One things for sure, Maddie and I are huge gamers. We love a broad range of video game genres i.e. RPG, Action/Adventure, FPS, etc. The current game I've been playing is Midnight Club Los Angeles.
I've been into the Midnight Club racing game franchise for quite sometime ever since my brothers put me on the 2nd game. I remember playing the first release of Midnight Club. It wasn't that great, but Rockstar games really stepped it up in the 2nd installation. I was drawn into the game not only because of the gameplay, but the soundtrack of the game. It has great Trance, Electronica and Drum & Bass tracks. The only drawback to the game in my opinion was the difficulty of finding some of the race markers. Many times the direction it points you in doesn't even lead you to the next one, consequently making you fall behind in last only to try and catch up with the rest of the racers.
The third installation was called Dub Edition, which began introducing customization to your cars. You could enhance performance aspects to your ride and also customize the look of your ride with body kits, different style paint jobs, neon, etc. The gameplay was solid just like the 2nd game, but they improved the race markers a great deal, making them brighter and very visible even from far away. A Remix edition was released later on that added Tokyo as another city to race in. The soundtrack was also changed in the 3rd game, where it featured lots of different genre's of music, such as Rap and Rock.
Now the latest installment, Los Angeles is pretty straight forward. It pretty much has the cliche story of most racing games. You're an out-of-towner looking to get into the street racing scene in Los Angeles. Unlike the other Midnight Club games, you actually get to see what your character looks like. Wish there was an option to customize the look of your character, but it wasn't that big of a deal. What's great about this game is also how close Rockstar games captured the city of Los Angeles. It's not 100% identical, but it's pretty close with Los Angeles' landmarks and popular streets are put into the game. Even the freeways are pretty much spot on.
Throughout the game, you work your way up to the top of the racing scene in order to become the city champ. Sounds simple enough, but there are many other "missions" in the game. I believe the game has improved significantly from the previous games in the franchise.
One new feature in the game is police pursuits. In the previous games, the cops showed up during races and pretty much just tried to sidetrack you to prevent you from winninng. However in Midnight Club Los Angeles not only do the cops show up during races, they also are patrolling the streets even when you are just cruising. So if they catch you going to fast or driving recklessly, they can try to pull you over. You either have the option of paying the fine or running from them. If deciding to run from them, you have to lose them in order to get away, even if a race has ended with you winning. I thought this was a great addition to the game because I pretty much thought they were pointless showing up in the previous games.
Their are many other new features in Midnight Club Los Angeles that I could talk about, but there's way too many to talk about. All in all, I think this is the best game in the franchise, and if you love to play racing games I suggest you check it out. The only thing I would warn other gamers about is most of the Midnight Club are very difficult. I've read many reviewers stress this, but to be honest, if it weren't difficult, I think it would be pretty boring to play. Maddie can attest to this, because I was literally going ape shit when things were getting frustrating in the game.
I know there's countless racing games in the video game market that have pretty much the same story lines and features. I haven't played most of them but I can say that I feel Midnight Club is a lot better than the Need for Speed franchise. Haven't given the Burnout franchise a try yet, but I hear it's pretty fun.
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