midnight club yeah (Midnight Club (PS2))

Member Name:

Product:	Midnight Club (PS2)
Date:	24/05/01 (7 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: everything

Disadvantages: umm,let me see

It's an interesting name Midnight Club: Street Racing. Someone at Take Two Interactive/Rockstar must have realized that calling the game simply Midnight Club was problematic, making it sound more like the sort of TV channel that requires the input of a PIN number. But the second part of the title clears up the confusion, which is nice.



I seem to have been talking complete nonsense here. I think it would be best if I moved onto the subject of gameplay. Midnight Club bears a striking resemblance to the PC games Midtown Madness and Midtown Madness 2. That's no surprise really as they were also developed by Angel Studios. Essentially Angel has taken the basic graphical style of these PC racers and added a new gameplay model and some other neat touches.

The main career mode begins in New York, or Southern Manhattan to be more precise. The player must follow gang bosses, known as hookmen, through the streets until they are invited to race. This isn't as simple as it sounds as the Midnight Club members move pretty quickly once they know they are being tailed. Once challenged, the player races with several gang members through a series of checkpoints in the traffic packed streets. Winning the race brings entry into the club and the hookman will give you his mobile number. You can use this to challenge him or her to a one-on-one race at any time to win a better car or an upgraded model of one already owned. Initially Manhattan contains three hookmen, each must be defeated three times. Eventually the player moves to London, where the lack of a grid based street system brings complications but an essentially more rewarding gameplay. Most races reach the attention of the cops who give chase and add excitement to the already excellent racing action.



Single and head to head races exist outside of the career mode but only a few appear in New York initially. Further events and races in London must be unlocked. Cruise m
ode is a chance to get to know the cities. Capture the Flag is great fun, with many options for customizing the play. Most game modes also offer a chance to play two player, which results in some pop-up but no noticeable loss of speed. The handling also feels much better than Midtown Madness 2, cornering is not so much of a hit and miss affair.



Graphically the game has me divided. The cities aren't presented in any great detail and judging by some of the London layout Angel must have been using some kind of crazy map. Because some of the city structure is plain wrong. But that was the same in Midtown Madness 2 and at least the edges of the map have been extended East to Docklands and West to the Battersea Power Station. (If only the game contained an inflatable pig you could recreate the cover of Pink Floyd's Animals). The lighting effects and reflections on wet roads look great. But the choice to limit the racing to nighttime (yes I know it's the nature of the game) makes proceedings seem a little drab. But don't let dull graphics put you off, the gameplay is great even if the graphics are not. And it's a very smooth experience, unlike F1 Championship Season 2000.



One of the worst elements of Midtown Madness 2 was the voice acting. I haven't heard more awful regional British accents since Daphne's brothers turned up in Frasier with their strange Australian/South African/Cockney accents. Okay Daphne's accent isn't Mancunian but at least it's within a few miles. But I'm digressing here. What I want to say is that the voice acting in Midnight Club: Street Racing is not amazing, but it's miles better than MM2.

So what we have is an exciting racer that captures the thrill of racing through city streets with the cops on your tail. All we'd need is Captain Chaos, Dean and Sammy dressed as priests, some banjo pickin' tunes and we'd have a great Burt Reynolds movi
e. Don't fall into the same trap KungFu and I did. If you miss out on Midnight Club: Street Racing you'd be as stupid as us.

Summary: