Young Blog 5

Need for Speed: Undercover is the twelfth installment of the popular racing video game series Need for Speed, developed by EA Black Box and published by Electronic Arts. It is set for release on the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo DS, Wii, Windows, PlayStation Portable, iPhone and mobile phone on 18 November 2008

Development

The game will feature international movie star, Maggie Q , as detective Chase Linh, one of the lead characters of the game. The live-action sequences from Carbon and Most Wanted will return in Undercover. Police chases from previous installments will also return, as well a new Highway Battle mode.

Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello has stated that the previous release in the series, ProStreet, was "an okay game... It's not good." and that Undercover will bring better innovations and gameplay. He has stated Undercover has a considerably longer development cycle than its predecessors since the Need for Speed development team is now split up into two teams, both of which will work on a 24 month development cycle with future titles, alternating releases between them. Riccitiello has stated he was "torturing" the development team with a tight development cycle in the past. When this change was implemented in mid-summer 2007, one team started working on Undercover (giving it only a 16.5 month development cycle), while the other team finished ProStreet and then started working on the next title. Riccitiello also stated Undercover is taking inspiration from action films such as The Transporter, with a large embedded narrative.

Frank Gibeau (president of the EA Games label) has stated that due to the fact that the sales of ProStreet didn't live up to EA's hopes for the game, the Need for Speed franchise will go back to its roots.

John Doyle (developer at EA Black Box) has hinted Undercover will feature a brand new game mechanic and a "Most Wanted-ish" sandbox style of gameplay.

Plot

Little is known about the plot. The game's story mode sets the player in the story as a police officer going undercover into the criminal underground of Tri-city, a fictional city where the game is set. The player's only contact to the police is Chase Linh, played by Maggie Q.

Police

Little information has been released about Undercover's police system, but it has been confirmed by EA that the police vehicles will include helicopters.[more...]