If you were a fan of the originals, you're most likely to remember Midnight Club for its insanely fast speeds and bad voice acting. I can assure you that at least half of that remains. It still delivers insanely fast open city racing through the streets of Atlanta, San Diego, and Detroit.
The racing genre has been pretty busy to date with loads of high selling titles such as Need for Speed Underground, Juiced and Burnout, but the Midnight Club franchise was the first to really enter the true street racing category. The problem was that there was little to no customization in the first offerings, so many people tended to find little of interest in the series with the exception of its extreme speed. But with the help of DUB magazine, customisation is now a high point, making Need For Speed Underground 2 look quite naked in comparison.
What cars do you get to rip up the streets with though?
Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition brings you more than 50 licensed cars and bikes including choppers for the first time. But that's only the start - Midnight Club 3 offers some of the most wicked cars that have been giving kids wet dreams for years. These include the sleek Lamborghini Murciélago, classy SLK, The Pimping Saleen S7 and even the incredibly fast McLaren F1! Suddenly NFSU dosent seem all that spetacular.
One of the faster cars..
The actual game layout is some what similar to Midnight Club II as you find yourself cruising through all three cities looking for competition from various riders and clubs gaining not only respect by awesome rides along the way. The actual main story lasts around 18 hours but with so many optional races this game is sure to last 50 hours +. Like the previous Midnight Club games, DUB handles a lot like a arcade racer, but with the amount of customisation options available, sim fans should soon be able to forget this.
Not only do you get a tank of NOS to assist you in the game, but you also get the ability from Midnight Club II to get a speed boost by following an opponent closely behind, just like in Burnout 3. On top of those standard racing abilities, there are three new power-ups as well. Depending on your vehicle type, you can either earn a ramming attack that clears opponents out of the way (Agro), a shockwave that causes cars around you to lose control (Roar), or a bullet-time style slow motion effect that allows you to get precise handling in certain specific spots (zone).
The other big highpoint about this game is Multiplayer. Imagine playing single player for weeks on end and you finally get yourself the Lambo Mercialago; you then spend thousands on pimping up the vehicle in all possible ways. New Apex Rims, Purple tinted windows, Boomex body kit, 18 inch tires, 4 pipe exhaust and a carbon fibre hood. Now imagine taking this baby online and gaining respect from millions of newbies racing in default Eclipses. Pure genius.
To enhance the actual gameplay of multiplayer in Midnight Club 3, there is now more than simply circuit and ordered race. New game modes include Capture the Flag and Tag mode; most of them won't blow you away with their originality, but there's more than enough to keep you occupied and entertained. Online matches make up one of the game's primary strengths.
Build the ultimate car, then go smash it - thats the name of the game
Visually, the game is eye candy. The PS2 does a good job keeping up with all the action, although the frame rate does get a bit choppy when it starts to rain. The cities all look wonderful, and you can tell a lot of work has gone into creating them. Although, when you’re racing around Atlanta at 120MPH you don’t really have time to soak in the night life, knowing that it’s there heightens the sense of realism you would expect. The cars all look sweet even without chrome. Reflections haven't been over done like they were in NFSU, and the feel of speed is nicely portrayed with motion blur. In addition, when you scrape against walls, you get spark effects - which are well done but not as extreme as Burnout 3's.
Loading times are one downfall in this game. Although they're not as bad as those in such titles as Dragonball Budokai, they do let the game down significantly.
Audio is an absolute high in this game. The sounds of the vehicles is sure to send a shiver down any true car fanatic's spine. A lot of people complained that voice acting was a big downfall in the previous Midnight Club games and Rockstar has done a good job in fixing this. Most of the racers are now 'quiet' folk, leaving your mechanics to do most of their talking.
One of the biggest highlights of this game has got to be the soundtrack. EA, who delivered us both Burnout 3 and NFSU also supplied the music for these titles and a lot of people have criticised their decisions. Luckily, Rockstar has some music taste and has chosen lots of great rap and hip hop artists to help make the DUB life come to life. The list includes such artists as Fat Joe, Twista and Fabulous (the full ingame soundtrack listing can be found on the forums), but if rap aint your thang grab the Xbox version and you can add in your own tunes.
Midnight Club 3, overall, is one of the greatest Racing games I as a gamer have ever played. Although the game isn’t perfect, its problems do not outweigh its positive points. This game is a must buy for all car fanatics and fans of NFSU.
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