Genre:Racing
Developer:Rockstar San Diego
Publisher:Rockstar
# of Players:1-8
Memory: --
ERSB:T
Also On:Playstation 2
Features:Finally, a racer that doesn’t seem closely related to GT
Website: ZoOoOoOom
Introduction:
Anyone whose been coming to this site long enough to get a grasp of my personality, and how I feel about certain things within this delightfully quaint industry, knows that I am a gamer almost obscenely opposed to the racing genre which has risen to popular clout over the coming years. To this very day, amongst the mile of available content exploiting vehicular fame across all three next generation consoles, the few that have actually managed to capture my interest have been spread far too thin to see the popular genre in anything more than ill light. Ignorant, yes perhaps, but those were thoughts of a journalist whose ideals have changed since the appearance of one special racing title, but since its debut, that particular title has now been griped with a “dead” status, ether dying from the dead console it appeared from, and/or faded out with old, ported game age.
Perhaps one of the greatest surprises I had upon playing Midnight Club II was its very familiar gameplay, which seems pleasingly related to Tokyo Extreme Racer. Probably because they both exploit the day and the nightlife of illegal street racing. But lets not get things confused, simply because there are certain mechanics that leave me reminiscent of Tokyo Extreme Racer, by canyons, the two titles are woefully different from one another. MC2 even proves to be of better valor especially with its included online play, toppled with crisp, clean, sharp graphics and with overall better presentation. Welcome to the only other racing title that’s ever made me ridiculously excited. Midnight Club II manages to pull tricks that have never managed to amaze me in such a genre before. Surprisingly, through its appealing presentation, lovely graphics, and fast paced gameplay, and lets not forget online play, Midnight Club II kept me immersed, entertained, and better yet, kept me playing.
This is definitely one of those titles worth up-chucking 50 extra bones for an Xbox live kit for, especially in order to enjoy the full theme of the game. If you’re already an Xbox live account holder, than rest assure that this title is one that belongs snuggly amongst the rest of your Xbox live collection. Read up, as I explain the surprising good, the leery bad, and why kicking the crap out of assorted strangers online is well worth the 50 microphones any day.
Presentation:
Perhaps one of the best aspects to Midnight Club II is how well packaged it comes. The presentation itself runs along the lines of one of the best showcased in a racer ever, it manages to leave the user totally engrossed into the happens and all goings of the screen at all times. Just beyond the title screen the user is greeted with an extremely graphical and beautifully rendered introduction cut scene featuring the aggressive energy and excitement that goes into street racing. The overall lay of the games menu and interface lays testament to a simplistic design. Exploitations of the games exotic cars come into play while the games relatively short load screens have to make certain appearances, leaving the titles load times more appealing through its decorative and immersive demeanor. The interface bares favor because of its simple design, toppled with streaming ever-changing dynamic and bold colors, which lay in the background of the main menu.
Even with the game’s extremely well executed introduction and menu presentation, there’s one minor thing that I should inform on, and that is the in-game interface. There are three interface elements that will help the user in his/her quest to compete with the meanest hoo-riders in L.A. Paris, and Tokyo, which is a miniature map, which will be located in the bottom left hand corner of the screen, which will display the location of other street racers, (the color depends on what mode the user chooses to play.) the occasional cop, check points, (which are translucent blue arrows floating in the air on screen, and are blue dots represented on the map) and the finishing point, which is represented as a red dot on the map. The other two elements, come in the form of arrows, the user will have one translucent blue arrow which will point to the direction of the nearest check point, to which when the driver arrives, will be greeted with another translucent blue arrow that will point in the direction to head next (or better yet, SUGGEST which way to head next.) I know it all sounds confusing on paper, it’s a system that’s been used and works, but looking at the map to see where to head next, and glancing at the arrows to see if your heading in the right direction, and running into on coming traffic because you had too much to look at, at one time, isn’t that fun. Its also one of those things within the game that you’ve got to get use to, hardly anything to smear my final score points, so why did I mention it? A lot of times in this day and age, a game has to be presented in simplest form to attach “casual gamers,” but for gamers like me, catching a glance in at the map and of the game’s directive arrows before just noticing any on-coming traffic, actually presents itself as a form of challenge. The interface in its entirety is nothing to worry about with time well spent with the title.
Overall Rockstar has done an extremely well job at keeping the user immersed, by keeping everything within contence of the street racing atmosphere, the showing of beautifully rendered introduction cut scenes, and its usage of its pleasing simple design, like mentioned above, the only flaws that hold back the presentation are so minor that they need go unspoken.
Graphics/Visuals:
The graphics are nothing below par, sharp clean graphics are seen
"The graphics are nothing below par, sharp clean graphics are seen..."
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through highly detailed areas and car models to which are wonderfully well animated with little special effects that will leave a serious impression on the player. The illumination sparks carry from the users vehicle while grinding against walls, bumping into on coming (or leaving) traffic are attractive enough, but MC2 also has lovely little water effects, to which rain drops on the street are extremely impressive. There are, yet still, minor draw backs that keep this game from getting a perfect score in the visuals department, subtle things like the reflection mapping on the vehicles, the method for mapping reflections on the cars mirror some images, but reflected images are hardly noticeable in your ride, another temp that I had with the title is that I noticed a slight anti aliasing glitch in some areas, not enough to be seen if I weren’t looking for it, but its still there, and lastly, perhaps the worst thing that mars this title is that I experienced chop and slowdown in frame rate when I was floating on the motorcycle and catching gobs of air, its an occurrence that doesn’t happen often, in fact, out of the time I’ve played the game, its only happened once, but it DOES happen.
Controls:
If your not able to jump on the controller and almost instantly know which buttons do what, on a racing title, than someone’s done a poor job at making the game more appealing through simplistic controls, and admittedly, there is a bit of a learning curve with Midnight Club II on the Xbox controller. The controls at first seemed just a tiny bit odd, the D-pad doesn’t control the vehicle on screen, it accesses in game options, (Displays a large map across the screen and accesses the ability to turn off or change in-game music.) instead the left thumb stick takes center play. The A button sends your character and chosen vehicle to accelerate, (the gas) X (or right thumbstick) breaks, that’s essentially all you’ll need to know. Other than that, the game introduces other ways and techniques in order to get a leg up in the competition, the only real complaint I have about the button layout of Midnight Club II, is the terrible, out of place area the nitro button is, which is activated by pressing the right thumbstick in. Removing your thumb from the gas button, to quick tap on the nitro boost can be a complete booger. I would have enjoyed the lay out more if Rockstar were able to place the nitro function somewhere on the controller, without disrupting the acceleration process.
The title also introduces a ton of functions and racing techniques that make the races overall more interesting, if there ever is a new technique worth knowing, than the game introduces it to you slowly after the player progresses.
The control of the vehicles themselves actually play a distinct part in the overall control of the game, each new car presented in Midnight Club 2, has it’s own obviously blunt feel to it, a lot of times I’ll play a racing title of some sort, and be able to customize and create how my car is supposed to ride (I’m basically a sucker for almost anything that allows the player to customize or level up.) but because there was always a limit to how much I could do to my ride, ether because of money, or whatever method was used to limit the user from doing too much at one time, I never really felt any extreme differences in car performance, but because MC2 gives you a set of cars, all owned with their own preset states and settings, the game never really allows the user to confuse the feelings (or blend the feelings) of a pre-upgraded vehicle, to a post-upgraded vehicle.
Audio:
Another one of Midnight Club II’s really appealing aspects is its lovely soundtrack, there’s no ifs ands or buts about it, users will definitely find themselves ether with giddy excitement, a trait that is undoubtedly help placed because of the soundtrack, or playing simply to hear a certain soundtrack. The way the soundtrack works is that every car has it’s own tunes, you unlock a car, and you’ve unlocked its beats, the music based upon which the vehicle plays depends on the former owner of the car, beat a Mexican gang banger in a race, than you get a ride which plays Spanish rap music, simple enough. How can Spanish rap music cause users to giddy with excitement? Well, it really cant, and within that also holds Midnight Club II’s audio down side, not all the audio tracks stay on the same level,
"not all the audio tracks stay on the same level..."
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which means the audio feel of the game can be quit different at times depending on which car (and race)the user decides to play with, but at least the tracks are hot as hell, and aren’t easy to forget.
