Midnight Club Los Angeles is a fast paced arcade style racing game. The visuals are sharp and vibrant with impressive lighting effects and a slick re-creation of the streets of Los Angeles.
The fourth in a relatively successful series, Midnight Club Los Angeles takes a tried and tested formula and juices it up with some impressive next-gen visuals and new locations.
Some additions to the series include a working day-night cycle and some nifty weather affects. These welcome updates help mix things up in what can otherwise become a rather repetitive experience. Cars will slide more in wet weather and different times of day will render different levels of traffic.
The storyline is horribly overused, with the typical “new guy on the streets trying to make a name for himself” mechanism working overtime. The scripted scenes and dialogue are also terribly cheesy, with pseudo hard-core street lingo, ridiculous bling and general hip-hop gang culture being shoved down the player’s throat. This doesn’t really matter though, as people generally don’t buy these games for their creative profundity.
The most important thing in a racing game is the racing. And in this regard Midnight Club Los Angeles does a fine job. A handy GPS system makes navigating the map effortless. There are a couple of different race types available in the game. They will all require the player to navigate traffic and keep ahead of the cops in pursuit. Some races will guide the player with specific way-points, while others will offer more choice in a sort of long-range point-to-point scheme which requires on-the-move route planning.
The sense of speed which Midnight Club Los Angeles delivers is impressive. The steering and general feel of the different vehicles varies, but is generally quite typical of an arcade racer. If you are looking for a more dedicated driving simulator then you are better off with the likes of Forza Motorsport 2.Midnight club is a full throttle arcade racer.
Midnight Club Los Angeles makes use of what is termed a “rubber band” racing mechanism. This means that opponents will slow down and speed up depending on how the player is performing in a particular race. I assume that this system is chosen because it keeps things interesting, and theoretically makes for more exiting, competitive racing. It means that whenever you make significant ground on an opponent, their racing instantly improves so that they catch up to you. Likewise, whenever you crash or lose ground your opponents will automatically slow down. While this does make things more intense, it also means that the race’s outcome will always be determined by its last 2km stretch, leaving the player feeling like everything up until that point was really quite pointless.
In terms of variety, Midnight Club Los Angeles shines with a healthy amount of real-world cars, including muscle cars, tuners and exotics. All cars handle differently and there is a reasonable level of depth in the customisation department. There are also motorbikes available, but these are limited to just three.
Midnight Club Los Angeles is ultimately a good arcade racing game. Great visuals and sound effects combined with a solid game engine and an impressive variety of cars and customizability make it an above average arcade racer.
Unfortunately, the “rubber band” racing mechanism spoils things a bit, and ultimately makes it feel like the game is toying with you most of the time.
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I’ve been playing this a lot recently and I must say I have mixed feelings about it. My favourite aspect of the game is the depth of car customization available. Generally I am an absolute addict when it comes to car customizing in any game that allows this, and this game allows me to take my addiction to new heights – I’d say that in this game I probably spend more time on customising than on actual racing. Every paint colour and every vinyl can be customized quite literally, almost infinitely.
The one thing that annoys me no end about the game is the rubber band mechanism you’ve mentioned and it is that mechanic that actually made me consider running a search for a review of the game on MG to see whether or not my experience was just down to me and my bad driving skills. Glad to see I’m not as sucky as I thought. Just to confirm what has been said – you will never open up a decent lead on any race! Also, in 99% of the available races in game, the cars you compete against are automatically scaled to match the performance level of the car you’ve entered, so there’s no such thing as farming low level races/racers for cash 🙁 Thus almost every race you will ever enter is a battle to win!
That being said, as far as Arcade racers go, you could probably do worse, and right now the ‘complete edition’ is available as an Xbox 360 Classic for peanuts, so this could be a great time sucker for any bored gamer.
*Apologies for the necro post*