Midnight Club: Los Ageles Review (PS3)

…in da Club

Now, as you are no doubt aware, Rockstar games are the people who put out the slightly popular franchise known as Grand Theft Auto. Now you may not be aware that they have had another franchise bubbling under the radar called Midnight Club.

one of the best racing experiences so far this year. Don’t let this pass you by.

Now when you look at the likes of Burnout and need for speed, you can see that they have had to evolve and re-invent themselves to cater for the ever-changing trends of the virtual driving public. The clever people at Rockstar have just brought out the same kind of driving game each time, a lightning fast arcade racer, with loads of tuning options and tweaking the gameplay, ride and graphics each time round.

This time it makes perfect sense that it is set in Los Angeles, as Rockstar know are known for their Hollywood movie styling. This time round, we have tons of GTA style cut scenes, and everything has that sexy Rockstar gloss. Now it’s all very well looking the part I hear you cry, but if it plays like the driving sections of GTAIV then it will not stand up to the likes of Burnout and NFS.

Luckily the driving is as far removed from GTA as you could imagine, the motors in this game are fast and slick, and handle like a dream. LA may be a living breathing city, with other vehicles, cops and pedestrians, but I am afraid you cannot go round running over people just for the hell of it, nope, I’m afraid these people move outta the way every time. The missions are given to you via a GTA style mobile phone (a side kick this time…hopefully if I mention the name we may get a free one to try out…or maybe not lol ). As you can imagine, these missions mostly consist of races and time trials. As well as certain races, to win certain cars.

And so, to the cars themselves. The choice is not quite as extensive as other games of this ilk, but what is here are all nice and meaty and do drive differently. They are split into different types of motor: Tuners, Exotics, Muscle, Luxury and …erm, bikes which technically are not cars I know this, but they are fast and fun, so who cares.
After purchasing your first vehicle, I think mine was a Nissan 240sx, you drive up to a junction where your next race is waiting. Just flash your lights, and it’s game on. Winning and just taking part in races increases you reputation, and gains you cash to pimp up your chosen ride. At you garage you can fix up any damage from your previous race, get a new paint job, slap on some sick decals, and add some Nitrous. A sweet new addition is the ability to add some cracking special abilities: these include Zone (slo mo), Agro (invincibility), Roar (erm makes a load engine roar, that makes other cars avoid you) and finally EMP (sends out an electro magnetic pulse to disable all vehicles within range). These special abilities are activated by clicking L3 button.

Now the learning curve seems to be set just right, like all good racing games, until you learn the roads of LA, you will find yourself getting trashed by the ai drivers, but once you learn the courses and short cuts, slowly you start to win more races, and get a better looking garage full of quality motors, and bikes Online you can just cruise with no other traffic, to help you get used to the roads and freeways of LA, to help shave off them all important seconds. You also have some slinky smooth racing modes and capture the flag modes. Online you can also take a picture of your current ride, post it up and have pople rate it, and even buy a copy of it off you…increasing you bank balance somewhat, to help finance that Aston or Lambo that you saw recently on Top Gear.

Midnight Club : Los Angeles is one quality driving game, high on style and racing thrills, from getting busted by the cops, to trading your cars online, this game reeks of one of the best racing experiences so far this year. Don’t let this pass you by. A must buy for all petrol heads out there.