The fifth game in the Midnight Club series, Midnight Club: Los Angeles brings the popular simulation racer to next-generation consoles for the first time. Developed by Rockstar Games, developers of the Grand Theft Auto series, it is packed with an incredible selection of muscle cars, tuners, exotics, motorcycles, luxury cars and an incredible selection of after-market performance parts and custom kits. Enter the ultimate world of Illegal street racing with no track, no load times, no rules: Welcome back to the Midnight Club.
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A Wide-open LA Like You’ve Never Imagined
Midnight Club Los Angeles drops players into a painstakingly recreated version of world-famous Tinseltown. Broken down into five distinct open-world gameplay areas, linked on the game map, cumulatively these areas comprise a massive area, much larger than anything ever seen in previous Midnight Club releases and possibly larger than any existing racer to date. Within these areas, Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Hollywood, Mulholland Drive and Downtown LA, players are free to engage in mission play driving them to attain and customize a wide range of authentic world-class street racing vehicles, or to simply explore the city, taking on all comers in a variety of race types as they wish. Regardless, along the way they will experience not only the visual realism of the iconic boulevards, freeways, and landmarks made famous in TV and movies, but also the realism of the living breathing LA urban experience. Here traffic backs up then clears as people go to and leave work for the day, weather systems come and go and day turns to night, then back again. All the while the race goes on. It’s all part of the living, breathing LA. It’s all part of the Midnight Club.
Midnight Club: Los Angeles will feature an astounding selection of vehicles in the Muscle Car, Exotics, Tuners, Motorcycle and Luxury car categories. At the time of publishing only a fraction of the total list has been announced, but a good sampling of what players can expect at launch can be seen below. Click the links in each category to see screen shots of the cars:
| Muscle Cars Saleen S302 Extreme Chevrolet Corvette Z06 Dodge Challenger Concept Car |
Bikes Kawasaki Ninja ZX14 |
| Exotics Aston Martin V8 Vantage Roadster Ford GT Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder |
Tuners Volkswagen R32 Pontiac Solstice 1999 Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX |
Midnight Club Los Angeles continues the tradition of offering some of the deepest vehicle customization you will find in any video game. The hottest licensed cars and bikes in the world are at your disposal – kit them out, supe them up, and personalize them down to the last detail to make them all your own. Visit the Club’s in-game garages located in Hollywood and Santa Monica and let your imagination run wild – tweaking and fine tuning through the following three different types of vehicle modifications: Performance & Handling – To become a street legend, you’re going to have to tune your vehicle for maximum performance. The garage offers three levels of upgrades for virtually every component on your vehicle, but it’s up to you to craft the winning combination that will give you the edge on the competition. Exterior – For the Midnight Club, stunting is a habit and its clandestine Los Angeles garages have all the toys needed to ensure heads turn in this jaded town. From making sure your car is dripping in candy paint, to adding unique body kits and jaw dropping extras, the garage offers practically limitless possibilities to personalize your vehicle with aftermarket accessories and customizable options. Interior – Don’t embarrass yourself by pulling up with an outrageously kitted-up car that has a ‘me-too’ factory interior. Not a good look! You’re going to be spending a lot of time behind the wheel, so renovate and make yourself feel comfortable. Beware or Befriend the Local Competition
The street racing scene of Midnight Club is tough, but tight, meaning that everyone that you meet in expansive Los Angeles could just as easily be an ally as an enemy. One thing is for certain though, they are all willing to throw down at the drop of a hat. Just a few of the faces you’ll encounter out on the streets are:
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Karol, Age 45 – A veteran of Moscow’s underground street racing circuit, Karol moved to LA in the 1990′s after the collapse of the Soviet Union. If you’re looking for cars, he’s your man. He owns two successful garages and claims to be able to get hold of any vehicle, no questions asked. He also sees himself as a philosopher and will bend your ear if you left him. He mostly races around Hollywood and the Beaches and his rides include a 1975 Datsun 280Z, 1969 Boss Mustang 302, 2006 Dodge Challenger and a 1971 Lamborghini Miura SV. |
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Annie, Age 31 – Annie has a rep as one of the fiercest drivers in the city. She detests posers and wannabes, is intelligent and sharp-tongued and pulls no punches when it comes to cutting the competition down to size. She has been spotted in everything from a 1983 VW Golf GTI, 2006 Pontiac Solstice, 2008 Chrysler 300C SRT-8, 2008 Audi RS4 and a 2004 Ford Shelby Cobra Concept and can usually be found hanging out near Pink’s Hotdog Stand in Hollywood along with her crew. |
Rockstar Games Social Club: Join the Community
Being a Rockstar game Midnight Club: Los Angeles comes with a huge commitment to the gaming community. To take advantage of all the benefits that come with this players should ensure that they join the ‘Rockstar Games Social Club’ to extend their Midnight Club experience. Benefits will include, but are not limited to detailed player statistics, robust multiplayer leaderboards for all online games modes – plus a host of other special features, including in-game music download opportunities, to be announced at a later date. Simply create an account, link your PlayStation Network ID, set up your profile and you’re in.
As of the time of publishing Rockstar Games has not confirmed the gameplay modes that will be available for Midnight Club: Los Angeles, but multiple multiplayer gameplay modes, in addition to a deep singleplayer mode, are expected to be available with the game. As the game’s launch date creeps closer please check back for further details.
