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Game Information
Release Date: April 9, 2003
Developers: Rockstar San Diego
Publishers: Rockstar Games
Platforms: Xbox, Playstation 2, Windows
Genre: Racing
Players: 1-8

Synopsis
The world's most notorious drivers meet each night on the streets of LA, Paris, and Tokyo. Choose from the latest performance enhanced cars and bikes and compete head-to-head to make a name for yourself. There are no rules. Drive anywhere in the city. Find the fastest route to win. The cops know you are out there - don't get caught. Race with up to 8 players throughout three massive, fully open cities in one of five online play modes. Select any car or bike that you've personally unlocked in offline arcade mode.

Gameplay
Players will experience a huge array of different festivities to do throughout the game. Players will experience racing through the streets of L.A, all the way to Paris, France, and the streets of Tokyo. In each location, harbors multiple street racers each with their own unique character that really fits with their background, their attitude, mood, accent, you name it. Before players engage them, they will have to flash their lights to give signal to the street racer that they want to race against them. After the player flashes their headlights at them, the player will need to follow them to their destination before engaging in any type of race. Once players beat every street racer in the area, they will engage the champion street racer of the city in order to advance to the next level. The various types of races players will engage in are: checkpoint races in which racers will go through the assigned checkpoints in order to get to the finish line. Usually consisting of eight or nine other racers to pit against you for a harder challenge. Another is a one on one street race with the main racer you pursued to the location. Another type is a checkpoint race in which racers can go through any checkpoint of their choosing before heading towards the finish line. And the other type is a timed race in which players must pass through all checkpoints in the allotted time give. Players can also find and take shortcuts through tight alleys, head on top of roofs for height advantages, drive off ramps, even drive off of boats to get to the other side of the river quicker than taking the bridge. Players are also given a nitrous boost for their car, each car holds a different amount of nitrous boosts for players to use for an advantage, but so do the other racers. Players can also gain extra nitrous by drafting behind other racers which fills up the meter so when its full, players can receive an extra boost of nitrous to aid them. Players must also watch their damage gauge as when colliding with other racers and vehicles, ramming into walls and other obstacles, the damage gauge will increase, ranging from: green being very light damage inflicted, then to yellow, then to orange, then red being the critical state of the vehicle. When the player's vehicle is totaled, the car will slowly start stalling and the player's car will be reset at a certain location with the car being back to full health again.

Graphics
The graphics are outstandingly marvelous and very satisfying to view upon. The design and layout of the level really looks pristine and accurate of the location its based off of. The buildings and various structures are greatly textured with various types of colors implemented among the buildings. The vehicles themselves look remarkably accurate to the actual vehicles in real life, just with the 'midnight club' features added to them to fit in. The characters in the game all have unique characteristics that are really clear and distinguishable to acknowledge, from various piercings, facial hair, glasses, hairstyles, headphones, and other types of visible items each character possesses to distinguish themselves from the rest. The character's mouths move very smoothly with their voices and have fluid eye movement. When player's drift or perform burnouts, the smoke coming from the wheels flows well as it slowly evaporates into the air, giving a realistic feature. Overall, the quality of the game's graphics are superior in many ways that is sure to please the player's view of the game and provides such quality that would draw in players to around the area their driving in.

Controls
If the player has played numerous racing games, then the controls shouldn't be nothing to difficult to handle. Just like the previous installment, the controls are quite similar to each other. Some unique features to Midnight Club compared to other racing of games is that players can shift their vehicle onto its side by holding down a combination of the bumper along with the analog stick in either the left or right direction to flip the vehicle to drive on two wheels. The controls for this are difficult to grasp since the player really makes it easy to wreck so the controls for this feature are really drastic and should be handled with more experienced players. Overall, if the player is new to racing games, a little practice with the controls should be an order.

Rating
Gameplay: 10/10
Graphics: 9.6/10
Controls: 10/10
Overall: 9.8/10