Aye - iv been getting allot out of the arcade-ness of Midnight Club since the first game.
I am generally really hyped for a new Midight Club game and as of last weekend the new title finally appeared on my radar. The early fake promo shots had me drooling, the more reality bore shots shown over the last 6 months really turned me off. Now early impressions and reviews reminded me that I will change my mind once I play it in motion.
I personally like the harder difficulty of Midnight Club. I fond that in so many other racing games I am either finishing by a long lead in first place, or far in the final position. Burnout was good this week and kept the action tense with what felt like diddy kong racing style cheating, but I like how each of your opponents in Midnight Club has a distinct look/feel and position on the radar. In previous Midnight Club games opponent racers felt less like props in your racing movie that would suddenly shoot onscreen from behind at the moment you need to deal with them. The AI cheating feels minimized even if the challenge is high at times. I like finishing most races by a hair and be in a 1/2 way standing position feeling the tension each time. This is what keeps it fun and more rewarding when you can finally finish a painful challenge / rival racer.
Midnight Club: Los Angeles is a great racing experience with a few mars on its paint job. The cars handle fantastically, the city is nearly perfect, the GPS stuff is awesome and customizing your ride is great. It is way too hard, however, even right from the start. Rep points help to make sure you progress even if you can't win anything, but it's annoying to keep coming in at the end of the pack and rarely nabbing the top of the podium. Fans of street racing, and especially the Midnight Club series in general, will find a lot to like here, but don't expect an easy time on the streets.
Presentation
Fantastic GPS system that lets you explore the city quickly, and the menus generally get out of your way very quickly.
Graphics
The city looks fantastic given its scope, though the car models probably could have been a little sleeker.
Sound
Mostly great soundtrack and awesome engine effects make this a speaker-pusher.
Gameplay
The cars handle very well, the city is a blast to drive in and there's plenty to do. Unfortunately, it's also unforgivingly hard.
Lasting Appeal
Plenty of events and tons of online options will keep you hooked for a good while.
You never know if youll agree with the likes of IGN - but they have played it so they know more than me at the moment.
I DO NOT agree with IGN's thoughts on the games AI racers "rubber-banding" - you can do the same start boost and save your multiple boosts for certain moments in the race. IGN continually sounds like they need to practice more. Again - the enemy AI racers are on the radar and accounted for.
I do love the racing differences between this and burnout. Midnight Club does make you rely on more powerslide turning so it ends up serving up a crazy fun physics/action racing game like burnout with the hang-time of Ridge Racer. This is a big reason I always come back for more.
One thing I didnt like as much that they introduced in Midnight Club 3 were the extreme super moves for each car class like the bass boost or the ability to ram vehicles and crash them. This game ooks to have the same features - hopefully they are balanced better and not used to intentionally spam up online games.
They get a bit of pop culture humor into the game too. Usually poking fun at ricer doods, etc...
Aye who is in on this?
