by Ron Williamson - May 1, 2005

Roaring engines, squealing tires, and the smell of burning rubber fill the air. This is the scene for Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition. You have to race through the streets, dodging traffic while power sliding around ninety degree turns trying to win some of the fiercest street races in the country. Prepare your reflexes for one of the fastest racing games out there. If you are ready to hit the streets, earn the respect of the car clubs and make money to make the nicest looking car in the state then buckle up and hold on tight.

The Quick and the Angry

Racing games are a dime a dozen, and the all follow a basic pattern. You are the operator of some type of vehicle, you have a track that you need traverse, and the first person to the end wins. Many things have been added to the mix try to make such a simple recipe more mouth-watering. Some of these things have worked, like boosts, while others have not. To make a truly unique experience you really have to put in a lot of work and you have to make sure you do it right. Midnight Club 3 isn’t quite the extraordinary experience you were looking for, but it does hold its own. Its format isn’t really that original; you race cars through busy city streets, trying not to crash and to get to the finish line. It is not the objective that is unique here, but it is how reach that goal that is distinctly different. You actually, in every race, have the ability to drive down every street and ally-way, whether it is on the path to the finish line or not. That’s right, no more invisible walls. You are free to drive around while trying to find the shortest and fastest route to your target. Everywhere you go there will be traffic and people, and everything out of the way will seem like a calm, normal city. This also adds a certain degree of difficulty to the game. If you were to miss a turn you might find yourself on the interstate traveling in the wrong direction. You are forced to constantly look at the map and back up to the street. And don’t plan on just following your competition till the end of the race and just nitro past them. The game is actually programmed so that the other cars will try to find alternative routes as well, and not always with the best success. You should take full advantage of exploring the race environments. Drive in the right areas and you will find ramps to launch your car, and in some places you will even find yourself driving on the roofs of buildings.

The actual driving in a racing game will make or break it, and Rockstar did a great job with this title. It controls beautifully and it is a lot of fun to weave in and out of traffic. You will find that pretty early in the game most of the races you will attempt will not prove to be too difficult. As the game progresses you will find that they do become faster and the ‘tracks’ will become more complicated forcing you to actually improve your skills. As your skills improve you will find that most races will not be too difficult to win. But skill alone will not guide you to victory lane; you will also need to improve your car. Car Modifications is the next best thing about this game. The customization this game allows you in impressive. Everything from the engine to the tires can be upgraded and improved. In case you don’t know anything about enhancing a car’s performance the game has an auto-upgrade feature which will purchase as many upgrades as you can afford in such as to improve your car the most. These will all affect how your car will handle and its speed. If you want to win some races you car is going to have to be fast enough to keep up. But the performance enhancers are not the only thing you can modify. You can change your paint job, tires, rims, exhaust pips, window tinting, decals, you name it. Your cars are fully customizable to suit your personal taste. You get the money to trick out your ride from winning street races and tournaments. You have to budget your spending though since that’s not all you can buy. You can also purchase new vehicles after you unlock them. As you get different types of cars you might regret spending all of your money on a slower, less stylish car. New cars also cost a good deal of money so you will have to save up for them. While explaining everything awesome about car customization we should not forget the motorcycles. Motorcycles are also playable in Midnight Club 3 and control a great deal like the cars. They have a much more responsive control, and their acceleration is unmatched. Racing motorcycles is a brilliant touch and really adds to the depth and fun of the game. Also anything you can customize on a car you can also customize on a bike.

Everyone familiar with Rockstar is familiar with the Grand Theft Auto series. The most recent titles in the series allow your character to free roam a 3-D city. Rockstar took this element and incorporated it here as well. You will find new races and challengers by driving around the city. You drive up to them, press a button, and then follow them to the race site. You can explore the city on your own, in your free time, in case you don’t have time in a race to find all of the short cuts. You can also at anytime drive back to the garage or even to another city. You are able to travel to three different cities: San Diego, Atlanta, and Detroit. Each city is distinct, has unique car clubs, and their own master mechanic.

Driving around the city can be a lot of fun by itself. Racing is, without a doubt, the highlight of the game and is addictive. But becoming more skillful and improving your cars performance isn’t all there is to the game either. There is the slip stream turbo which is used to boost your cars speed dramatically. It does not replace nitros, you can still use them whenever you want, but if you are really close behind the car in front of you just get directly behind it and your slipstream meter will begin to fill. When it fills you have a few seconds to activate the turbo and dash around anyone in front of you. You can even shift the weight of your drive to make the car wheelie on two wheels for some interesting maneuvers. To make the races even more exciting, and more complicated, and to give you a little bit of an edge up on the competition you have special moves. These techniques are learned from local car clubs and are unique to the type of vehicle you are driving. These abilities are Roar, Zone, and Agro. Roar allows you to intimidate all of the other cars near you to get them out of your way. Zone slows down time and gives you extra control over your car so you can get out of a tight spot and avoid a crash. Agro lets you plow through every car on the road without slowing you down so you can get through those busy city streets. These features are a little less realistic than the rest of your abilities, but they are a lot of fun and they do add a certain amount of strategy to the game.

