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The Midnight Club series comes back in full force.
Easily, the most impressive thing about Midnight Club Los Angeles is its recreation of Los Angeles. A few games have tried to recreate the city to various degrees of success but Midnight Club really nails the city. The City itself is scaled down but nails the feel really well. It’s not just because all of the landmarks (Santa Monica’s 3rd Street Promenade, LA Convention Center, Santa Monica Pier, Hollywood, etc) are faithfully recreated but because the city feels like it is really alive. You’ll see real-life businesses and advertisements but it doesn’t feel like Rockstar is just pushing advertising on you. Further, the game has a very impressive day and night cycle, as well as different weather effects that all look terrific.
Midnight Club Los Angeles doesn’t reinvent the wheel in terms of gameplay but it does give you some fast and furious racing. You’ll begin races by driving around the city and finding willing competitors. The races include the standard A-to-B, freeway, checkpoint and time trial races that you’ll find in all racing games. There are some races where you’ll need to drive a car to a certain location without damaging it or others when you need to damage certain vehicles. There are also police chases in the game that are quite fun but not as intense as the Need for Speed games. Like previous Midnight Club games, the gameplay is in between arcade and sim, with relatively minor scrapes causing a major decrease in your speed.
As you go around the city, you’ll notice that the races are color-coded to note their difficulty, even though even the easy races are relatively challenging. There are 44 cars and bikes in the game that are unlocked as you go through races. Winning races will result in money and respect, which is used to unlock new races, cars, vehicle upgrades, and unlockables. Some of the unlockables are quite useful, such as the ability to slow down time or clear out the road in front of you.
If there’s one drawback to the game is the map isn’t especially easy to use. You can set markers but unlike other recent games, you won’t get the best route. This makes sense since part of the fun is discovering the quickest way but a system like Saints Row 2 where you’re shown a way but not necessarily the fastest way would have worked. The map system itself is pretty nifty, including a Google Earth-style map that zooms from sky level to street level.
Topping off the singleplayer is a 16-player online multiplayer mode. The city serves as a giant map and you can challenge people who are just driving around to races. There are standard races, Capture the Flag (and a Team variant), Stockpile (try to return as many flags as possible), Keep-a-way (capture the flag and keep it as long as possible), among other modes.
Overall, Midnight Club Los Angeles is a superb racing game. The recreation of Los Angeles is a sight to behold and the racing is fast and epic. The game is a bit challenging, but definitely playable, and online multiplayer is a blast. -- Jose Liz, PGNx Media
---- Nov 9, 2008
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