Midnight Club 2

Xbox review by Matt Wadleigh, published on Monday 21st July 2003

I was in a game shop at one point when they had Midnight Club 2 playing on the PlayStation 2 kiosk. I spent a good amount of time just trying to run pedestrians over. I vowed that I would purchase it when it came out for Xbox, and like George Washington, I never tell a lie. However, that’s were the similarities between the two of us end, because I brush my teeth regularly and he had false teeth because the people back in the day didn’t have dental hygiene. I also have the ability to use electricity and I know how to type, skills I’m almost certain he didn’t have either. Anyhow, I have Midnight Club 2, and thus I will review it. Midnight Club 2 is brought to us by Rockstar Entertainment, or as the cool kids on the internet message boards like to say, R* or something like that. Rockstar is widely known for their Grand Theft Auto series, especially the latest incarnations of the series. However, all the legalities of contracts keep GTA from the Xbox, so some pittance was given to Xbox owners in the form of a solid port of the PS2 version of Midnight Club 2.

Those expecting GTA style gameplay will ultimately be disappointed in Midnight Club 2. While a few of the car designs look similar to those found in GTA, that’s where the similarities end, just like me and George. Midnight Club 2 is a pure technical street racing game. The races demand technical finesse only found in titles like Gran Turismo. You need patience, smarts and above all else, luck, if you want to progress in it. The game plays out fairly simply - you’re an up-and-coming street racer, and you’re looking for a challenge. You’ve got the aid of a friend to give you tips and teach you a few of the games mechanics via sound, but it’s all up to you to find people to race. Fortunately, finding an opponent isn’t that much of a challenge.

You begin the game in the city of Los Angles, but eventually you get to race in New York City and Tokyo. All of the cities in the game are wonderfully done, with lots of different areas to explore. Fortunately, you can do all of this easily. When trying to find a racer, you’re required to drive around the cities, searching for a victim to choke on your exhaust. Each of your opponents will then lead you to a race area where you’ll meet up with other drivers looking for a challenge. You’ll even get a glimpse inside your opponents head, and find out there personality by listening in on their thoughts as the games levels load, finding out if someone’s cocky, nervous, or distracted. After winning a challenge, you usually win a new vehicle, each with usually a specific benefit that will help out in a later race or two. It’s always fun to get a new car to drive around in, as there are dozens of varied and different cars to play around with. Of course, with benefits come flaws, and it’s always a challenge to get used to the mechanics of a new ride.

There are a few varieties of races. There are your typical checkpoint style races in which you must travel through a certain set of points and be the first to the finish line. There are also a few other styles, including races where you need to just get to all the checkpoints in any order, which was one of my personal favorites and having to run from the cops before you can race. These are pretty fun, and the AI is superb and challenging. Other drivers will cut you off, drive you off the road and some will even cheat and take a head-start before a race. This of course means that you have to learn the driving mechanics early if you want to survive. As you progress, your eye in the sky Moses, the aforementioned friend, gives you tips, teaching you how to use your nitro boosters, how to do burnouts, and basic tips on how your opponents are going to deal with you. Of course, one of the biggest obstacles as I’m sure you can imagine with a street racing title is the actual traffic of the city. They don’t shut down the race area to traffic, and thus you’ll be dodging the police and pedestrians as well as random drivers.

After winning a challenge, you usually win a new vehicle, each with usually a specific benefit that will help out in a later race or two. It’s always fun to get a new car to drive around in, as there are dozens of varied and different cars to play around with. Of course, with benefits come flaws, and it’s always a challenge to get used to the mechanics of a new ride.

With all of that, you’d think that this is the perfect racer. While Midnight Club 2 is not perfect, it’s damned near close to it. One of the largest problems that I found was that one simple mistake usually ended up making me have to restart the entire race again over. Fortunately, the load times are great so there was no waiting, but most of the later races got more challenging than the first few, and I’d have to do the same race dozens and dozens of times. Secondly, a smaller, lesser annoyance was menu navigation. Why on Earth would a developer allow steering in game to be done with the analog stick, yet demand that the menus be navigated via the directional pad? And on top of that, when you want to change the control scheme midrace, you actually can’t see what you’re changing it to, and since the default configuration doesn’t have the acceleration set to the triggers, this can be annoying when trying to change it after you find out at the start of a race.

The title also features from slick multiplayer as well. Via Xbox Live, gamers all over the world can unite and race against one another, but I was unable to play the service. I did however play multiplayer with a real-life friend, and we had a lot of fun with it. Simply cruising around the city in the cars was a lot of fun, and head to head racing was even more of a blast. One thing that’s kind of annoying is that the available features in multiplayer are dependent on how much you’ve unlocked in single player, so the night I got the game there wasn’t a whole lot to do in the multiplayer mode, which was a bit of a downer.

Graphically, Midnight Club 2 is impressive. Though pretty much a direct port of the PS2 version, a lot of the jaggies were cleaned up and the game simply looks great. The people and the nightlife in all of the cities look great, but the most impressive part is the car models. The cars simply look fantastic, and the damage modeling is impressive. Glass shatters, parts get crushed and your car catches on fire on fire. The lighting cast by the lights on your car creates some nice shadows as well. The audio is sadly a disappointment, featuring a lackluster mix of techno and rap music and no support for in-game soundtracks. The character voice-work though is solid and gets the job done. There are a few glitchey portions though, in one race in LA, Moses voice fudged up and I had to deal with the repeating of a partial phrase the entire race.

Overall, Midnight Club 2 should be an essential part of your Xbox racing lineup. It’s easily the best street racer on the market today, and while it may not feature some of the same style gameplay that you’re used to, this is a game that’s sure to please Xbox racing game fans. There are so many racing games out there, and you won’t go far wrong if you pick Midnight Club 2 over the rest.