Gameplay:
The name of the game is simple enough, cruise around the streets of L.A. until your able to find a challenger, once found, the character challenged will dare you to follow them to a certain location, to which the race will begin. From there the game cuts to a CGI (more kudos on the nice presentation) of the users new opponent to which, the you’ll come to hear your new friends personal thoughts, and even get to listen as they talk trash on you with catchy little one-liners. Watching all the different colorful personalities of the racers really was a treat. After all the pleasantries and idle small talk, its time to get behind the wheel and jimmy the gas paddle with a 30-pound brick.
The average Midnight Club II race takes place within a selected area of a living, breathing, always-alive area, which means in your vehicular onslaught with rival racers, you’ll also have to deal with on coming traffic, trucks, pedestrians and plain old stupid people in general. The type of races always very, it’s a rarity that you play the same type of race twice in a row. Most of the time, it will be up to the user to reach a finish line-like point before the other cars do (yes, I said cars, which means more cars will join your race after you challenge a person, normally a set of six or so.) but by only accessing certain points on the map is the player able to successfully continue to legally travel to another point, if the user ether tries to blow past a certain point (which is represented through a hovering blue translucent arrows in the air, depending on which kind of race it is, they sometimes point in you the direction which next to proceed in.) or forgets a certain point on the map, than the next point isn’t displayed until the negated point has been accounted for. (just drive under the hovering translucent blue arrow.) Sometimes the races you will partake in will want you to follow a set path of check points, in other races check points are scattered all across a certain area, (although not in random order) its up to the user to determine the fastest rout to pick up the check points and to the finish line. Other types of races are more tailored to the storyline of Midnight Club II, like dodging the cops long enough to make it to a secret hide out.
If you happen to win the set of matches that comes with the rival character the user challenged, than the player is rewarded with their wheels, nothing like racing for pink slips, right? Earning your enemies car will set you up with a totally different car to “feel out.” The overall feel of each car in Midnight Club II is obviously distinct, muscle cars have power but no handling, smaller cars have handling with lower top speeds, etc etc, we all know the deal, but the feeling is more obtuse in Midnight Club II than in many other racers available today, and perhaps that where Midnight Club II draws its appeal, from all of the cars and in-game racing mechanics that would turn a normally dull race into a pulse pounding event to remember. Nitrous allow the player to boost past their opponents, most of the of the time, being a one time only use, other game mechanics like slip stream turbo and burnout are new and never explored before concepts, making their appearance in Midnight Club II all the more intriguing.
Aside from the career mode, Midnight Club II to chuck full of other attractive modes to play from, more notably the race editor mode which is pretty much self explanatory, and the all too enticing online mode where users can declare their manlihood against all comers of the same declaration. Play Midnight Club II online, as with the career mode, can only be described as “intense,” the approaching realization that your not as good as you thought you were is always a welcome, adding serious replay value to the title, and further impressing the holy hell out of me.
Conclusion:
If you’ve taken the time to glance at the wording throughout this review, than I’m sure that you’ve noticed the repeated usage of the words “migor,” “minor,” and “tiny.”
"you’ve noticed the repeated usage of the words “migor,” “minor,” and “tiny. "
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Those are the words I’ve used to describe most of the negative things that may have marred this title, theres just too little to fuss at with this one. Smothered in style and topped with attitude, Midnight Club II appeals to an unfathomed demographic. The games massive appeal, great graphics, hip urban attitude, and fast, almost arcade-like gameplay make the title more than worth buying. The complaints overall have been too shaky to hold ground (except for the controls odd placement of the nitro button I tell ya.), the good totally slaughter the bad in this title. Especially toppled with the fact that online play is here, bold, apparent, definitely here to stay, and MC II totally embarrasses it with open, collision course arms. Cutting to the chase and speaking in plain English, buy the game. Buy the game now or suffer a horrible, horrible anit-gamer fate.
XBOX Vs. PS
GM’s Playstation editor Andrew Matheson didn’t submit to the many charms brought on upon Midnight Club II in all of its cool, hip, underground street syndicate life glory, for the Playstation 2, smashing the title with a very low 5.2 over score. Which, ironically, speaking as the GM site cynic, is very awkward indeed that yours truly would ultimately end up giving this title such a high score. But in my honest opinion, the Playstation version is the best out of both versions, mainly because the controls flow a lot smoother on the PS2 controller, than on the Xbox controller.
The Good:
+ Online play enabled
+ Tons of cars
+ Unique gameplay
The Bad:
-
The Stupid:
? See above.
