Hi guys. Recently I bought Midnight Club Los Angeles, and I'd like to share my thoughts on it.

This game is a lot more story-driven than MC3 was. In MC3 you just had a quick intro cutscene with Hector and then you got kicked into the game. In this one your character is an actual character (his name is Andrew), and he will actually interact with and chat with the other characters. But all of the characters feel like your average crew of Fast and the Furious types, and you won't give much of a damn about many of them. I will say though, I am starting to enjoy the conversations between Karol (the Hispanic guy who sells you cars and parts) and Andrew. Andrew makes a lot of jokes about Karol having a girl's name, and him being 45 years old...which...honestly I thought would be lame, but it's starting to grow on me.

But I do think I have encountered some actual plot depth, at around 33% into the game. Skip the spoiler tag if you don't want it ruined for you.

Up till the 33% point the entire plot can be summed up as "Go here and race this guy. Now go here and race this other guy. Next, win this tournament. Okay, now help Karol deliver some cars. Cool...now go smash up Karol's customers who are falling behind on their payments. And so on, and so on." Which isn't a surprise, really.

But I recently

Pushing the plot aside, you get a pick between three cars at the start of the game...a 1983 Golf GTI, a 1980 VW Sirocco, and a 1998 Nissan 240SX. Trust me on this. I know the 240SX will look the most tempting to us TXR fans, but go with the Sirocco. It has the highest top speed and acceleration out of the three starting cars.

A lot of races in this game have many straightaways. So...you may want to make it a point to shop for cars that have high top speed stats. Handling ability simply isn't that important. Because of this...it's usually a better idea to get muscle cars rather than tuners.

Onto the gameplay...

Midnight Club games are usually high in difficulty, and this one's no exception. But that's fine with me. I wouldn't have it any other way. It's been a while since I've played a racing game that really forces me to try my best, and I'm glad it's so challenging.

Expect to become good friends with the restart button. Your CPU opponents show no mercy. They make few mistakes, and usually they won’t be too far behind you even after you get the lead. And usually it only takes one or two mistakes on your part to ruin the race...as in taking a wrong turn...crashing into a wall...hitting a car going the other way... The last one is especially bad. Hit another car head on, and your car will fly around in circles before coming to a dead stop...probably facing the wrong way. It's very hard to recover your position in the race after that kind of crash.

The open city racing nature of the game provides it's own kind of challenge. For one thing, the CPU opponents already know the best route to the finish, but you don’t. So at first, it may be a good idea to follow them and learn what the route is…then when you’re about to get to the finish you can hit your nitrous or something and blast past them at the last second. And if that doesn’t work, you can do the race again and this time you’ll know which way to go. This is okay with me though. It's part of what makes the MC games so unique and challenging...to find the best route to the finish.

You drive to another driver on the map to begin a race, and you flash your headlights to start it. Pretty simple. If you can beat him to the starting location you get some reputation (and you need rep to progress further in the game). Apart from that though the actual racing is just like MC3. You've got all the same special moves, plus a new one called EMP that disables the electrical systems of other cars...and you have open city racing with no walls or anything. The races are also marked according to their difficulty, which is nice. So you'll know which ones to go to when you only have a stock starting car.

There's a few new race types... Red Light Racing, Highway Racing, Wager Races, and Pink Slip races.

In Red Light racing, you're up against one guy, and the goal is just to get to the checkpoint marking the end of the race. There are no other checkpoints, so you can take any route you like to get over there. Of course the computer's already going to know the best route, so you may as well just follow him and then use a nitro to blast past him at the last second.

Highway racing is somewhat similar to TXR games. You flash your lights to a racer on the highway, and the race starts on the spot. But rather than a life meter, he will just name a highway exit you have to beat him to, and that's what you do. Motorcycles are really handy here, considering there's always heavy traffic on the freeway, and the bike can slip through it easily.

Wager races you bet a certain amount of money. The more money you bet, the harder the race will be. Now, mind you, once you begin this kind of race, there's no restart button. Either you beat the guy and you take his cash, or you lose and he takes yours. Turning off the system before you lose won't work either. The game removes the money from your account ant autosaves before the race begins.

Pinkslip races are the same thing as wager races, except you bet the car you are racing. Once again, no restarts, and turning off the system before you lose will not save your car. But on the other hand, you can track down the racer who took your car, and challenge him for it. So it's not like the car you worked so hard on is gone forever.

But I do think the pinkslip races are rather unfair regardless. The CPU driver is already going to know the entire race route, plus all the shortcuts. But you won't. I would really like a chance to preview the race route before I have to face the guy. He obviously got a chance to practice on his course, so why can't I?

But you do have one ace in the hole. They always race the same car regardless of what you show up with, so you could save the pinkslip races for last on your objectives list. That way you can make up for not knowing the course just by having a much better car. True, you won't need their car anymore in this case, but you have to beat these races to progress through the game anyway.

