I’ve never been known as the gamer that has an open mind. I don’t exactly think that I am a fan of racers, but from time to time a gem or two will be released and I will once again become a slave to unlocking any and all extras. Midtown Madness 3 is obviously the third installment, but of a highly popular racing series that was born on the PC and has enthralled gamers throughout the years. Having no previous experience with the first two installments, I was in for a surprise when I first popped the disk in. I had absolutely no clue what to expect. My overall idea was that it had an arcade racer-type feel to it, and it was Xbox Live compatible. I’ll admit, ever since the days of San Francisco Rush, I’ve been pining for a game like this to come out; and on paper, everything looked good; but was Midtown Madness 3 worth the purchase?
Let me just first point out that I had a decision to make between getting Midtown Madness 3 or Midnight Club 2. Both are sequels, racing games, and online compatible, but to consider them similar is like comparing apples and oranges. While MC2 is a street-racer that is based more on a simulation, MM3 is an arcade racer that is great for the most novice of players, or the faster driver in the west. Both games excel online, but was MM3 a good choice?
Before I start explaining the game, I must say that Midtown Madness 3 includes two incredibly massive cities that I have heard are pretty true to scale. Paris and Washington D.C. were chosen as the featured cities in this game; you can drive past the Lincoln Memorial, drive down Constitution Avenue, heck, you can even visit the Eiffel Tower! I never knew that you could use the U.S. Capital as a speed ramp. Each map would take you a few minutes to race from one end to another; and are all extremely detailed and true to real life. That being said, picture playing this game online with this much depth, or picture yourself finding new secret places and roads months after you purchase this game.
I took my friend’s advice when he told me to first practice on the single-player game and then move up to beating people around the world on Xbox Live. I raced through such game modes as “Checkpoint”, “Blitz”, and “Cruise”. These were all basically ways to practice for either online or “Work Undercover” play. Working Undercover is where the unlockables are. As you complete different jobs of becoming a taxi driver, police officer, stunt driver, limo driver etc, you will unlock new cars to play as during gamely; but the developers of the game may one fatal error, you can play as all of the cars online before you even touch the single player game! This hurts replay value in a huge way. The only incentive to keep playing lies in unlocking the two secret cars, which can only be obtained with a faster car. You will need to play a few hours under your belt before you can reach the unlockable cars. These can be played online, but I wish that they included more than two to unlock online. The only thing I found myself playing for were new paint jobs.
Checkpoint mode is something that may sound redundant to the ordinary racer, but Midtown Madness gives it a whole new meaning. The thing that I found fresh and fun in this game is that checkpoint is a pretty broad game mode. There is no set track in which you can race; you still have two massive cities to race through. The first car to speed past all checkpoints wins. You can go in any combination; the trick to this game is to find shortcuts and alternate routes to clock in with the best time.
Cruise mode is probably the best mode for you to just drive around and get used to the maps because they’re massive. If you wanted to unlock paintjobs for your newly unlocked cars, you would go into Cruise mode to have the freedom of exploring cities and snagging that hot look for your ride. To find paintjobs, you can only use this game mode offline, but you can still play cruise mode to get used to maps online while finding new areas with up to seven other people.
I found the offline game of working undercover to be repetitive and dull at times. How many times will you have to drive someone from point A to point B before you throw your controller through your TV in anger? For a fresh game, head onto Xbox live; this game just wouldn’t be worth it if it weren’t for this feature. The offline version may disappoint many gamers out there, but the online mode surely will not if you are the same kind of gamer as I am.
Now I will admit that the main reason that I bought this game was because it was Xbox Live compatible and I am an online whore when it comes to games now. But if its online action you’re looking for, there is plenty of competition on here enough for the average gamer’s head to explode.
With Xbox Live comes new game modes that are exclusive to online and are a blast to play. Capture the Gold, Tag, Stayaway, and Hunter can all be played on Xbox Live or system link only and are reason enough to stay home for a few days and drive your brains out.
Capture the gold is a bit disappointing, although I’ve played people online before that think it’s the best mode out there. The reason why I disagree is because it doesn’t stray away from the offline version too much which is basically picking something up (gold) and bringing it to some other destination. I just don’t think this mode much fun.
Tag mode is pretty self-explanatory. Someone will start as “It”, you can bump into another car and make them “It”, but whoever is “It” when time runs out, is eliminated from the game. This continues until there is one car left.
Two game modes that I have grown very found of are Stayaway and Hunter. These are both reasons enough to buy an Xbox Live starter kit. Stayaway puts you up against the competition by forcing you to hold a “rabbit” for a determined amount of time. Avoid hitting any other cars and drive away from the competition to win.
Hunter is almost like The Matrix Reloaded when Agent Smith infects people and they become one of him. This works on the same premise because one car will start as a cop, the rest are fleeing him. If the hunter hits a car, there will then be two hunters to stop the competition. The last car standing wins. This is great to play and trash talk on.
This game looked beautiful, but if you have seen the Xbox’s full potential, you will be fooling yourself if you think this is as good as it gets. Although there is no slow-down to be found, you also won’t find groundbreaking graphics. Cars and lighting are pretty well rendered, but pedestrians and other quirks are just sub par at best. Scenery was nice, but nothing amazing here. (graphics rating: 8)
The gameplay was unbalanced if you ask me. On one hand, you have an overall mediocre offline game, but then you connect online and you have one of the better online titles on the Xbox. It looks like I will be playing this game online for months to come; I have yet to touch the offline game since my first time playing. It’s sad, too, considering that this game was supposed to be so well rounded; Microsoft puts a lot of effort in a lot of areas of this game and it shows; but comes up short in some places. For example, this game supports custom soundtracks; which are a great feature on any Xbox game, but unfortunately they pulled it off wrong. To those of you that are unfamiliar with custom soundtracks, it is when you rip a song or album onto your Xbox hard drive and can actually listen to this while playing certain games. When selecting a soundtrack, it will play the same song virtually every time! Shame on you, Microsoft! Online kept this game’s heart beating. (gameplay rating: 7.5)
Overall I would like to recommend this game for anyone with Xbox live; but those that I know that purchased this game to experience great one player fun will be sadly disappointed. With some Downloadable Content coming soon (rumored November), this game may find some new blood and attract new gamers to join the party. See me play sometime, maybe you’ll have the honor of losing to me! (overall: 7.5)
