Review: Midnight Club: Street Racing

From...

by GamePro staff

(IDG) -- Rev up your engines and watch out for the Fuzz, because Rockstar and Angel Studios present Midnight Club: Street Racing, a title which brings new ideas to the genre without really innovating technically.

Highway Hot Rod

What sets Midnight Club apart from the rest of the pack is that you're racing on city streets, in full traffic, rather than on some looped track. Of course, street racing is illegal in Manhattan and London (MC's two virtual cities), so the cops will be after you the moment they see you hot rodding. With traffic, other racers, and Smokey hot on your tail, it makes for a rather interesting racing experience.

The real showcase of the title is its storyline, which Rockstar refers to as a "CarPG." You start out as a taxi driver, and you go about the city looking for hookmen, or drivers who will lead you into races. If you win the race, you win the group leader's phone number, which you call when you want to race for the leader's car. You get better and faster cars and rise in reputation over time, until you become the city champion. It's an interesting idea that deserves a better execution.

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The problem is that the developers didn't really bother to innovate. They've definitely provided you with huge maps on which to race and some tough opponents to race against, but the whole city looks drab and plain. Not only that, but while racing through traffic is an immense guilty thrill, it almost forces you to replay races over and over and over until you memorize the exact patterns of the traffic (they're the same for each individual race). Doing well makes the game an incredible joy, but all too often the traffic makes it more frustrating than fun.

Your Tax Dollars At Work

Midnight Club's graphics move quickly, but they suffer from a lack of innovation. They're nowhere near as pretty as those in Sega's Crazy Taxi, and the plain textures and erratic pop-up threaten to pull the game over to the curb. Your cars, and the ones you race against, are neon-painted, generic monster machines, overly cartoony and somewhat silly-looking. Still, collecting the cars is a real thrill, and you'll get over the chintzy design choices quickly as you win better cars. MC's sound fares little better, with generic rock tunes and some garishly overdone voice-overs. Still, with the over-the-top design of the rest of the game, it somehow fits well.

Angel Studios went the extra mile to make sure you can control your cars well. The analog control works well enough that you'll feel subtle differences in handling between vehicles. With a little practice, you'll be skidding corners and bashing opponents into walls like a real pro.

After Midnight...

Midnight Club is a good game that could have been great with a little more attention paid to really pushing the PS2. It's still one of the better launch titles, and a shoe-in for anyone who wants something different in their driving games library.

Pro Tips

• Plan your course on the map while the game loads. The path your opponents take is not always the best way to get to the next checkpoint.



• Don't be afraid to play dirty! When racing for pink slips, try to wreck your opponent hard early in the race, or their faster car will shut you down easily.



• When you're trying to call out a hookman, watch their pattern and ambush them from a safe point. It's much easier to follow them from a full stop than trying to catch them at a full run.



• If you can't beat a particular hookman, or you're having trouble with certain races, go try another hookman and try to win a better car. Sometimes you just need faster wheels to beat that unbeatable driver.



• The traffic, opponent racers, and cops all have real patterns in each race. Try to memorize where big trucks will come from, where the cops will hide, and what paths the leaders will take. If you can do that, you'll win, hands down.

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Angel Studios
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