Midnight Club: Los Angeles Update
September 25, 2008 - Rockstar is set to unleash the fourth major release in its Midnight Club franchise, Midnight Club: Los Angeles. The game will be hitting stores on October 21st, and promises to fill the City of Angels with some of the fastest cars on the planet.
I recently got another look at the game at an event held in Southern California and had a chance to freely take on the single-player portion of the game. With the whole city open and a ton of cash in the bank, I stepped up to one of the terminals and had a go at slamming on the gas.
The event was filled with media, and I wasn't the first person to use the station I played on. Whoever was there first decided to upgrade a Ford GT about as much as it could be and left the car practically undrivable. It was very fast, both in terms of top speed and acceleration, but its handling had become so touchy with all of the modifications that it was extremely hard to drive. Only very slight adjustments of the wheel were manageable, as anything else would cause the car to swerve wildly.
The reason for mentioning this is that it proves the point that Midnight Club: Los Angeles will let you upgrade your cars past the point of being a reasonable racing machine. If you were to turbocharge a real Accord and triple its horsepower, it would probably do the same thing. So a ton of cash won't win you races. You'll need to upgrade your ride with caution, as throwing too much power on four wheels that aren't ready for it won't have a good outcome.
Heading back to the showroom, I picked up a couple more rides to play with (in their stock setup). The first was an Aston Martin Vantage Roadster. This ride was a drastic change from the overly-wild GT I had just been driving. While not nearly as quick (though still fast compared to the overall car list), it handled much better and made my touring time through the city much less, shall I say, destructive, to both me and the digital citizens and structures therein. It's a slick ride that should serve racers well until they're ready to jump to something at the top of the list, like the Saleen S7.
The third car I jumped in was the aforementioned Saleen S7. This thing was, as expected, quick. It was also quite nimble, a mix that lent itself well to victories in a number of random races. While it handles well, the pure speed that you get from this thing made me afraid to upgrade it before I have more time with the game under my belt. Not that it really needs any upgrading as it is...
Most of my time with the game was spent touring around the city of LA rather than trying to make my way through the race progression. The city is quite large and filled with enough shortcuts and winding paths that it can be easy to get lost or turned around if you don't pay attention, though thanks to both the overlay map and slick-as-hell GPS options at your disposal, it's pretty easy to get from place to place.
One thing is very clear -- Rockstar spent a lot of time nailing down real-world licenses for the locations in the game. From 7-Elevens to giant MTV billboards to the Viper Room to giant Michael Jordan silhouette Nike ads, the city is filled with famous locations, stores and advertisements. It all works together to create a very realistic interpretation of the City of Angels.
With the game so close to release, it's nice to see that it runs quite well at this point. The Xbox 360 version was on hand, and at very high speeds there was a bit of texture loading lag at some points (where a grey texture would appear until the correct one loaded), but hopefully that can be taken care of in the final push to the retail version. Other than that though, this racer looks ready for the starting line.
Important Board Topics
Trending Topics