User Ratings and Reviews
2 Stars hot wheels meets barbie dolls
This game looks really good. The racing is well done, but then it should be, because that’s all there really is to this game. Aside from racing, you can play Barbie dolls with your cars, changing their little outfits and adding accessories.
Those parts of the game are all well and good, but the save feature is easily the worst design element I’ve ever found in a post-Atari 2600 video game. The game auto-saves to the same data file after every event or change that occurs; you can turn off the auto-save, but you cannot manually save your game – you have to turn the auto-save back on, or you lose any progress you’ve made. If more than one person wants to play a game on the same PS3, each person must have or create a user file. If you want to start a new game, you have to either delete your current game’s save file or you have to create a new user file and start the new game under that. If you want to save multiple games under your user ID, well you can’t. Whoever is responsible for that design is a jackass.
I guess one might have a pretty good time racing around a pretty, digital LA with one’s online friends for a while, but that’s all this simple-minded game has to offer. It’s like dating a really hot, but incredibly stupid person, and there’s no chance of ever having sex. What’s the point?
5 Stars The King of Next-Gen Racing
Midnight Club Los Angeles is alive with soul & character unlike other next-gen racers that are too arcade & generic. Rockstar proves once again they are the king of gaming with a racer that feels like your driving in a real world environment which they are still upgrading with new free downloadable maps. I’ve played Burnout Paradise (which was a bore) and Midnight Club drives laps around it. Well worth it!!!
4 Stars A great street racing game, but not much else…
Pros:
1) In full 1080p, the graphics really stand out!
2) The handpicked soundtrack is superb and flows very well with the game. This game also allows you to play a custom soundtrack from your HDD.
3) 43 cars and 3 motorcycles to choose from straight off the disc!
4) In depth customizations give you as many car designs as you can imagination.
5) The South Central add-on expands the map by about 1/3 the original map size, and it’s free! The South Central Premium Upgrade ($9.99) contains nine new vehicles, 26 new races, 12 new battle maps, 10 new delivery missions, over 100 new red light races, new vinyl packs, new parts and new music. More add-on content should be available in the future.
6) You never feel lonely. Not only are there hundreds of civilians running around LA, but you get calls all the time from racers looking for a challenge.
7) With so many cops running around LA all the time, you may ask yourself how to not get in so many pursuits. The answer is simple, obey the law! If you drive the speed limit, stay on the road, and don’t get into accidents, the cops will leave you alone. Just be sure to crank up the nitro as soon as they turn the corner.
8) This open world racing game has a very long loading screen when you first put the disc in, but after that any loading is almost unnoticeable.
9) The GPS is actually a smaller 3D world you can zoom in and out. It can even help you find hidden shortcuts if you look close enough.
Cons:
These are ALL of the cons I could think of, which is not too many for such a huge game!
1) The cop chases are not all they hyped them up to be. You will usually have no more than three cop cars chasing you at a time. The chases themselves seem to be uneventful, no road blocks, helicopters, and the cop cars never get better as you progress through the game. You rarely see your pursuers while in a chase. Unlike most of the racing games I’ve played with police, there seems to be no way to physically destroy the police. To loose the cops, all you can do is get out of their line of sight for a few seconds and hide.
2) Although the game is in 1080p, anything outside the playing world (menus, saving icon, button controls, etc.) look very pixilated.
3) In races, often times you will be far ahead of your opponents, or due to a single error on your part, your opponents will be so far to ahead of you the it is impossible for you to catch up to them. Realistic, but not the most fun…
4) When you crash on a motorcycle, the rag doll system your character goes through is not very realistic. No matter how brutal the crash is, the end result will almost always look the same; Al (the main character) will be lying either face up or down in the middle of the road with arms and legs sticking straight out.
5) With so many side missions, it’s hard to follow the main storyline.
6) A few times, you’ll be asking yourself, “How did I crash? Nothing was even there!” This is because the game generates traffic as you drive, so sometimes, a car will pop out of nowhere right in front of you and hit you head on.
All in All:
I would say if you’re looking for a great open world street racing game, this is a very good choice. There’s always someone to race and if you get bored of beating the computer so much, you can always play online.
5 Stars This game rocks!
Although the reviews by the critics are bad, they really have no right to say thoes things. this game is a mix of racing, police pursuits,upgrading your cars to be the best of the best, betting your cars in pinkslip wagers, burinig up the freeway just to veer onto the wrong side and get into a 250mph head on crash(but that just might be me) and so much more. with only a small part of the storyline actually sequenced, you can race through the whole game with as little as 10 cut scenes! this game is one that opens a door into the future of racing and NOTHING i have played even comes close to being as good as this. It is money very well spent and i would recomend this to people who like suping up their lambroghinis and taking them out for a 200mph cruise down the 101 freeway just to end up with a cop pointing a shotgun at your head yelling for you to put your hands up and step out of the car!
5 Stars Better than some people give it.
First off, this is probably the best Midnight Club they have made so far. The city is open semi-realistic, but they have cut down the size of L.A. Also, the gameplay (car movements, crashes, etc.) is realistic for the most part. The game can get kind of challenging when you first start out and join the races. Secondly, getting away for cops can be challenging. For the people that gave it one star, the police and other races do make mistakes and crash. There not perfect.