The Need for Speed series has been around for a very long time, and has constantly switched directions to keep people coming back. Need for Speed: Most Wanted, which hit stores in 2005, was viewed as a high point in the series as it brought high-speed police pursuits into the open-world racer. The latest entry, Need for Speed: Undercover, attempts to build upon what worked in Most Wanted and is fairly successful, but also introduces a number of speed bumps along the way.

Undercover casts you in the role of a police officer posing as a member of an underground street racing crime syndicate that hopes to take down the major criminal players from the inside. The story in the game is very jumpy and poorly planned out, yet is presented well via live-action cutscenes that are shown before certain missions. These videos feature some awful acting and clichéd plot twists, but can be greatly enjoyed if you are a B-movie aficionado.

The missions of the game are divided into two categories: free and story. The free missions are the basic race, chase, and takedown missions that net you the experience and money that you will need to further your progress and upgrade your vehicles. The story missions advance the plot, open up new areas, and usually contain a bit more variety than the free missions. The types of free and story missions that you will encounter are a mix of traditional racing and unique objective-based modes that focus on the police chases. The latter are far more entertaining, as they have you taking out cop cars and damaging property around the city while you try and evade capture.

The main problem with the free missions is that there are only six different types of them spread out across the entire game. What is fun early on quickly grows tedious and boring, as nothing really changes about these no matter how far you get. You aren’t forced to complete every free mission available on the map, but you will have to complete enough of them to unlock future story missions and earn skill points to better your driving. Story missions are generally more interesting than free, as they sometimes include additional goals like boss fights that have you slamming into a specific car enough times to disable it or transporter missions that have you moving packages and stolen vehicles from one side of the map to the other.

While the racing action is fun, Need for Speed: Undercover is at its best when you are in a police chase. The cops will send everything they have at you, from spike strips to helicopters, and you have to maintain control of your car while staying clear of the various traps laid in your path. To help you a bit, the city map has a number of environmental hazard zones placed strategically around the game world, and blowing through one of these will cause a mess that can take out any cops who are on your tail. These hazards, which include construction vehicles that can be knocked over, gas stations that can be detonated, and water towers that can be dropped onto the road, become your only means of escape in many cases, as the cops will try and bash you, flip your car, and fish-tail your vehicle into the guardrails until they either corner you or lose sight of your car.