The Need for Speed series has certainly seen a number of changes that shifted away from the hot pursuits of past games to the underground racing and tuning crowd that showed up in other racing games. After racing through open environments and competing in illegal street races, Need for Speed Undercover for the PSP places you on the side of the law in a game but, unfortunately, it just isn’t as exciting as it sounds.

Like past portable versions of the recent Need for Speed games, Undercover skips out on the open world exploration aspect and concentrates only on the racing events during the game’s Career mode. There’s also a something of a story that places you in the role of an undercover cop sent into infiltrating the illegal racing scene under the orders of your attractive boss - played in live-action footage by Maggie Q (from Mission Impossible III and Die Hard). As a skilled driver, you attempt to make a name for yourself in hopes of being your intended target’s wheelman.

The story does sound exciting but falls apart rather quickly on the PSP seeing as your career as an undercover cop doesn’t get any deeper than just a few cut scenes and various messages from your boss. Still, we’re not racing game fans for the stories and the most disappointing part about this version - aside from no exploration or random street races - is that the races are introduces via a menu screen. How boring is that?

Via the map menu screen, you dominate the map little by little by taking on a specific area’s racing events. You start Career mode by purchasing your car and racing it in an assortment of racing events for money you can use to buy a faster vehicle. You’ll earn Style points for performing heroic students like near misses with oncoming traffic or slipping in-between racing opponents. The racing events do change but most of them have similar goals where you attempt to win the lead from other racers or just one of them. The basic racing events will be familiar to Need for Speed fans such as Circuit, Checkpoint, Lap Knockout and Sprint. Highway Battle and Outrun do involve something of an open world road but even then it’s very limited.

The more exciting races come in the form of the Wanted Events, the Boss Races and the Driver Jobs. In the Wanted Events, you’ll find such interesting race events such as Escape (elude the cops), Cost to State (gain points by causing collateral damage) and Cop Take Out (where you destroy cop cars). The Boss Races include Chasedown where you chase down and destroy a boss car before the boss’ thugs get to you. The Driver Jobs contain events such as Hot Car (where you attempt to take a stolen car to a client without a single dent on it) and Be The Cop (you race a fast squad car to take down crime lords).

Aside from Career Mode, the game also includes Instant Race and Quick Race events that allow you to test out any of the racing event on your own or with up to four players offline or online vial Infrastructure mode. The problem with Undercover is that it recycles the race events throughout your quest to take over sections of the big city. On top of that, the single-player opponent AI is really dumb. You won’t be able to count how many times in a race a rival slams into oncoming traffic. Even bosses and cops tend to crash into barriers and traffic so don’t expect much of a challenge from them either. Lastly, the game is just plain boring.  

Visually, Undercover is also disappointing seeing as the PSP could certainly do better than this and other Need for Speed games on Sony’s handheld looked really good. The backgrounds really stand out nicely in the game so you’re not always looking at the same thing as you race but the car models aren’t as sexy as they should. The jaggies you’ll find in Undercover give the game its dated appearance and that’s really too bad since the game handles speed well and the live-action cut scenes are smooth.

There’s a good soundtrack in the game that’s underutilized. You’ll find an eclectic collection of music from a number of artists and the song selection is good enough that you’d wish you could hear it more during races. The sound effects are standard stuff and isn’t bad at all. There’s some voice acting in this with the stronger performance, naturally, going to Maggie Q. The unfortunate part is that oftentimes you will be briefed minus her voice. Why have a decent actor in a starring role and not use her voice for every briefing? 

Unlike past games in the series, Need for Speed Undercover for the PSP simply isn’t exciting enough to keep racing fans enjoying speeding through these streets. While there are a number of racing events found here, they are hurt by a number of issues that keep this game stuck on the lowest gear. Sorry, EA, but this Need for Speed game is one we will be skipping altogether.

Gameplay: 5.2
There’s a story here but it falls apart rather quickly to the point that you don’t care why you became a wheelman. The controls make the cars feel a tad awkward and stiff at times, which is too bad since there are a nice number of racing events.

Graphics: 6.5
The game’s graphics aren’t bad but the PSP could definitely handle it a lot better than this. While the backgrounds are nice, the car models contain a lot of jaggies and look rather on the plain side.

Sound: 7.0
There’s a strong collection of tunes in this game to the point you’ll wish they used it more during the races. The sound effects work nicely and what little voice acting there is in the game is handled well by actor Maggie Q.

Difficulty: Easy/Medium
Why bother going undercover when your opponents are dumb enough to expose themselves by ramming into oncoming traffic during every race? You won’t find much of a challenge in the single-player game, trust me.

Concept: 5.5
The PSP version of the game contains the same story from the console version of the game and that’s fine but there’s very little that makes you feel you’re part of the story to begin with and yes that’s Maggie Q in the cut scenes. There’s no exploration of the city like in past Need for Speed games and that just plains hurts.

Multiplayer: 6.5
You can race up to four players online via Infrastructure mode and, thankfully, the game does run smoothly. It certainly makes up for the awful AI-controlled opponents from the single-player game.

Overall: 5.2
Quite possibly one of the weakest entries in the Need for Speed franchise, Undercover for the PSP is an unexciting racing game with very little to offer longtime fans of the series. Sure, there are plenty of cool cars and hot pursuits, but they mean little when AI is poor and the races are recycled throughout the game.