless
you're jumping online for a race against friends. Xbox Live and
PlayStation Network will be supported, but there is no local
split-screen multiplayer. In addition to embarking on missions, you'll
be able to free-roam around Tri-City Bay as much as you like, and at
any time you can bring up your GPS device to jump directly into races,
sprints, highway battles, and pursuits.

While we still haven't seen much of the storyline, EA revealed that a character played by Hollywood actress Maggie Q (Mission Impossible III, Die Hard 4.0)
will recruit you as a federal officer at the beginning of the game to
help bust an underground car-smuggling operation. You'll gradually
infiltrate the crime syndicate, building on your reputation as you
climb the ranks by taking jobs. This is where Undercover gets its name:
You'll have to complete your jobs while facing off against cops, using
them as your foil in the process. Some of the cutscene cinematics look
top-notch, and hopefully the story will be just as solid--it's unusual
to see developers go to this length to include a storyline in a racing
game. EA has used a photographic technique known as magic hour (used in
movies such as Transformers and 300) to film some of
Undercover's cutscenes, giving it a warm, soft "late in the afternoon"
visual tone. The in-game world will also cut straight to full-motion
video, with the world being rendered behind the FMV, which is designed
to increase the seamless feel.

We tried out a new game mode called Highway Battle on a stretch
of the Southeast I-20. Essentially a point-to-point race against other
street racers with the goal to win by 1,000ft (305m), this particular
challenge is one of the easier tasks early on in the game, with only
some light traffic to navigate around. A nifty onscreen meter will show
you how far behind or ahead of the pack you are, and once your car
reaches the top of the meter, you'll have completed the challenge.
Variable traffic in Undercover means you shouldn't experience the same
race twice. Vehicles will indicate when they're changing lanes and will
vary their speed, so you'll need to keep an eye on the surrounding
traffic. You'll also be able to draft behind other vehicles, but
getting too close may result in a high-speed collision, bringing your
race to a quick halt. You can use vehicles to create havoc for
opponents and police, by creating pileups and accidents. Damage
modelling will also be part of the game, and the team is working on
improvements over ProStreet.

Pursuit mode looks like it will be just as thrilling as the
highway battles. The object of the challenge we played, dubbed Grand
Theft 5-0, was to steal a cop car from a police station carpark and
evade the pursuing officers in the process of taking it to a garage.
The chase takes place in Sunset Hills, which has a more industrial feel
than the other areas, complete with warehouses and derelict land. While
this race wasn't too difficult, we were told that police AI will
increase as the story continues, forcing you to become more adventurous
as you progress. Like in the highway battles, you'll have an onscreen
meter showing your distance from your competition, and you'll need to
gain a sizable lead before you can escape. Not content to merely chase
you, cop cars will also ram your vehicle and set up barricades,
although we didn't see any spike strips deployed as they were in the
Need for Speed games of yesteryear.

Because you're stealing a vehicle for commercial interest, you'll need
to make sure you don't damage it too much during the sprint. While you
need to keep your vehicle looking tip-top, you can earn extra points
for causing damage to public property--the greater the damage to police
cars and council property, the better. If you get busted, an amusing
cutscene will be triggered, showing you trying to escape the clutches
of the fuzz, with a look almost straight out of Cops, complete with a blurred face.

EA considers Undercover to be a more contemporary look at car culture
than previous games, and it includes a wide range of exotic European
imports, including Porsche, Jaguar, and Audi. The approach was summed
up by the game's producer, who said, "Neon is dead; the bat machine is
in." While the game--and real-world car culture--may be maturing from
green neon and dragon decals, car customisation will still be included,
and you'll be able to makes changes to car body parts, such as wings
and bonnets, and add paint jobs, nonstandard parts, and vinyl--all
available for the different manufacturers featured in the game.

Need for Speed Undercover looks like a fresh and interesting
direction for the franchise, retaining the white-knuckle action
expected of the series while adding open-world, cinematic cutsences and
beautifully detailed European imports (complete with damage modelling)
to the mix. Stay tuned to GameSpot for more in the run-up to
Undercover's November 21 European release (the game will launch on
November 17 in the US).