Addictive (Midtown Madness (PC))

Member Name: shaneo632

Product:	Midtown Madness (PC)
Date:	04/09/09 (3 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Amazing online play, scale is epic

Disadvantages: Graphics are substandard

Midtown Madness is a superb racing game released in 1999 that inspired two great sequels, but sadly hasn't seen another entry in over 6 years now, sadly. It is one of the first games to offer a free-roaming city, whereas other games offered the pretension of it, but in fact it was a world that's sneakily restricted in some ways. Here, however, the programmers have executed a hugely impressively feat of a living, breathing world with lots of traffic and little nuances that other games could only dream of.

The game doesn't have a premise, it's merely about racing until your heart's content through four different modes - Blitz (where the player has to race a certain distance within an allotted time), Circuit (where the player races a pre-defined circuit with other cars, with the aim being to get past the finish line first), Checkpoint (where you have to cross the various chequered flags, but this is complicated by the appearance of traffic, including the police, who are trying to take you down), and Cruise mode (where you simply explore the city with your own set parameters).

Although this is all well and good, the real meat of the game, and in fact, the two later games too, is the multiplayer component, which is simply magnificent. You can connect with a random assortment of players, and play Cops and Robbers, a mode where you have to attempt to steal the other team's gold and return it to your hideout, but that's harder than it looks. The game has thus been an influence for numerous other online racers, most notably some of the modes available in Grand Theft Auto IV's online component.

With an impressive level of freedom that opened the door for so many other games, this is a masterful example of how to create an exciting game that makes expert use of map design techniques, that overcomes the game's fairly routine graphics. Superb.

Summary: May not be visually appealing, but the online is great!