Midnight Club: Los Angeles Review - Xbox 360 Review

by Chris Reaper at Oct 31, 2008 6:48pm

Game: Midnight Club: Los Angeles
System: Xbox 360, PS3
Publisher: Rockstar Games
Developer: Rockstar San Diego

Players: 1
Online Players: 2-16
Genre: Racing
Release Date: October 21, 2008

Rockstar’s next hit in the Midnight Club franchise was released last week, and I’ve had the pleasure of playing it since then. Midnight Club: Los Angeles is definitely an amazing addition to the collection of any fan of the racing genre. Or even to anyone who isn’t a fan of racing games but wants to try one out. This one will definitely get you hooked.

The graphics and visuals of the game are absolutely fantastic. The city of Los Angeles has never looked as pretty in anything else as it does in this game. While of course it isn’t an exact copy of the whole city, it features all the highlights and landmarks. So if you’ve frequented the city streets or have lived there like I have, you’ll feel right at home. And back to graphics – the cars, streets, people, houses, buildings, just everything in the game! Look really good. So there’s not really much to say about graphics for the game, there’s nothing to complain about really. They simply kick ass.

Now for the sounds of the game, they came out beautifully done as well. Everything you’d expect to hear in a city, or in a street race, is there. And it’s done fantastic. The trash-talking, the roaring of engines, the innocent bystanders telling you off, the crashes, and the police sirens…Yep they’re all there. And they all sound great. And the soundtrack - which is always an important thing to get in to the mood of things while you tear through the streets in illegal street races heh heh - is pretty awesome. There are tons of great tracks on it from a wide variety of top artists and different genres. So whatever your taste in music may be, there has to be something on there you’ll like.

Now comes the most important part of any game, the gameplay. So Midnight Club: LA has awesome graphics and a wonderful soundtrack. But does it deliver on gameplay?

Yes, it most definitely does. Rockstar delivers a great racing experience by bringing the cars to life in the game, you experience everything you’d expect to behind the wheels of a car in a street race. The kicks and squeals of the car as you hit the gas, the smoky trails you leave behind as you speed away, the intense determination to go as fast as possible to win, and the fear and panic to not crash in to anything! It’s all there.

And there’s so much to do in the game. You’ll have tons of missions to select from right from the beginning, which is good so you won’t be stuck doing one thing over and over, and will have a variety of different races to choose from. Time Trials, Series Events, simple one on one races, and much more. And some have different difficulty levels as well. So if you’re up for a challenge you can choose a more difficult opponent. Or if you just feel like basically owning the race you can choose one of the easy guys.

Everything is located on your GPS system. Rockstar makes this is a very cool feature for a map. You hit the back button to bring it up and the cameras pan straight up from your car and in to the clouds to show you a view of the whole city. All your missions are on here varied with different colored markers depending on difficulty. Color-coded green to red, from easiest to hardest. You can select one and see the name of the opponent, where he is and what type of race it would be. As well as being able to choose that target as your destination so you can easily drive right to him with your GPS navigating you.

You can also zoom in on the map of the city and seek out shortcuts and easier ways to get where you want to go. Another cool feature of this GPS map, which really has nothing to do with anything but it’s a pretty awesome add-on, is that it will interact with whether it’s day or night, and whatever the current weather condition is. So while it may not have any distinct purpose, it’s a pretty cool addition to show that it’s live and make it more realistic.

Speaking of weather and day or night, that’s another cool feature. While racing the streets and driving around, day will begin to turn to night and vice-versa. And the weather may change as well. It can start to rain which affects the handle of your car. You slip a little on turns and such. So that’s another nice little touch that was added in.

Back to the GPS feature though, another thing you can see on your map are the locations of where cops may be lurking. They’re pointed out on your map as little blue markers, and once you begin to get close to one a little alarming sound will warn you, which picks up faster the closer you get to the cop. Be careful when around them, as a slight mistake in your driving will trigger the cop to pull you over of course. Or if you choose not to it’ll end up in a chase with him calling up back up. The longer the chase goes on, the more you’ll be fined when caught. However, it is possible to get away. And it’s not that hard to either. Just speed away and make some quick turns and try to get out of the cops view. Stay out of it for a while and the chase will be called off.

If you get caught though you’ll see a quick cut scene of your car being surrounded by heavily armed cops. Once you’re arrested you’re fined and end up starting on the outside of the police station. Simply let the cop pull you over though and avoid the chase, all you’ll get is a ticket. Personally I kind of like getting pulled over and then speeding away to start a chase, they’re quite fun in my opinion. And a pretty cool feature to being pulled over, is when you are it cuts to the cop car’s camera view, showing it being recorded on cop-cam. The cop slowly walks over to your vehicle, and you can either take the ticket, or speed off and startle him as he tries to run back to his car to chase after you. So it may not be anything too big, but I love it.

Anyway, the game starts off easy enough. Getting you in to the mix of things and used to the controls. But you’ll notice right after a couple of the first races, the difficulty level will increase quite a bit. While some people may complain about this and hate the game for it, I actually think it fits in fine. The only thing that got to me and made me a little frustrated was the series event. It can be a pain sometimes trying to come in first three times in a row before your opponent. The most frustrating is when you have two first place wins already, and just need that last one but fail to get it and one of you opponent gets three before you. Then you have to start the whole series over rather than just that last race, so you’ll need to get your wins back. Other than that though, I didn’t really have a problem with the difficulty.

And if you have a problem facing off against competitive AI, there’s always the games online mode, which is incredible. There seems to be no flaws in it performance wise, as everything seems to work and look just as good as they do offline. And there are so many different modes to choose from so it’ll keep you busy for quite some time. The only flaw I ever noticed online was a couple of times in races with the maximum 16 players you might notice a couple of glitches with racers, but I haven’t really noticed that too often, so it’s no big deal.

So to end this review let me just say whether you’re a fan of racing or not, you should check this title out. There’s so much to do in the single player story mode that will keep you busy, and even more in online that’s just as fun as well. There are lots of cars to buy later on and you can customize them a lot with different paint jobs and parts and such to your liking. And the whole city is just fun to drive around in and explore. So I definitely say to give this one a try.

Graphics:
The cars and city look fantastic in the game, smooth frame rate and a very realistic city.

Sound:
Tons of great tracks and sound effects that really fit in to the game make a very enjoyable experience to go along with the wonderful graphics and gameplay.

Gameplay:
Great graphics, great sound, and to continue it on great gameplay as well. Very realistic, from the engine effects to the crashes, everything involved is awesome.

Fun Factor:
While it may be frustrating as hell sometimes with the difficulty level of some of the races, the game is just as fun as well. With lots to do to keep you busy, it’s hard to get bored with this one!

Online:
Rockstar really nailed it for the online play. There are so many different options to choose from with different gaming modes to play, and it all works so well.

Graphics	Sound	Gameplay	Fun Factor	Online
8.5	9.5	9.0	8.0	9.0

Upside:
• Great graphics and amazing visuals. The city of L.A has never looked better!

• The sound for the game is done really well. And the soundtrack has great tracks that really fit well in to the game.

• There is lots and lots to do. Lots of different races and missions, a good amount of cars to unlock and a lot of ways to customize them.

• An amazing online mode that will keep you busy for hours and hours as well.

Downside:
• At times the races may be a tad bit too difficult and you’ll find yourself pretty damn frustrated, especially when you’re in a series and need 3 finishes in first place to win it.

Overall 9.0 (out of 10) Must Buy - The very best available