Decent if unremarkable (Midnight Club (PS2))

Member Name: shaneo632

Product:	Midnight Club (PS2)
Date:	12/09/09 (1 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Visuals

Disadvantages: Not enough here

In a lot of respects, Midnight Club was wiped off of the map before its release thanks to the release of another racer that was a critical darling - Smuggler's Run. Nevertheless, this is a solid, if somewhat underwhelming game considering that, upon release, it was touted as one of the PS2's early "killer apps".

For its time though, it did boast some killer visuals - the vehicular models are very well rendered, and the lighting in particular is impressive as the cruise around the midnight streets and light from lamp posts reflects from your vehicle. The major cities depicted in the game, such as New York and London, aren't exactly represented here with accuracy, but they get the general idea across, and they most importantly nail the hustle and bustle quite well.

From an audio perspective, it's also pretty good - some of the voice acting is admittedly a bit hokey, but then so is true of most video games, let alone those that have such a wafer-thin plot as this! Often, though, they're poorly acted enough to generate a good laugh or two. On the other hand, the vehicular sounds are actually rather good outright, and sound like their real counterparts.

And now, the most important part - how does it play? Well, it's fairly standard racing fare, but did introduce the Boost feature which has been copied by just about every racing game since. You're essentially attempting to conquer the various racing territories by beating other racers and slowly but surely rising up the ranks until you're the King of the Road.

Like most PS2 games, this can be picked up for about £3, which isn't a bad deal. The game only has a few hours of gameplay in it really before it starts to get a bit repetitive, but it's a solid racer nonetheless that has good graphics for its time and some hilarious voiceovers. I did hope, though that there would be more unlockables than there were.

Summary: Not much to it, but fun for a bit