Midnight Club: Street Racing

Other products by Rockstar Games

Product Features

• Race for pride, power and glory in sleek, customized, tricked-out sports cars
• Speed like crazy through crowded streets, running red lights, terrorizing pedestrians, driving on sidewalks and outrunning the cops
• Experience accurate models of New York and London as you race through a living city and win the pink slips of opposing players

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00004UFRI
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.8 x 0.5 inches ; 5.4 ounces
• Media: Video Game
• Release Date: October 16, 2000
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (122 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #11,150 in Video Games (See Bestsellers in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

• This is item 1 in The Midnight Club Series.

Product Description

Amazon.com Review

The main premise of Midnight Club Street Racing is that you and your pals take to the streets each night to race hot rods around town. Along the way, you'll terrorize those pedestrians who are crazy enough to be outdoors at night, and generally crash into anything that's vertical. It goes without saying that then you'll spend most of your daytime hours pounding out the dents from the previous night's misadventures.

Midnight Club Street Racing plays like a combination of the high-res street shenanigans of the Dreamcast's Tokyo Extreme Racing and the mission-based mayhem of the PS One's Driver. You've got two fantastic urban vistas in which to roam around--New York and London--and a jacked-up little runabout in which to do it. The game isn't just about racing, but about racing from point to point, too, or playing follow the leader.

Graphically appealing (if more than a little flat, but that doesn't detract) and speedy, this game might not tax the PlayStation2 hardware, but it might tax your skills as a gamer if you don't keep up.

Maps to the city are available whenever you need them, and make it rather difficult to get lost. It's advisable to try, however--there are tons of miniroutes to traverse. No route is sacrosanct--you can bash through plate-glass windows, barrel through underground parking structures, meander across parks, and even pogo from roof to roof. In this way, the game has a bit of that good ole Driver feel; although, the further in you play, the night skies and somber tone of the city dispel some of this feel.

Midnight Club Street Racing is a great game, and yet another reason for new PlayStation2 owners to smile. While it's not terribly groundbreaking, it's one game that's loads of fun to play. --Todd Mowatt

Pros:

• Solid and fun race mechanics
• Sprawling cityscapes, with multiple routes
• Two-player games add replayability

Cons:

• City objects lack definition
• Only two cities in which to race

Product Description

Furious action is the name of the game as urban street racers known as the Midnight Club gather secretly around the world

See all Product Description

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Midnight Club is the best racing game currently out, November 16, 2000

By A Customer

Midnight Club is a console version of Midtown Madness with more style and attitude. I thought the graphics, particularly the lighting effects, were great, but they are even more impressive when you consider the tradeoffs that had to be made given the enormity and complexity of the cities. The Midnight Club representation of the frentic, neon-lit Times Square in New York is a sight to behold.

If you've played Midtown Madness on the PC, you have a good idea what to expect from the gameplay. It's wheel-to-wheel racing in a huge, totally represented city with cars, people, and all sorts of crud to run into on the sidewalks. Most games block off certain sections of track with invisible walls or barricades, but these cities are totally free to explore, even in a race. Having played Midtown, I think the cities in Midnight Club were somewhat better designed to have more shortcuts, more interior driving and more hidden surprises. One other huge factor is being able to replay your race to see all the accidents and chaos you might've missed the first time around.

I score this game 1 star short of a perfect 5 because of some embarassing stereotyped dialogue of the in-game characters, the monotonous irritating music, and some frustrating game design decisions (like having to chase around the computer players all around town just to initiate another race. Isn't that what the cell phone is for?) Another factor is the cars you get to race. It would've been a big plus if there were real cars in the game, like the actual street racers use.

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a sadly overlooked launch title, October 30, 2000

By	punkviper (Pittsburgh, PA USA) - See all my reviews

Angel Studios, the developers of Midnight Club, also did Smuggler's Run. Smuggler's Run, thanks to early in-store exposure, seems to be the more popular title currently, despite being a bit repetitive and not quite as deep or original as Midnight Club.

There are many modes of play in Midnight Club, the bulk of which is the Career Mode. You start out with the bottom-of-the-heap Taxi, and use it to roam the city looking for "hookmen." Once you find one, he will acknowledge you, and then you must tail him as he speeds around the city. If you successfully keep up with him, then you will enter into a race (that takes place at midnight, thus the title) against that hookman and any number of his "homeys." The objective of this race is to hit various checkpoints in order, and then reach the finishing point first. If you are successful, the hookman will reward you with his cellphone. When you get a hookman's cellphone, you can then call him, challenge him to a one-on-one race (no marauding "homeys" to help him out this time) which, if you win, you get to use his car. Each "hookman" has a different type of vehicle (sport truck, Latino low-rider, Honda Civic, etc) and each has strengths and weaknesses. The taxi is very maneuverable, but slower than molasses, therefore you will want to challenge immediately in order to gain access to better cars.

There also a Cruise Mode, where you simply take a car and drive around the city, no purpose or objective required (basically to learn the map of the city), as well as an Arcade mode, where you just race against other hookmen for their cars (but you can only use cars gained this way in Arcade mode). The various "hookmen" are all very colorful and have a lot to say when you race them (including a dash of the old profanity), the cars are well-rendered in the style of San Francisco Rush, i.e. sorta arcade-ish, but detailed enough to know what they are. There are only 2 environments in the game, New York City, and London. Both have been replicated in detail from real city maps, lending a very authentic feel to the locales. And both cities are HUGE.

I enjoyed the multi-tiered gameplay that almost forces you to run the gauntlet before you can get the prize (new cars). It shows some creativity and plot-development on the part of the developers. Is this game like Driver? Yes and no. The free-roaming environment is definitely similar, but Midnight Club is essentially a racing game, and not an "evade the cops" game (though the cops do show up in Midnight Club and will chase you). Midnight Club is a very smooth, very laid back game that will challenge even the most hardcore gamer (especially on the later levels). Once you start getting cars, you have to know which ones to use in certain situations (Straight course? Use something with speed. Circuitous path? Get something with handling.)

Not the "killer-app" launch title that SSX is, but still Top-5.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I bought it, I want to keep it, November 15, 2000

By	A Customer - See all my reviews

Ok, so you can see this has gotten mixed reviews. Dailyradar.com and ign.com both liked it. Well I was actually on the wild side, bought it without even renting it. Listen carefully. The graphics are not nearly the potential that the ps2 can perform, the control is nothing ordinary and the game is quite similar to Driver concept. So why give it 4 stars? My friend and I played the capture the flag level, and it was 2 hours before we stopped.

Now don't you dare classify this as a racing game. If you want a true racing game, wait for Grand Turismo 3. This is more of a chase game. It has a police chase section similar to Need for Speed and Driver. The maps of New York and London are amazing. I have been to New York and it is very much to scale. You recognize many of the familar spots. You play the capture the flag feature with a friend, and 3 CPU opponents, you will be very entertained. The replay value on this is quite good. This is certainly one I would get.