"Need for Speed: Undercover is the 12th installment of the popular racing video game series Need for Speed, developed by EA Black Box and published by Electronic Arts. It was released on PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo DS, and mobile phone in November 2008. The game was later released on the iOS on April 27, 2009. The game takes place some time after Need for Speed: Carbon and some time before Need for Speed: World Online. According to EA, the game has sold over 5.2 million copies on all 8 platforms combined. Need for Speed: Undercover is also the very last Need for Speed game to be released for a sixth-generation gaming console (in this case, the PlayStation 2).
Undercover features a new open world map (like the Midnight Club series) consisting of 109 miles (175 km) of road and a large highway system, making it the largest Need for Speed "world" EA has created so far. The game's environment consists of four boroughs: Palm Harbor, Port Crescent, Gold Coast Mountains, and Sunset Hills. Some boroughs are the same as Need for Speed Most Wanted, just shifted to different positions. These four boroughs make up the city, Tri-City (referring to the real-life city in Tri-City, Oregon), presumably a city located on Gulf Coast. The road system includes four water crossings, going clockwise: the Main Guy Causeway (Ocean Expressway connecting Sunset Hills to Port Crescent via man-made island), the Vale Causeway (Sunset Hills to Palm Harbor), the North T Causeway (Man-made island to Palm Harbor), and the Memorial Tunnel (Port Crescent to Palm Harbor). Undercover also features a new continuous highway system. In previous installments, highways were relatively small circuits concentrated within separate boroughs. In Undercover, the main highway circles Tri-City, with each of the four boroughs sharing a piece of the larger circuit. The longer highway length gives a more realistic shape, with long straight areas, gentle curves, rest areas and large interchanges. Lastly, the entire map is open from the start of the game, unlike previous installments where boroughs had to be unlocked."
Source: Wikipedia, "Need_for_Speed:_Undercover," available under the CC-BY-SA License.
