Midnight Club 2 Review

Racing games aren’t my cup of tea. Heck, I really don’t like any racing games, with the exception of a few good ones (at least in my opinion). Games like Gran Turismo 3 (PS2), Cruis’n USA (N64), and Mario Kart 64 are some of my favorite racing games. Well, I don’t know if Mario Kart 64 is really a racing game (more of a cart-racing game, but oh well), it is still a great title in my book. Midnight Club 2 joins this exclusive club of excellent (or at least decent) racing games.

Racing couldn’t be more simple than this, press one button to accelerate, one to use the brakes, and one to steer (well, it isn’t a button, it’s a joystick). I guess you could call Midnight Club 2 a mix of Gran Turismo 3 and Midtown Madness. Gran Turismo 3 in the sense that you are provided with a number of different cars with different capabilities (e.g. faster, better handling, etc.) and Midtown Madness in the sense that you can run over pedestrians and knock over objects along the course.

Describing the course is impossible, since the course changes every race, other than you are in the same city. After you beat a city (the first city is LA), you move onto the next one (Paris, then Tokyo). LA includes such things as LAX and the Staple Center, while Paris includes attractions such as the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triumph, and Notre Dame (which is also located in my hometown of South Bend). Believe me, these cities look extraordinarily well, although slight fogging does take place (mainly due to the huge landscape).

In the sound department, Midnight Club 2 needs a slight tune-up. Even though the cars’ sounds are well done, repetitive voice acting gets annoying quickly, after all, you will be forced to play the same level over and over due to the God-like AI. Music is present in Midnight Club 2, but I didn’t pay much attention to it, since it was mainly rap (I prefer classic rock, but oh well).

Missions are simple enough, get from point A to point B before the opponent. Usually there are checkpoints (well, almost always if not always), which you will have to sometimes go in order or in other races you must find the best route to reach all checkpoints in a random order in the fastest amount of time. I hope you got all that, but if you didn’t, just rent the game and find out for yourself (since I promise you won’t be disappointed). Xbox Live (though I admittedly didn’t have the time to try it out) promises to add a lot of replay value to the title, along with the excellent multi-player addition. Don’t you love playing capture the flag with your friends in a decked out vehicle? Thought so.