WAA - Need for Speed: Undercover

This week's WAA go to Need for Speed: Undercover. It's racing, but with some nice game mechanics and a silly, over the top plot to keep you entertained.

The "One With Combat"Award: "Apprentice Mechanic"
You just have to modify a car in any way, which could be as simple as changing the color. Maybe I'll see you on the track someday...I'll be the one in the custom metallic pink sports car with black flame decals on the sides.

The "Mile High Club" Award: "First of Many"
You need to win an online race against 7 other human players, a tall task for two reasons. First, the game doesn't have a huge user base so you'll rarely see that many people in a lobby. Second, there are some talented (and downright obsessive) racers out there, so your chances of matching up with seven people and being the best of the group isn't great. Try "Cops and Robbers" mode for a better chance of scoring a win.

The "Seriously..." Award: "Notorious"
For this one, you have to complete 119 online races. Why 119? Because it's 9-1-1 backwards. So as brutal as accumulating over a hundred races can be, at least they didn't ask for the full 900. Note that you don't have to win any of those events, but rather just compete.

The "Little Rocket Man" Award: "Wasting Tax Dollars"
Some events in the game require you to do a certain amount of property damage while being chased by the police. Then you have to escape. For this one, you need to hit 100,000 dollars worth of damage, which will mostly come in the form of wrecked police cruisers. The irony of this award's title is that the game's plot involves you, an undercover government agent, infiltrating a street racing gang to recover valuable evidence. To gain their trust, you have to do a bunch of racing around and smashing up police cars. I think the whole operation could be safely referred to as a waste of tax dollars.

The Scientist Gone Gamer Award: "Aficionado"
The icons are not terribly impressive for this game (though better than last week's offering). However, I find it amusing that an award for collecting street racing cars is represented by what appears to be the guy from Monopoly.

Achievement Set Rating - 5
A very average set, with no egregious issues (aside from that 119 online wins BS) and no standout Achievements. The icons are thoroughly mediocre as well.

Achievement Difficulty Rating - 4
As far as racing games go, this is one of the easier games in the genre. Some of the Achievements will take a while, but there's nothing terribly difficult here.