Online play is very much the same as the career mode. You will race against up to 8 players through the different cities of the game. You can use your own custom vehicle online, which makes it much more fun. The only problem with that is that if you haven’t been playing long and you go against someone with a great vehicle, you might be out of luck. There are different modes of play though, not just racing. It also features Capture the flag and Tag. These modes are pretty self-explanatory, and should not be passed up since they can be a lot of fun.

Everything Blurs at 180 M.P.H. anyway

The Grand Turismo series has almost always been considered to have some of the best graphics of any racing game. Midnight Club 3 does not dethrone it in any way. That’s not to say they graphics are good, but they just aren’t ground breaking. The textures in the game are simply disappointing. Most of this probably deals with the fact that they are trying to save processing power and you aren’t going to notice a simple texture when you are passing it at almost 200 m.p.h. The car models are decent, but also, aren’t spectacular. They do have real reflections though, which is a nice feature. The particle effects and flames are pretty good but they don’t really ‘wow’ you. Probably the best thing about the game graphically is the motion blur. When your car starts to move at any reasonable speed there is a really nice motion blur around everything in the peripheral. It really gives you a sense of speed and brings a lot to entire experience. There is some minimal damage modeling on the cars. The damage is not extremely realistic though; any crash at that speed would total a car, but they do get bent up a little. One thing that is nice is your car develops scratching if you graze a wall or another car. Overall, while you are racing the game does look really good, it’s only when you slow down that you begin to notice the little flaws. But since most of your time is spent racing you probably won’t find too much fault in the graphics department. The pre-rendered cut scenes (your mechanics) aren’t terrible, but for something pre-rendered they could have taken more time to polish it a little. They aren’t necessarily featured in the game, but every detail is important. All of the flaws aside, it is really nice to see the custom car you’ve worked for and designed out there on the streets. Being able to put everything on the street model that you put on in the shop really makes the car feel like yours and it adds so much to the game dynamic.

Beats as Cool as Your Ride

The soundtrack in this game is great. It actually has full songs by many currently popular artists from 50 cent to Jimmy Eat World. They did an excellent job selecting songs for the soundtrack that fit the game and the style of the game very well. Most of the music is music you would expect to hear blasting from a low rider as it passed you on the street. All of the tracks are energetic and catchy, making the racing experience much more fun. You also have the ability to skip any track you don’t want to listen to simply by pressing left or right on the directional pad. When a song plays its title and artist are displayed at the bottom of the screen. When a song ends another starts, even if it’s in the middle of a race. The sound effects are also solid. The engine noises of the cars and motorcycles engines are different and sound very much like their real life counterparts. The flame sound of the nitro and the squealing of the tires are all very accurate. Most of the crashing noises also sound very convincing. The voice acting is also solid. The voices are realistic and the speech is very comfortable, real, and much less contrived than other modern titles.

3, 2, 1, Let the Fun Begin

If you enjoy racing games the chances of you liking this title are pretty high. Even if you just like modifying cars you will probably enjoy playing this. You don’t need to customize your car to enjoy this title, but it is so much fun to win a race and see that new rims have come in, or that a new type of paint is available. Racing is fun by itself, but it too is an incentive to get more money, which allows you to get even more cool stuff for your already sweet car. And it’s also fun to go out and test what you’ve done and to see it in action. There is great enjoyment in exploring the levels finding short cuts and pulling out in front of a rival right at the last second and using a nitro to secure your victory. No matter what you are into, if you like racing games at all you will find this title a lot of fun. There are many boring or horrible racing games out there, but Midnight Club 3 does a great job of keeping things unique with its special moves, but it also keeps thing traditional enough that someone who just wants to race won’t find it hard to pick up at all.

Plasma my Ride

One of the only flaws in the game is that it simply isn’t as stunning graphically as it should be. This is made up for by the really fun game play, great soundtrack, and customization options. For a racing game its graphics are good, but the game play is great. Also, you never even really notice much of the graphics as you are driving fast anyway, so they certainly don’t detract from game play. Racing and Mod enthusiasts everywhere should be excited for this title. Minus all of the negative aspects this is a solid title and it is one worth checking out. Give it a chance and it will probably win you over.

Last Lap!

Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition is a great title. It is one of the first generation of games with the E10+ rating meaning you can even play it with your adolescents and still have a good time. You might want to be careful of letting them go online, but playing together isn’t bad at all. You probably won’t have a hard time finding it at the stores, but if you like racing at all you might want to give it a shot. It is fast, competitive, original, and well put together. If you are in the mood for a new game, go pick it up.