Midtown Madness II is another great title to come out this year for the Xbox. The game features 'open city' racing in three awesome locations, Paris, Tokyo, & LA. The best part about is that it's so easy to just pick up & play. This is what I love about it. It has all the cool moves like weight transfer (very useful doing jumps and on the motorcycles), two wheelin through traffic (not very useful because it gets annoying everytime you wreck), nitros, & burning out (which is cool too). You have the ability to race more than 30 new performance adjusted vehicles, muscle cars, hot rods, rally cars and the world's fastest domestic and foreign autos. Did I even mention cops? Cops want to break up an illegal racing circuit at any cost. Sophisticated techniques are the norm - they won't simply chase you down. Now they have helicopter patrols, will set up roadblocks...so not only drive fast, but know the city and drive smart. There are all the modes. They did need to add needed replays though. The cars are all good, but theres no ability to customize your rig. There is the Race Editor feature which lets you create your own races. That would have been nice. The controls are very smooth with that arcade feeling to them. The style of play in midnight club is very nice, gotta love it. This game isn't really hard, but you gotta learn the shortcuts. The AI is decent, and the cities are well done. If you didn't know already, this is another LIVE! enabled Xbox title. On Xbox LIVE!, there's support for upto 8 players with of course voice communication just like the rest of Xbox LIVE! enabled games. For those without Xbox LIVE!, there's 4-player split screen support.
Midnight Club II has High Definition TV 480P mode supported, including wide screen. Of course from looking at the game for the first time, you know that it's been made for the PS2. The graphics are still nice though. Rockstar was nice enough to give us an upgrade on the graphics. The cars are soso. Don't get me wrong, this is a very nice looking game, but it's really what you'd expect on the PS2. I did notice the enhanced lighting, a bit higher texture resolution. Even though I didn't like the cars very much, compared to the PS2 version, there are dramatically enhanced enhanced vehicle models and environments. The colors on the cars look kind of dull and generic. The environments are nice though as I said before. You got all your traffic, and the cars show damage responsive mostly to where the damage occured. remember its more arcade so you can take a lot more damage than real life, cuz what fun would that be. The best thing about the graphics is definately the sparks flying everywhere, no doubt about it.
The sound is in Dolby Digital 5.1, and with my setup I could notice it at times. Its not as emphasized like games like Splinter Cell. The engines sound different and sound fine. The music is alright, I mean its nothing special, but this game really needed custom soundtracks. The voiceovers are pretty good, but the drivers talk too much during the races. Its like shutup and drive for real they get like madden in the football games. The effects and crashes can be heard too. It's all good, and the menu music is straight. Everything is done good.
Xbox live with its game modes shines here and you can somewhat make your own courses. Make sure you learn those shortcuts. Theres the career mode and arcade mode and thanks a lot to the cruise mode that is a big must. The games career is pretty short but it will give some good edge of your seat racing for sure. It will get you annoyed and happy. The arcade races are basically an extension of the career mode, or vice versa, its just in the career is where you learn the moves, experience, and cars. I havent come across anymore unlockables except for the police cars and such, its all cars to be unlocked. The racing is good enough to keep you interested for a while and its cool to race your friends. This area gets a well deserved 19 out of 20.
The whole experience is pretty cool. I mean it's not real "street racing" or "Fast and Furious" if thats what you expects, but its a real fun game. And you will like it. The racing has a cool feeling with it, how it's night outside and all the traffic. Just go play it, its great. it could HAVE used some other elements during the game. It's pretty straight forward, and its all good. The experience that I had with this game was great. Everything is well done.
Midnight Club II is a unique racer, and it can bring some good fun. I would suggest at least renting it. Try it out and give it a go!
