WR: Midnight Club Los Angeles (PS3/Xbox 360)

March 15th, 2009 by

midnight-club-los-angeles

Developer: Rockstar San Diego
Publisher: Rockstar Games
ESRB Rating: T (Teen)
Players: 1 (1-16 online)
Hours Played: 25+

I?ve always been a big fan of the Midnight Club series, especially Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition on the Xbox and PS2, so when Midnight Club Los Angeles (MCLA), the franchise?s first title on a next generation console, was announced I couldn?t wait to get my hands on it. The final product is a fine looking game with attitude and tons of customization, but sadly lacks in its most important department: race mechanics.

Instead of being spread out over several cities, as in previous versions of the game, MCLA is set solely in the city of Los Angeles. This may seem like a step backwards, but some initial cruising in the city reveals just how much detail went into modeling this modified version of real life LA. The city is huge and completely open for exploration right from the start. The street design was modified so that there are more wide-open and less cluttered roads, but it still retains many of the city?s landmarks and signature buildings. The level of detail in the polygons used to model the city is solid and there is a great draw distance with virtually no fogging or pop-in. Textures are crisp, but perhaps a little bland.  It?s the crisp and clean textures that actually make the game look a little too sterile for its own good. Looking back to Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition, it had great motion blur effects and lighting that saw streaks of neon light shoot through the night sky as cars made their way down the track. MCLA lacks this polish usually associated with street racing games and sacrifices that stylized look for a more realistic and sterile image.

The sense of speed is amazing as your car whips past street corners, pedestrians and lots of other cars at a blistering pace. The frame rate is incredibly solid, considering the size of the city and the number of other cars on the road at any given time. There?s never any slow down or stutter in single player mode, although during the more frenetic online matches the game will occasionally drag.

The game is fast, period, even when it comes to load times, of which there aren?t any while cruising the city; you can drive from one end of LA to the other without having the game need to load any of the environment. MCLA has an awesome map mode that gives you an over the top view of the entire city and allows you to zoom in and out at will. As you select a location on the map or a race is about the start, the game will zoom in, using one smooth motion, all the way from an up-high map view to the car ready to go, down at street level.

Music, like art, is very much a personal choice, however overall MCLA has an excellent and quite diverse track list. More genres and tracks are included than in previous games and consist of excellent selections that aren?t the predictable mainstream titles you?d expect in such a high profile game. Engine noises are solid and represent the varied selection of cars quite well. Voice-overs are functional but not stellar, bordering on corny as some characters vainly attempt a little too much to be ?street?.

You?ll be racing the streets of LA building your ?rep? and bank account while encountering new friends and adversaries all eager to take your gaming character?s huge ego down a notch by beating you in one of the game?s many race types. These race types include ordered races where track progress is marked with bright coloured markers, red light races where it?s up to you to find the fastest way to the finish line, often at the other end of the city, and there are even payback missions, where you?re tasked with tracking down and ?damaging out? a specific target. Altogether there are a dozen different race types in single player mode along with the four much needed power ups (Agro, EMP, Roar and Zone) found in the previous Midnight Club.

As mentioned earlier, the game?s biggest flaw lies with the botched race mechanics. The game’s focus on speed is even more apparent than in its predecessors. Even compared to high speed titles like WipEout HD, MCLA is incredibly fast. The cars mainly still model the speeds reflected by their real life counterparts, but due to the abundant scenery and other cars it feels like you?re going faster than a rocket ship. Although this sounds exciting on paper, you?ll soon find that the great sense of speed becomes a deterrent to effectively navigating LA?s streets and winning races. Computer opponent AI is very tough; you won?t see them make many mistakes, whereas for you a collision is just around the corner (literally) at almost any time, because the AI is so good it is often impossible to regain the lead even after only one collision. MCLA does a good job of making small objects like lamp posts, trees and mail boxes less of an issue as your car will simply glance off these objects, it?s the other cars on the road and solid concrete walls of the city?s many buildings that will bring your car to a grinding halt. LA traffic is everywhere, and head on collisions are regrettably frequent at the high speeds at which your car will be racing. Most races will have your course plotted through a series of markers in the shape of yellow smoke. Some of these markers are placed poorly, like behind a corner instead of before it. This makes it harder to adequately prepare for difficult turns/sudden changes in direction and adds to your number of crashes.

With a heavy focus on customization you?d think that saving up enough money to upgrade your engine and other car components to improve handling and speed would eventually give you an edge. I?d applaud you for your common sense in this assumption, but regret to inform you that the computer is always a step ahead of you: upgrade your car and during the next race the computer opponents will be even faster. Upgrade to a better vehicle class and AI drivers will have even more costly rides, this is very frustrating as you never feel like you?re getting ahead but rather that winning depends more on luck and an inhuman ability to persevere.

As we?ve come to expect from games like this, the level of customization is quite good, as the player can purchase anything from new body parts to paint and decals, but it doesn?t feel that much deeper than previous Midnight Club games. There is no ?body sculpting? option, and both tuning your car and upgrading performance parts are very limited. The option to design your own decals feels underwhelming, as does the selection of drivable vehicles. There are different vehicle classes to choose from like tuner, luxury, muscle and more but the total selection isn?t great and many of the vehicle choices aren?t very exciting.

It?s the game?s online components that really get the creative juices going. Apart from some unique race modes (mostly revolving around ?capture the flag? variants) there are some excellent community building features. You can have other players ?rate your ride? based on your level of customization and they can even purchase your vehicle profile if they like the design enough. Players also have the option to share the pictures they took while playing the game and on top of that can share their customizable sound tracks, resulting in a nice sense of an online street racing community. Although fun, these features ultimately do nothing to dispel the frustrating race mechanics that will have you tired of trying long before you?ve finished all of the game?s races.

Summary

Graphics:

+ LA is a large race environment with excellent draw distances

+ Incredible sense of speed, good frame rate

– Clean, sterile look is a visual step back from MC 3?s motion blurred flair

Audio:

+ Great selection of tunes

+ Nice engine effects

– Corny voiceovers

Gameplay:

+ Good variation of races with nice interface

+ Fun online modes

– Collisions are too frequent and unforgiving due to game?s high speeds

– Computer AI is often extremely hard to defeat and always a step ahead of your vehicle upgrades and modifications

Lasting Appeal:

+ Plenty to do and see

+ Fun and unique online features

– Frustrating gaming experience makes progress unrewarding and very tiresome (try winning back all the cars you lost in one of the game?s pink slip races, for instance)

 

7.1

 
MCLA is a disappointing next gen follow up to a great franchise. Most of its potential is lost in the frustrating racing mechanics and high degree of difficulty. It doesn?t innovate much from the previous Midnight Club and is a lot less fun to play due to its unforgiving AI. It?s a real shame because Los Angeles is definitely worth exploring, and customizing the many different rides at your disposal rarely gets old.