Dammit this is fun!
A lot of credit for this film-quality racing has to go to the camera which, in true film-style, captures all the action without jerking back and forth all over the shop. If you imagine a film car chase, the camera for the most part, is pretty steady whilst the car weaves back and forth across the screen. The same applies here though there is some play in the camera in more severe corners so you don’t end up disappearing... just take it from me, if you’ve got a widescreen hi-def TV you’ll be drooling into your gamepad.
The racing is fast and frantic with your opponents weaving in and out of traffic just as much as you do and, this being Midnight Club, there’s no barriers forming a linear route, you just race to one waypoint and then on to the next. The traffic is dependent on the time of day and location... so downtown is very busy in rush hour whilst Chinatown is busier in the evenings... and you’re blatting through at 100mph... sideways.
Click for larger imageNow Midnight Club: Los Angeles, like the previous games in the series, is an arcade racer, but whereas most racers are almost like slot-racing, Midnight Club: Los Angeles does give plenty of room for skill and control... do you hammer down for this crossroads, hoping to nip between the van and the lamppost, or do you lift off, knowing it’s an off-camber corner and everyone else will be thrown to the outside? Or do you just yank a left turn? (Which gives you some of those superbly impressive visuals as the car drifts right across the screen)
But what happens when you lose it? During one race through some pretty heavy traffic, a car got clipped by an opponent and was sent spinning into our car... and at 120mph we were, to put it mildly, buggered. We careened off to then clip a tree before the offside tyres dug in and over we went, into a roll that made Daniel Craig’s Aston Martin roll in Casino Royale look like a mere scratch.
And here was where the modular damage to the cars came in as after our tumble the panels were scratched, half the boot was hanging off and the windscreen was shattered. And this wasn’t just a cosmetic texture either. As we headed off in pursuit of the leaders, the busted bit of the car jiggled about as we went over the curb and the view from inside showed a bent bonnet.
Click for larger imageNow in the past I know that a lot of car manufacturers have been somewhat reluctant to license out their cars in games where they model the damage on said cars but I guess it’s because Midnight Club: Los Angeles only has a limited damage model. You can’t destroy the car you’re in by driving like a loon. It is worth remembering that damage on your car does have an effect on how it handles though, so it’s better to take care and look both ways at crossroads... like that’ll ever happen!
Oh, and if all that weren't enough, Rockstar say there's going to be a seamless online mode too, a bit like Test Drive Unlimited, where you'll take on other drivers over t'internet... but that's all they're saying on that point for now...
Midnight Club: Los Angeles is set for a Q1 2008 release on PS3 and Xbox 360.
