Midtown Madness 3 Review

Midtown Madness 3 is an interesting game from Digital Illusions, the people who made the rather impressive Ralisport Challenge - slightly different concepts but both executed well.<br><br>Essentially Midtown Madness 3 is a rather simple game; you get two cities - Paris and Washington D.C, a few varied cars and a selection of single and multi-player modes. Most importantly one of the multi-player modes is Xbox Live! but we'll come to that later...<br><br>Initially two cities may not sound like a great deal, however once we went for a cruise around Paris we immediately realised why there are only two cities. Digital Illusions have recreated huge parts of both cities to a silly degree of accuracy. Whilst we may argue that Metropolis Street Racer had better textures, (we like it when the Dreamcast can still look better in some aspects than games released today) the scope of the levels does make you look beyond the small details and really feel immersed in the cities, perhaps better than any game so far. So the textures aren’t the best, and there is a bit of pop-up and fogging, but this is due to both cities featuring some annoyingly – for developers – wide-open spaces. The pop-up doesn't detract from the game at all, it just looks a little odd given how solid everything else feels, but you can see more than enough to survive at high speeds.<br><br>Thankfully Digital Illusions have tightened up the framerate since we last saw it. This really affected our last build and made playing the game a relatively mediocre experience; fortunately the improved frame-rate immediately rectifies the situation, resulting in a racer that places fun at the forefront.<br><br>There are some good lighting effects employed, and we like the ability to choose the time of day and season – yes snow in a driving game that isn't a rally game! The frame rate is constant, the detail level is not the highest, but this is more than offset by the sheer scope. Your car looks good, the other cars do the job, and everything reflects things nicely, casts some shadows and generally looks alright. The nearby scenery features nice trees and the pavements are littered with all manner of objects that get scattered when you hit them. Thankfully with the emphasis on fun over realism, you can bash through a whole load of objects as you career semi-out of control down a hill, and not be punished too much for it. <br><br>We are more familiar with Paris than Washington and we rather like the ability to drive from the Arc De Triumph, down the Champys Elyssee, around the Lovure and Royal Gardens, on to Notre Damn, nip over the Siene, drive up to the Eifel tower and then around some small side streets, before looping back around to the other side of the Arc. The immersion that comes from the ability to roam over a large, detailed city with a good number of well animated pedestrians and other cars all behaving rather realistically is impressive. It is easy to waste a silly amount of time just getting your bearings and seeing if everything is as you remember it. With no-one in the office having been to Washington it took us a little longer to get used to it, plus the overpasses and denser, grid-like structure make it a slightly trickier proposition.<br><br>You get a small selection of licensed cars to start with; an old Fiat, a not particularly fast Opel, a nice new Beatle, and some odd things like busses and cement mixers, and the highly maneuverable smart car. Cars are unlocked through the one-player mode in various ways, for the mutiplayer part you thankfully have immediate access to some more powerful vehicles such as the Audi TT, Vipers Cameros and other assorted cars.<br><br>There are two parts to the one player game, Work Undercover and Single Race. The undercover part is not that exciting, but it unlocks things, you have to do various tasks, delivering things, taxi driving, ambulance, chauffeur, and a few other things along the same lines. The main problem is that despite the variety, every mission essentially entails the same thing and become very repetitive too quickly.<br><br>Single Race lets you cruise, Blitz Race – racing on courses or Checkpoint Race - which gives you a little more freedom in your route. Again these are fun but if this was all the game had to offer we’d feel a little shortchanged and bemoan the lack of anything new. The best way to look at the one-player modes of Midtown Madness 3 is that they are merely a practice for going online.<br><br>Multi-player support in this game covers all your bases - Xbox Live!, split-screen, and system-link; it’s fair to say that taking this baby online certainly improves the experience beyond expectations. As ever connecting to Live! is simple and effective, allowing up to eight players to battle it out over various game modes:<br><br><b>Cruise:</b> does what it says on the tin basically, drive around chatting and getting used to the car and course. <br><br><b>Checkpoint:</b> is a race through the city and checkpoints, which you can hit in any order, perhaps you can find a quicker route than the game suggests to you, with a bit of practice naturally...<br><br><b>Capture the Gold:</b> is a variant on capture the flag, but with gold, drive over the loot and take it back to your hideout, and this can be played either as an individual or with teams. <br><br><b>Tag:</b> again, pretty self explanatory, one player starts out as it, and then has to tag other people before the time runs out. Can be teams or individuals in this one as well.<br><br><b>Hunter:</b> is a good one, you have a player start out as a cop, and they have to hunt the rest of the players, if you get caught – touched – by the hunter you become a hunter yourself. Complete with flashing lights and everything, the last person to be caught wins. <br><br><b>Stayaway:</b> sees you having to grab a rabbit and hold onto it for as long as you can, every second counts as your points go up and up the longer you hold the lil' fluffy thing. For individuals or teams. <br><br>With a headset and fast connection you will have a silly amount of fun. The ability to chat to your fellow racers, decide which course, cars and settings you'd like is great. Time just flies by and you'll find yourself having more fun than you thought you'd get out of this game. We had an eight player bus race around Paris, now that may not sound too exciting, but hearing everyone crack up with laughter at the same time when the camera pans around the lined up busses at the start, is just disturbingly enjoyable. With all the different game modes offering rather different experiences there is more than enough to keep you coming back online for more.<br>