Midnight Club: Los Angeles

[MrDigital]

Anyone else playing it? I'm about 60% through it now with 35 hours (according to the game stats). Plays well, cars handle similar to Test Drive Unlimited.

I have a few issues with the game:
1) The recreation of Los Angeles is pretty weak. First of all they only included the basin and not the valley or even south bay. The boundaries are the 101, the PCH, the 5 and the 10. Why the hell did it take so long to get the game released if that's all they were going to include? The scope is incredibly weak compared to Test Drive Unlimited. Second of all, the parts of LA they DID include are barely true to life. They took quite a few liberties with the streets and layout. Very few of the actual stores/buildings look correct, and most of the streets aren't particularly similar to reality.

2) The selection of cars in the game is limited -- again, why did this game take so long to get released? I've been waiting for it since they announced it about 18 months ago. There's maybe 40 cars, with many of those being "DUB" editions of the same cars.

3) The game has some serious texture loading issues. Sometimes I'm driving around on a cloud because the ground textures don't load. Sometimes the wheels disappear off my car leaving tires with no rims.

4) Somebody should've told Rockstar to listen to the old 80's song "Nobody Walks in LA" because they have an excessive amount of pedestrians walking the streets for no other reason then to distract your eyes with them dodging out of the way. And you can tell it's from the same people who made Grand Theft Auto since the character designs and voices are identical.

What I like about the game:
1) The controls are good. I don't have any issues with car handling or illusion of speed. The pointers that point you through the courses are easy to see and aim for (much better than Burnout Paradise).

2) The graphics are decent, nothing extraordinary but nothing horrible either.

3) The soundtrack is great. It even has my ringtone in the game! (DJ Felli Fel's "Get Buck in Here") Hah I actually thought my phone was ringing when I heard it. Never expected it to be in a game. But it's a mix between hip-hop and house/minimal electro.

4) It's my favorite city inside of a video game and they made a respectable effort, but nowhere near what I expected.

I haven't played online yet so I don't know how that aspect of it plays.

Overall I'd give it a 7.5/10

For reference I'd give these scores to these similar games:
Test Drive Unlimited: 9/10
Burnout Paradise: 7/10
Need For Speed Most Wanted: 8/10
Need For Speed Carbon: 7/10

[eon]

my brother bought it
i didnt even care enough to try it out yet

[wh666-666]

Nice review ...

[Kung_Fu_Fighter]

2) The selection of cars in the game is limited -- again, why did this game take so long to get released? I've been waiting for it since they announced it about 18 months ago. There's maybe 40 cars, with many of those being "DUB" editions of the same cars.

How does it compare overall to MIDNIGHT CLUB 3? That game was one of my favorite racers of all time along with F-Zero GX.

[MrDigital]

I've never played any earlier MCs but a different review (IGN I think) stated that it was a drastic reduction in cars from MC3.

[Timman_24]

Really test drive unlimited is that good? Better than most wanted? I might have to pick that up. What makes it better?

[MrDigital]

NFS:MW had a LOT of bugs.. ie. invisible walls (where your car misses an object but still registers a hit and spins around), elastic-band AI and some other minor things. TDU has much fewer of those.

TDU is also a much larger environment to race around with a wider variety of cars which handle much different from each other. It's also an open racing world and not linear like NFS:MW. The selection of cars in TDU is amazing with even boutique vendors like Koenigsegg and Caterham being represented and not just the big automakers.

TDU is the best arcade racing game ever IMO.

[Kamakazie]

I hated TDU, myself. The car physics didn't feel right and the bike physics were terrible. I did like the island you were placed on and the stuff they did with online play, but that wasn't enough to get past the fact that the driving physics were stiff and the bikes feel like small cars.

[MrDigital]

The bikes ride the same (if not worse) in MCLA as they do in TDU, so... I agree.

But the car physics??? I think we argued about this before actually, no need to rehash it lol. Needless to say I strongly disagree.

[MrDigital]

Well I just got to 100% career completion, took me 70 hours. Probably would've taken about 65hrs if I understood the idea that you had to use each type of car earlier.

I'd say my initial assessment was correct, I'd stick with a 7.5/10 rating.

[mr_oh_so_ice]

Does this game have elastic band AI?

I absolutely hate racing games that have this type of AI.

[MrDigital]

No, not that I've seen. I've beaten the AI by upwards of 45 seconds before.

[Timman_24]

I think I might pick it up because I haven't played a game like this since Burnout Paradise came out and I haven't played a upgradeable arcade game since Carbon (sucked.) I've read at gamespot that the AI is extremely hard. Is this true? I am pretty good at racing games but the reviewer was making it out to be a huge crutch and his main reason for scoring it lower. I don't mind difficulty, but if it is insane then I don't know if I will give it a go.

What say you Mr.D?

[MrDigital]

I wouldn't say that. There's only a few races where you can even choose your difficulty (wager/pinkslip) so I'm not sure what he's referring to. You have to beat certain racers on hard in order to win the prize car, but only a couple of them were particularly difficult.

I never found the AI to be difficult though. When I raced without screwing up, I won. When I hit other cars or crashed into walls and flipped over, I lost. The onus was always on me for winning or losing, not the AI. There's no rubberband effect that I could see.

I'm not the world's greatest racer and I barely ever win when I get into online races, and yet I was able to get to 100% completion in 70hrs and every offline achievement in about 75hrs. It could be done even faster if you understand the basics of the game going in.

I would say it's about the same level of difficulty as Burnout Paradise.

[Timman_24]

Sweet, I love to hear no rubberband AI. Sounds like the guy that reviewed it just sucks *** at racing games or is a cry baby. Probably kept losing the same race a few times right before he started writing his review and he just wanted to vent.

An arcade racer that takes skill??? Unheard of!

I will most likely pick it up after exams.