Serious Speed, Undercover Style

Need For Speed comes to Windows Phone 7 with Need For Speed: Undercover. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I first saw this on the Marketplace, but I went ahead and downloaded it to give it a go and see how it drives. The first thing I noticed was the intro and subsequent cut scenes are live action with actors you might just recognize, not that I could give you names of the bat!

The story revolves around you, a driver, hired to infiltrate various gangs by earning their trust with your racing skills. Once inside, you help take them down. The graphics of the actual gameplay are smooth and good looking as you can see in the screen shot to the left. This looks like a high quality racing game, not Forza realistic but very nice indeed. The soundtrack is a good blend as it doesn’t distract, but we know it’s there and the sound effects are high quality as well. 

But what of the controls? Well to put it plainly it using the accelerometer for steering and gestures for everything from braking to nitro as well as pausing the game. Drifting however requires you to nudge up in the direction you are turning, again using the accelerometer. Surprising simple and still fun, the controls work as they should and are very accurate.

As you race the game feels and responds to the way you drive. If you start driving on the shoulder you will slow down. It seems to reward you for driving skills, not just reaching the finish line. And then the finish, which gives us some earned cash to buy and upgrade the cars or we can sell. The over world map lets you choose your race and see your progression. We also have several race types from demolition with the Cops chasing you to the standard race to be first.

All in all, I was very pleases with the quality of the game and the easy, but still requiring skill, controls. And let’s not forget the achievements are there! That is always a plus on WP7 with Xbox Live on the go. I can safely say that if you are hardcore or casual racing gamer, you’ll enjoy Need For Speed: Undercover.