Car damage works differently than before. In the older MC games, your car would be automatically repaired every time you restarted. Here, it's kind of the same thing, except your car gets repaired with junk parts. The only way to get a fully restored car is to go to a garage or gas station to get it fixed. Although I don't see why they bother with this. Using junk parts doesn't seem to affect your car's performance anyway...just it's looks.

This time, the police are no longer specific to any one race. They can show up at any time, and if they witness you breaking the law they will engage in pursuit. You can pull over immediately to take a small fine, or you can try to outrun them and risk a much bigger fine in the process. Or you can pretend to pull over, then slam on the accelerator when you see the cop walking towards you on his dash cam XD But so far the cops haven't put up much of a fight...I've had a pretty easy time losing them. Duck through some alleyways and you'll be gone in no time. But the annoying thing is this happens during cruise too, and you can't start any races or anything till you've lost them.

Onto other things... The game has a lot of advertising in it...compared to the past MC games where it was almost non-existent, outside of the car branding. You'll see a lot of Pizza Huts...Best Buys...7-11s...Zaxby's...Gamestops...Game Crazys, etc. Oh, and they even give you a Verizion Sidekick. Although at least they have the decency to make it more subtle, compared to Need For Speed. In Need For Speed you'd have gigantic billboards everywhere that were impossible to miss. In MCLA, you usually have to slow down some to spot a lot of these things...and you won't be doing that while you're racing, so it's not a distraction.

There is one kind of advertising I actually like in this game though. Many of the traffic cars are actual cars...instead of generic ones the developers made up. You'll see Cadillac Escalades and CTSes...and even cars you can actually buy at the shop, like some of the muscle cars. I really do like this. Because, in most other racing games it felt kind of weird with how the racers were the only guys with real cars. Adding real cars makes the traffic feel more authentic.

Kind of like MC3, the best performance bargains in the game are the motorcycles.

You can buy a Ford Mustang GT for about $30,000…or for $17,000 you can buy a Kawasaki Ninja that can defeat things like the Lamborghini Murcielago, the Ford GT, and the Saleen S7. It’s well worth it to master how to handle the motorcycles because of this. It’s not just the price and the performance either. Motorcycles are a lot smaller, so they can slip through gaps cars would have trouble with. This is a huge advantage in heavy traffic.

True, if you wreck into anything too hard you fly right off the bike, and thus you have to wait a few seconds for your guy to get back on. But your opponents won’t tolerate any big mistakes anyway. You may as well have a vehicle that’s the same way.

It is a great game, when you said about the starting cars, I kinda went for the Golf GTI I just couldn't resist

I have yet to take this on LIVE, but I hear everyone uses the Ninja, so I might as well not bother with my Shinka RX-8 Lately I have been distracted by playing Far Cry 2, seeing as I haven't played a decent FPS in ages, heh.

I love the rate my ride features, where you upload 2 pictures of your car, and other people can rate them Luckilly, people generally like my RX-8, with a score ranging from 5-6, here it is for you all

http://i508.photobucket.com/albums/s328 ... shinka.jpg

Quite basic, and the interior has been modified a bit, but the paintwork is still the same, need more cash so I can get more, nicer cars

Oh...that's one of the reasons I never race online. In every racing game ever, everybody just uses the best car, so it's really boring because of that. And let's not forget how at the start of every race, there's a big pileup in turn one, and the first person to escape the pileup wins the race.

Sad thing is though...I will be using that Ninja myself. It's just the best vehicle for the money. Maybe later when I make more money I'll try out other cars...

I'll only use the Ninja cause I LOVE motorbikes, and the Ninja has always been my dream bike

I know what you mean about pile ups, Race Driver: GRID, first time on LIVE on GRID, 24 hour endurance race in the 250mph Audis, we start, first corner, massive pile up, because some idiot didn't see me move into a corner

I hope with MC:LA, you can just cruise with people you know down the freeway, that would be epic

Well...I got the Ninja...and it's easy to see why it's the only vehicle used online. There's simply nothing else that compares to it. I would buy my own supercar but what's the point? They're all stupid expensive, and anything you can get in the game has worse stats than the Ninja. I will say though I don't like it this way. I'd prefer having more balance between the vehicle choices.

Anyway...I'd like to follow up on that subplot I was talking about earlier. Spoiler tag, once again.

Heh, I'd probably just buy the cheaper cars and TRY to make them look half nice I mean, my Golf GTI looked a real rust bucket

On Rate my Ride, would be nice to get a couple of cars in the high rankings I reckon I wonder if that Golf is still number 1...

Hehe...I'm not one for car artistry myself, and it's kind of hard for me to wrap my head around how to use the Forza-style vinyl editor. I've never been real good with it in Forza 1 or 2.

Oh...and I discovered something that's very handy for winning time trials.

