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June 26, 2003

Review: Midtown Madness 3

Race? What Race?

There's one problem with MM3, and that is you cannot get outside of your car, walk and look around. The driving play is so immersive and the environments so recognizeable that you can't help just driving around saying "Hey, I know that place!".
MM3 is silly driving and smash 'em up fun. I've been online a couple times and people are just happy to play in 'cruise' mode, with absolutely no objective to the game but to talk to each other while driving around Paris (or DC) wrecking into people, objects or each other.

The arcade style of the game is very much like Midnight Club but the controls are an order of magnitude better. I'll just say it: Midnight Club sucks as compared to Midtown Madness 3. It's fairly challenging and I'll probably get back to it, but the free roam driving is so much fun, I may not. Actually, 'free roam' is a good way to think of MM3. Think of the free roam mode of Project Gotham without the cones, add pedestrians and wreckable stuff, voila!

In MM3, if you are in the mood to go on a rampage of destruction, there are hundreds of lampposts, park benches, barriers, traffic signs, cafe umbrellas and tables and other objects to knock around. And if you're in a real Hulk mood, you can drive a garbage truck and take out some statues and kiosks.

The detail is fabulous. There's even an underground parking garage at what I believe is the Kennedy Center in DC complete with gates to crash through. There are also ramps placed at various places, like the Capitol Building so you can jump your vehicle over fountains, creeks and the like.

Now it must be said that the graphics are good, but nowhere near as good as Project Gotham. Control of your vehicle is comparable though and the layout of the controls are the same.

There's plenty more to explore in this one but it is, behind Gotham, the most laugh out loud driving game for the XBOX yet. Yes I like it better than Midnight Club 2, Crazy Taxi, Yakuza Mission, Rallisport, Sega GT 2002 but not as much as MotoGP2.

On the other hand, three cities would have been better, and people haven't really been racing with it online...

Posted by mbowen at June 26, 2003 12:42 PM

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