Joystiq hands-on: Need For Speed Undercover

Call us old fashioned, but we're just a little more interested in how EA's next Need For Speed will stack up as a gameplay experience than a Hollywood movie starring Maggie Q. (No offense, miss, er, Q.) So celebutaunts and FMV (okay, HD FMV) aside, the demo of the game we got behind the wheel of is surprisingly ... a racing game with cop chases.

Mind you, it's very pretty, with HDR lighting and a nice healthy framerate to, dare we say, satiate one's need for speed. To that end, one of the three challenge types we played – Highway Battle – was an all-out drag race through heavy freeway traffic, the goal of which being to get far enough to your opponent that they "fail out." It was a rush, and showcased the ease of control EA is aiming for with Undercover's cars (read: we didn't crash nearly as much as we'd expected to), but it was over all too quickly.

"During our demo, we heard the phrase 'out with the neon' multiple times."

Next up, we got to prowl around an open-world downtown environment with the goal of finding a body shop. Now, it should be noted that in terms of sheer aesthetics, EA says it is taking a more "mature" approach to Undercover. During our demo, we heard the phrase "out with the neon" multiple times. A brief spin with the car customization tool squelched our fear that there would be less tweaking to be had in this game; appearance and performance mods were there in full effect. The one area that could be considered more "mature" was the paint shop, where there was an emphasis on less gaudy colors and a very hoity-toity showroom feel.

Getting to the body shop meant outrunning police who obviously weren't in on the fact that we were "undercover." Ditching them proved to be extremely easy – some simply spun out for no apparent reason – with EA quick to interject with the clichéd "it's early, we're working on it" line.

"Traffic just bounced out of the way, with an occasional hood popping open here and there."

The final mode we tried out was a Sprint – a point-to-point race against several other cars. Unlike the races and chases we'd participated in previously, which had taken place on perpetually wet surface streets, a good deal of this run was on a dirt road. It offered more opportunities to weave between cars (using a time-slowing mechanic to pull said maneuvers off flawlessly) and watch others crash and smash into hundreds of little pieces whilst trying to do the same. Here the car damage was more consistent; in the earlier Highway Battle, only our car and our opponents' smashed up nicely. The rest of the traffic just bounced out of the way, with an occasional hood popping open here and there.

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.