We all know how 'undercover' storylines go; a young rookie cop with an unblemished record is sent to infiltrate a gang, usually associated with armed robbery, with the intention of finding evidence to finally bring the criminals to justice - but one of the gang is a young, attractive female who pulls on the heart strings of our inexperienced mole and, before you know it, he's in too deep and the entire mission is compromised. It isn't too long before the leader of the gang, in most cases the ex-boyfriend of our main character's love interest, gets wise to the situation and it all ends in the final 'big job' that puts the young cop's conscience to the ultimate test. I know what you're thinking - "what are you doing writing for possibly the finest online games magazine on the planet when you could be writing multi-million pound scripts in Hollyweird?" Well, the answer is simple; my talents lie in playing some wonderful, and some simply dreadful, videogames and then telling you about them in an entirely nonsensical way.

By my count, Need for Speed: Undercover is the sixteenth iteration since the series' inception in 1994 at the hands of a relatively rookie Canadian games company called Electronic Arts - and my how things have developed since its grainy debut on the SEGA Saturn to the ever-increasingly realistic graphics made available by high definition gaming. The opening credits are a shining example of this progression, with the opening shot of an impressive flight over a glistening sea to the city that will become our home for the forseable future. The music can be found at the beginning of any Steven Seagal movie but it all adds to the action movie feel of this title.

In typical Need for Speed style, you're thrust straight into the driving seat as you try to outrun the local constabulary. Unfortunately, this jump into the action is so swift that I expected Al to appear in my rear-view mirror, reading me information about my whereabouts from his computerised friend Ziggy (if you haven't seen Quantum Leap then you probably haven't lived). Nevertheless, it is near impossible to fail in your mission to evade capture and, after a short pursuit, you plough through a roadblock in an impressive cinematic sequence and the game begins.

Need for Speed's sandbox style is pretty much a given for the series by now and while competing in races around the available area is the quickest way to earn new cars, accumulate money and progress the storyline, you can also cruise round the city's awe-inspiring streets and take in the equally impressive skylines. Near misses with oncoming traffic, evading police capture and other illegal activities even boost your income, albeit by a small amount. Dotted around the map are events that pit you against other street racers, which earn you a lot more paper, as well as offering the opportunity to enhance your driving skills. There are traditional circuits as well as sprints across town, both synonymous with the EA series; but on top of these, there are outruns, which involve a race with a maximum time set between two racing vehicles, the winner being the first driver to be in front for said time. Equally as enjoyable are the highway battles, involving intense weaving through slow moving traffic, the goal being to get a certain distance ahead of your competitor.

Completing these events opens up other sections of the map, giving you the chance to add percentage points to your profile, which is made up of a combination of different driving skills. To keep things flowing, the story kicks back in regularly, often with your attractive boss (played by Maggie Q) telling you that a race involving someone they would like you to get closer to will be starting across town, or something like that - I wasn't really paying attention. Most of these races involve a cut scene beforehand, many of which star none other than Christina Milian, a star of the magnitude that Need for Speed has frequently managed to offer over the years.

The controls feel incredibly accurate and shifting over to manual gear change turns this title into one of the finest driving simulators available. However, whether or not this is a good thing is debatable, as the speed of the game is both amazing and frustrating at the same time; shortly after receiving my first upgrade, I found myself battling to react in time due to the intense change in speed - and I found that crashing isn't nearly as entertaining as one would want from a videogame. Hitting vehicles, walls and anything else that crosses your path doesn't create the spectacular crashes that games like GTA and Burnout provide; the kind that remind you what it was like to flick onto the grand prix as a youngster and the joy that came from seeing cars flip into the air, showering bits of debris across the track. With that said, EA's most famous racing series isn't aimed entirely at those who come for thrills and spills; instead, it attempts to capture the skill involved in flying along at high speeds and picking your moments to edge those few millimetres ahead of your opponent to snatch victory. It does this brilliantly, which is why the inclusion of the ability to be awarded domination bonuses (achieved by beating a certain time for each event) seems like a step in the opposite direction.

Of course, Need for Speed wouldn't be Need for Speed without the ability to alter the performance and appearance of your vehicle. Bizarrely however, very little attention seems to have been paid to this area; while you can upgrade all the usual car features, such as acceleration, nitrous, handling, brakes etc., the whole aspect of customising your vehicle's appearance no longer features, something that individuals like myself crave and that is sure to be a controversial decision for many fans of the series.

All is not lost though, thanks to some awesome graphics, an enticing storyline and a typically well-chosen soundtrack that sits perfectly with the roar of the engines. Surely taking all this online would be a venture that someone with EA's experience could not fail with - but, again surprisingly, there's a lot of disappointment involved. The playing lounges are usually relatively busy but you're limited to a choice of circuit and sprint races found in the single player mode. The only really saving grace is the addition of Cops and Robbers, which puts two groups of players in police cars and civilian vehicles respectively; the robbers have to collect cash from one location and deliver it to another while the cops have to stop them. The only letdown is that while the single player mode has five different camera views, for some reason you cannot pull away from your vehicle that extra distance when online, meaning that it's very difficult to see what's happening ahead of you when driving the rather sizable police van.

While the graphics cause you to spend the first ten minutes of Need for Speed: Undercover in a mouth-dropped gaze, it really doesn't get an awful lot better. Sure, you can pull off some amazing moves, and some of the cars are beautifully detailed, with a genuine feeling of unadulterated speed at your fingertips, vibrating through your hands via the dualshock controller, yet I can't help but feel like each of the Need for Speed titles are more like episodes built around the code that was originally developed for Most Wanted. There are undoubted graphical improvements but after an hour or so of playing, the impression I got was that some genius at EA had decided that it would be cost effective to pump out more NFS titles each year with less features than spend time and money attempting to heavily improve each release. As such, Undercover is a solid racing title that most fans of the series will enjoy but that is also entirely unexceptional in terms of its gameplay and activities.

Reviewed by Rob Byron for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).