A great game⦠if you have enough patience.
GAMEPLAY: 8/10
I will admit, this game was a lot of fun. The concept for the career mode is in typical Midnight Club fashion. What you have to do is roam around a city in your car and look for an illegal street racer. Once you find one, you flash your lights at the car and the person will begin to run through the streets to the raceâs starting point. Follow the person and you will race him. Beat his series of races and you win his car. I spent a lot of time playing through the game and winning all the cars. There are also different types of modes in arcade mode. There is the option to just cruise around, you can race in a series of circuit races, or play a game of capture the flag. These are nice touches to add to the game, especially for multi-player (I will get to that later).
You race in one of three well-designed cities: LA, Paris or Tokyo. Because you are racing in a city, you are free to drive wherever you want. The races are completely non-linear, and often you will find there are several paths to hit the checkpoints. Part of the fun to be had in this game is finding exactly where to go to get to the checkpoints. Sometimes the best route is through buildings, launching over rivers, or (my favorite) using that big glass triangle outside of La Louvre as a ramp.
The AI in this game is very smart. They are not afraid to take shortcuts and they will annoy you. What do I mean by that? They will do everything they can to try to make you spin out while driving 180 miles per hour. The AI is incredibly difficult and will do anything in their power to prevent you from winning. Unfortunately, this is also because of the rubber band AI. The cars will not let you get too far ahead or too far behind. I guess this was used to keep the races close and intense, but it became very annoying very quickly.
Another gripe that I have with the game is the physics. Each car had a different feel, which was a good thing. The bad thing, however, is how the cars handle in general. Sometimes the car would not turn hard enough and fly straight into a wall, and sometimes the car would turn too tight, performing a quick 180 and leaving you staring the other racers in the face. The point is the physics in the game need some adjustment. They were too unpredictable for me. The good thing is that the cars will act very differently in the rain. They seem to act more realistically in rain, where they slide and donât do real quick unpredictable 180âs, which is always a good thing. Sometimes, however, the rain made the cars act as if they were on ice.
But, Midnight Club 2 does add something cool to a racing game. There is a weight transfer button that allows you to shift your weight while in air to attempt to land cleanly or to make leaning turns on motorcycles. It was a nice addition that helped me in many occasions where I was about to land my car wrong.
GRAPHICS- 9/10
The cities are modeled beautifully. They are full of beautiful lighting and really look good while speeding down the street at insanely fast speeds, even though the game only runs at 30 fps, occasionally dropping below that. At a quick glance, the game is beautiful.
But, when you are at a standstill and look at the graphics, you can see that the cities are really rather simply made. There are very few, if any, smooth curves in the game. This is very noticeable on those curving ramps onto the freeway. Also, the cars have very few curves on them as well.
But, where this game does not excel in polygon count, MC2 really does pick up on reflections and lighting effects. The backgrounds reflect off of the cars beautifully. When watching yourself on the replay, you are able to see the shadows cast off of your car as you zoom past the streetlights (they are there in the actual gameplay, too, but you are usually too focused on not smashing into a truck to notice).
The real complaint about the graphics is the damage model. The reason that Rockstar San Diego did not use licensed cars was so they were able to use a damage model. Donât get me wrong, there is a damage model, but it is very unsatisfying. You can drive 200+ mph into a pole and there is no damage to the car. The only time the damage appears is if your car is damaged a certain amount or the car rolls over. When the damage appears, it looks nice. There are nice sparks and smoke that will accompany the physical damage to the car. Too bad it doesnât appear too often. Oh yeah, and the lights, no matter how hard you hit them, will never be damaged.
Speaking of lights, it seems as if your car is the only one that has them. Sure, your competitors have bright spots where the headlights are supposed to be, but there is no light shined onto the pavement. Just something that I noticed.
CARS AND TRACKS: 10/10
The cars are nice and varied. While none are licensed, they all (well, most⦠I am not sure what the âsecretâ car is) model real life cars. There are mocks of Hondas (Civic and S2000 look alikes) and Toyotas (Supra), as well as Nissan (350Z), Porches (911 GT3) and Aston Martin (Vanquish). There are many other car clones from Volkswagen, Kawasaki, Mazda, Dodge, Ford, BMW, Lotus, and a few others.
The cars do not have too many polygons on them, but that is easily overlooked by the way the light reflects off of them. The cars look stunning even with the damage model issue.
The tracks are great. No complaints here. The tracks can be anywhere in three cities. Basically, checkpoints are set up, and you must hit the checkpoints as fast as possible and hope to finish first. The tracks are varied throughout the city and many include some rather impressive jumps.
There are also some races where there are really no tracks at all. There are some races where there is one point, the finish, and your goal is to get to the finish as fast as possible. The catch: the cops are chasing you, and you must shake the cops before you reach the finish. A different approach to a race, and one that is well welcomed.
SOUND: 5/10
The cars sound good, as do most racers in this generation of games. Tires screech at the right points, engine sounds vary, metal scratches when ran against the walls. The sounds of the cars are good.
Another good part of the sound is the mindless chatter that the civilians give you. They yell at you for driving like a moron and they will curse at you. Sometimes the racers voices can get repetitive and old very quickly. But whatâs not to love about getting a tip of advice to âmake those other riders your b****esâ?
The voices and car sounds are great⦠but they are only half of the sound category. The other half is the music. Wow. Itâs just plain bad. No two ways about it. The droning techno music is awful. It would be one thing if it was good techno, but it is just plain bad techno. At times it distracted my thoughts and I was sitting there thinking to myself âwow, this music is really bad!â Luckily, they used the left and right arrows to change the music, and one of the options is always âoffâ. That is where it should be kept.
There is a way to make the music better. If you find yourself in the same problem that I had, which is hating this awful music, take these few simple steps:
1) Hit left or right arrow until game says âmusic: offâ
2) Pause game
2) Locate nearest CD player
3) Put in a CD⦠any CD⦠really, just about anything would be a step in the right direction.
4) Hit play.
5) Lower television volume, unpause game.
In a nutshell, the car sounds and pedestrians are good, while the music really bad.
MULTIPLAYER: 10/10
Multiplayer saves the game. It is fun. It is also online-compatible (broadband only) and will allow you to play with people all over the country. The game plays the same on-line. There are a few different multiplayer modes. They include circuit (regular racing), capture the flag and detonate. Detonate is a lot like capture the flag. Someone picks up the detonator and they canât let go of it. The other racers try to run into the person with the detonator so it explodes before they reach the goal. If the person reaches the goal, everyone explodes, respawns, and gets ready to capture another detonator. Itâs an interesting game but itâs fun, too.
REPLAY VALUE AND LONGEVITY: 9/10
This game can easily be 100% completed in a 5-night rental period. But, there is much more than just 100% completing the game. Once you beat the career mode, they increase the difficulty (trust me, the normal difficulty is hard⦠the increased is near impossible) and there is always the option for taking your skills to the other people on-line. There is much more to the game then just beating it. I think the on-line capabilities really increase the longevity of the game.
OVERALL: 8.5/10
There are a few nagging issues with the game (mostly the sound and sometimes the physics), but the whole package is very good. The game is fast and difficult while still remaining fun. I would recommend the game to anyone who likes arcade racers.
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