Midnight
Club II – sequel to the Playstation 2 launch title – arrives on the PC after
flirting with the PS2 and Xbox, and while its menus are a little clunky and it
doesn’t cater to those without a steering wheel peripheral, it’s still a great,
interesting game that doesn’t really feel like any other game out there.
There’s a whole group of people tearing up the streets after dark, and your goal
is to be the best of them. You’ll progress through the game by getting first
place in each race, and ultimately earning the respect of all the other
drivers. But it’s not going to be easy!
There are a number of modes
available, and there’s bound to be one that strikes your fancy. There’s an
Arcade Mode with a number of options. You can simply cruise around any of the
unlocked cities, take part in pre-set races, or play some multiplayer games with
your buddy. The main mode of play is of course the Career Mode, where you
cruise around the city in the darkest hours of the day until you find a fellow
racer of the aptly named ‘Midnight Club’. With a quick blink of your
high-beams, you signal that you’re up for a race. Then you need to follow him
as he weaves through traffic and tricky streets until he deems you good enough
to race. This is where five or six other guys join in and the race begins.
The races themselves are
made up entirely of checkpoints. The cities are absolutely gigantic, and filled
with tons of shortcuts and alternative routes to any one destination. While the
majority of races you’ll see make you go from checkpoint-to-checkpoint, until
you reach the last one, there are also some that allow you to go through the
city and pass through all of the checkpoints in any order you please. Either
way, there’s a lot of thinking involved because sometimes a little shortcut or a
different path is all you’ll need to pull ahead of the pack. The onscreen map
is a gigantic help. It’s a circle in the lower-left-hand of the screen that
rotates according to your direction. It shows major routes, the positions of
other racers, and most importantly, where the next checkpoint is.
It should be known that this
game is hard. Really, really hard. It’s only a couple of races in before
you’ll be working that Retry button over and over. This game is for the
dedicated, not for those with a lack of patience. You must come in first place
to win – second place means jack in this game. And the enemy AI – while
reasonably good – is at times noticeably rubber-band. This means that the race
is very competitive, and usually ends with very close results. When enemies are
in front of you, they’ll slow down so you can keep up with them. When you’re in
front of them – even if you do extremely good throughout the race – they’ll
always be right on your tail. While this can be a good thing, making for
exciting races, it has some annoying points. For one, it means that practically
everyone rides in a pack throughout the whole race and you’ll rarely see other
cars taking many different routes. But the really bad part is that even if you
drive extremely well throughout the whole race, avoiding collisions and taking
the best paths, one slight mess-up near towards the end of the race will send
the entire pack screaming past you. And since it’s either first-place or nothin’,
there’s no point in continuing once one person has finished…yes, you’ll
definitely be using that retry option a lot.
The control is fairly sharp,
for the most part. The game certainly has an arcadey feel, and doesn’t try to
be too realistic. Sometimes it seems as if your car is super-light and gets
shoved around far too easily, but for the most part, the physics are okay.
There are also a number of neat little moves you can pull off. You have your
standard nitrous boost – each car can only carry so many – but you can also gain
some gnarly (I couldn’t help myself) speed by taking advantage of
Slip-Stream-Turbo. When you get right behind another car, a small meter will
fill up on the side of the screen. When it’s full, you can gain a quick spurt
of speed and blast ahead. Sure, you’d never see it happen in real life, but it
is a lot of fun to do. You can also perform a burnout by simply holding in your
handbrake and accelerating – handy when you need a quick spurt of speed from a
neutral position. Another nifty ability is what the game calls Weight Transfer
– when holding in the key and moving your car in any given direction, you can
influence the car (or motorcycle) to lean that way. It’s especially handy when
you need to even yourself out from coming off a big jump, or making sharp turns
on a bike. You can even tilt your car so it drives on two wheels for a
distance, enabling you to fit in very narrow places or glide between cars. The
only real problem is that using a keyboard and mouse to play can make the game
even more difficult than it already is; a steering wheel, or at least a gamepad
of some kind, is recommended.
