Midnight Club II
Ever since the launch of the PS2, a myriad of racing titles have made their way to video-game retail shelves across North America. For any game developer looking to join the already crowded market, this means one of two things: either come up with something really special, or bow out gracefully while you still can. Refusing to take the latter approach, Rockstar San Diego proudly presents Midnight Club II (their sequel to Midnight Club: Street Racing). Among other things, Midnight Club II features solid visuals as well as fast and furious racing action for solo play or online multiplayer mayhem. And while the game is far from perfect, Rockstar has once again come up with a winner.
The game features an Arcade Mode as well as a two-player split screen mode. But, as with most racing games these days, the real meat and potatoes of the game lies within the Career Mode. Here you'll race from checkpoint to checkpoint through the city streets of Los Angeles, Paris, and Tokyo against a host of slick and slippery competitors. You'll start out with one car and by winning races you'll unlock other boulevard beasts of both the four-wheel and two'wheel variety (uh, that's motorcycles, folks). With a never-ending combination of fearless foes (including end-level bosses) and changing weather factors (wait'll ya dig that fog), the challenge factor remains quite high; so to gain the upper hand, plan on investing a serious portion of your time in pursuit of shortcuts, hidden alleyways, side streets, and underground ramps.
As you progress, you'll also earn an assortment of newfound abilities such as nitrous, turbo boosts, wheelies and the like. As you could have probably guessed, control is strictly of the arcade variety, so physics freaks need not apply. Hey, considering the fact that the majority of your ride consists of flying around in excess of mph in busy traffic, this is a good thing indeed. For those of you who have a broadband connection (dial-up is not supported), and the PS2 network adapter, you're in for quite a treat. The game supports up to eight simultaneous players for online racing thrills like you've never seen before. Combine this with a race editor that allows you to reconfigure checkpoints for your own customized races, and what we have here is a game with replay value that flies over a ramp and off the charts.
On the whole, the graphics in the game are very good. However as with most games, certain areas are stronger than others. On the plus side, the racing environments are crisp and colorful with a rather generous amount of detail. Unfortunately, as compared to other PS2 racers, the car models themselves appear to be constructed with a relatively low number of polygons and sport a minimal amount of detail. Overall, the frame rate is fairly smooth and remains solid throughout most of your venture. For the most part, the sound effects come off somewhat generic sounding, including the obligatory engine noises and tire screeching. You'll also hear a good dose of assorted yelps from your opponents as you make your mad dash to the next checkpoint. The music offers a mixed bad of hip-hop and techno selections that, depending on your taste, you'll probably either love or hate.
Midnight Club II will probably never quite reach the same level of mass appeal as the highly successful Gran Turismo series. But the way I see it, it does deserve a permanent place in your PS2 library for two reasons. It features super-fast high-octane racing action and it delivers an online experience unlike any other racer before it. Trust me, illegal street racing has never been this much fun!
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