Need for Speed Undercover coming to handhelds, mobile and iPhone

Gratuitous criminal endeavor seems to have become the staple diet of racing games these days, so it's good to see EA's latest take on the urban race track has a moral lilt to it.

Not that we're suggesting Jack Thompson should have his LLB restored, but the undercover cop motif of Need for Speed Undercover suggests some exciting tense depth to the game's storyline. Players take on dangerous crime jobs, compete in street races, and engage in cop chases while infiltrating a syndicate.

And the handheld formats – DS, PSP, mobile and iPhone – need this kind of depth, since they obviously can't compete with the consoles on a technical level. So the announced release dates for the 12th game in the prestigious series (November 18th in the US and November 21st in Europe) have us planted firmly on the edges of our Recaro seats, although we've yet to receive confirmation as to whether the iPhone version will screech into the App Store on these dates.

The juicy tidbit about Impossible Mission 3 starlet Margaret Quigley's inclusion as the undercover agent's handler is also quite exciting. We'll avoid any obvious 'handler' jokes at this point, but hit 'Track It!' now in case we come up with any good ones as the release dates get closer.