There are a ton of cars. It
should be said that none of them are officially licensed cars, but it’s not hard
to see that many of the cars in the game were modeled after popular real-life
cars. There are also some motorcycles that you can ride, and while they are
certainly not as plentiful as the cars, they’re still a lot of fun to drive
around. The cities themselves are awesome. There are only three locations –
Los Angeles, Paris, and Tokyo – but each is gigantic, and filled with tons of
unique buildings (some of which you can drive through), cool scenery (how about
driving through a pleasant little park?), tons of hidden routes (Paris has a
gigantic underground system), and lots of traffic, of course. I’m tempted to
say that this is some of the best level design I’ve seen since the classic
Beetle Adventure Racing, and best of all, you can drive through it in an
entirely non-linear fashion.
The graphics are pretty
good, throughout. Each of the buildings has their own look to them, and one
street is certainly recognizable from another – just because the cities are huge
doesn’t mean they have to look boring. The night sky is complemented nicely
with lots of bright street-lights and such… many of which, of course, are
breakable. And while they’re not much real-time damage compared to other games
(Pro Race Driver, anyone?) it isn’t entirely missing; you’ll notice some scrapes
and dents, and if you’re banging your car up a lot, some smoke hissing from the
front. Pedestrians are fun to hit, but they are graphically the worst part of
the game: each is animated fairly badly, and always disappears a second after
they’re knocked over. A little disappointing, having played games like GTA, for
sure, but overall it’s a tiny dent in a graphically strong game.
The sound is, to me, one of
the most disappointing aspects. It’s either a generic techno or an utterly
boring rap song, and I’m not just saying that because I don’t like either of
those genres – I don’t mind either, in fact, but this stuff is just pretty bad.
I’ll admit that a few of the techno tracks had me interested, but that’s all the
merit I’m giving this soundtrack. At least the engines are done rather nicely,
so it’s not all bad. The voice acting is also fairly good. Some of the people
you’ll meet in the game are incredibly annoying, but if you stop and think about
it, Rockstar probably meant for them to be that way – and they succeeded. There
are some nice, pleasant folk, too, that will be glad to help you out – a good
touch.
Overall, Midnight Club II is
a pretty darn good game. I can’t deny that the races are extremely fun at
times, and I love the gigantic levels. The control is okay – though you’re
probably going to want to use a steering wheel or gamepad of some kind.
Admittedly, the music is pretty cruddy, but the graphics are good, and the
voice-acting helps make up for the weak tunes. Overall, the only real thing
Midnight Club II has to bother people with, aside from it’s lack of PC
optimization, is it’s difficulty level – it certainly isn’t entirely fair, and
even then, you’re going to have to plan your routes as best as possible and
drive just as well. But for anyone looking for a challenge – or just a fun
racing title – this is definitely worth checking out. Midnight Club II is an
original, refreshing title that probably shouldn’t be missed.
Gameplay: 8.8
For the most part, Midnight
Club II plays wonderfully. Though it’s very difficult, you’ll really feel
satisfied when you come in first place in a race that you’ve been working on for
a while. Each city is rendered beautifully and filled with shortcuts and
alternate routes, making every race potentially different, and giving the game a
very unique feel.
Graphics: 8.5
Except for the choppy
pedestrian animation, everything in this game shines nicely. Every street,
building, lamp-post, and car is modeled well and feature strong textures. It
all looks pretty slick.
Sound: 6.5
I’m a little disappointed
with this game’s soundtrack – it’s mostly boring techno or rap. It’s not that I
don’t like those genres; it’s just that, for the most part, the actual songs
themselves aren’t very good. Engine sounds and voice-overs do help, though, as
they’re pretty good.
Difficulty: Hard
Concept: 9.0
This title isn’t really like
anything else out there. Sure, there’s a lot of rally racers, street racing
titles, motorcycle races… but this isn’t like any of those. You should be
pleasantly surprised with this game’s originality.
Multiplayer: 8.0
Two can play in the game’s
Arcade
mode or a limited number of races, but it can be fun if you both know what
you’re doing. You can also hop online and participate in a match, and although
there’s no ranking system or anything, you will probably have a good time.
Overall: 8.4
Midnight
Club II is an interesting, refreshing title that’s like nothing else out there.
The cities are great, the gameplay is great, and the graphics are nice. The
sound’s not so hot, and it could have a better interface for the PC, but if
you’re even slightly interested in this title, by all means, check it out. It
is quite difficult though, so if you like your racing easy, you’d best look
elsewhere – or better yet, find a cheat code.