Whenever your time gets beat, the new time is always a second or two under yours, regardless of how good you did. So...instead of actually trying to get the best time, it's usually a better idea to just get as close as you can to the posted time without going over. So there will be times when I'll get to the finish line with about 20 to 30 seconds left on the clock, where I'm deliberately just sitting there waiting for the time to go down before I cross the line XD

The third time you do the time trial should be the only one where you drive for real, since your time gets beat only three times, and you get the time trial car afterwards.

oh cool. i have the ps3 version and am about 53 percent through with alot of leftover stuff i need to clean up

Thanks for that tip! I spent AGES trying to do the time trail, beating my best time again and again by 1 second at the most

i needed it too!

Heh, thats a few more free cars for us then

Hee...I won my 1971 Lamborghini Miura through this method. Personally, I think it's the most beautiful car in the game. The modern Lamborghinis are stunning, but they also feel a little too over the top, while the Miura's much more subtle. I really like that.

Also, Rockstar does a good job at coming up with custom aero parts. They're either real kits, or they're actually done rather tastefully. Need For Speed's aero parts have always been too wildly exaggerated and over the top for me. Case in point...the Miura's aero parts are actually pretty great-looking, even better than the default parts.

Currently, my plan is to make mine look like an old LeMans-style racer. It's pretty easy to do when the car was already inspired by the Ford GT40 in the first place XD The aero parts just add to that impression, especially one of the spoilers you unlock for it.

Heh, I thought that too, NFS has gone too far with the WIDE body kits, which I wouldn't mind, if they didn't make the car look awful Personally, I like cars to have a more 'discrete' bodykit, as they just look so much more tastefully done. On Rate My Ride however, people feel very differently about that looking at the top 10

I should really play MC:LA tonight as tomorrow I'm going to be pretty involved with GoW2

Just wondering, what are the cars you can unlock in the time trails? Any which help make the career a lot easier? Cause I could do with some of them

So far, I've won a 1998 Mitsubishi Eclipse, a 1971 Lamborghini Miura, a 1999 Mitsubishi 3000 GT, and a 1970 Ford Boss Mustang from Time Trials. The most useful one has easily been the Miura, because it spared me from having to buy an expensive exotic car. You need to race an exotic in order to complete some of Karol's objectives late in the game.

From pinkslips, I’ve won a Mazda RX8, a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution, and a Nissan 350Z convertible. None of them have been especially handy, considering I’ve always had a sport bike way better than these cars when I got them.

There’s also the tournaments…I have a DUB Edition Challenger, a DUB Edition Camaro, and a DUB Edition Mercedes. The Mercedes has been the handiest so far, because you need to race a luxury vehicle to complete some of Annie’s objectives. Spared me from having to drop $40,000 on a Chrysler 300C I didn’t want. I also suspect there will be a race for that DUB Edition Murcielago I see in the shop at some point, cause it's been that way for the other DUB cars.

Heh, sounds like there are a couple I should keep my eye out for eh?

I wouldn't mind spending the money on the cars, if I have plenty of cash left over, like I did on MC:3, just buying cars and doing them up, loved it On this I find I'm umm... short of cash If I get a motorbike, that should help me out a lot

Yes...the Kawasaki Ninja will turn all your money problems around. Only $17,000 initial price, and about $38,000 for the best upgrades. And once you've got it like that you can beat anything else in the game without much trouble, even $319,000 Lamborghini Murcielagos and $580,000 Saleen S7s. Hands down the most cost-effective vehicle in the game. I use it to win $21,840 per race in wager races all the time. So, if you were to win a few of these in a row, the bike pays for itself.

Anyway, since I'm flush with cash, I'm starting to go around and play with my money a bit. I've got my Le Mans-styled Lamborghini Miura ready, plus a Datsun 240Z with performance upgraded to the max (cost was $18,000) and painted Devil Z blue. My next project may be to dress up my Evo 8 to look like a rally car. I think all the aero parts for it look nasty anyway...so this gives me an excuse to keep the body looking stock.

That's already upgraded to the max...I just need to sit down and think out what kind of vinyl design I want.

How did you take pictures of your RX8? I'm wondering where the photo mode is.

Dude I know!!!! Especially in Pro Street, the wide body kit for the Evo X and ANY of the body kits for the R-35 are discusting! I really like body kits to "flow" with the car, ou know what i mean? not have some jagged piece of shit thing just pop out of the sides or have little canards that go like the full length of the car (lol wtf??)

On the pause menu, there should be a section about LIVE, go on there, Rate My Ride, enjoy

I know what you mean Lynx, the cars on Pro Street should have been like this...

http://cse.unl.edu/~bkell/ricer.jpg

TERRIBLE NEWS! Yesterday I made a pile of games I wanted to trade in to get GoW2, and I don't know how it happened but now I don't have MC:LA I'm going to have to pick up a copy of it again in the future, seeing as at the moment I am a bit low on cash

I have done something similar to this before - except with an older, less valuable game. You have my sympathy....

Thanks Why, £25 trade in I got written on the reciept Well I'm really glad it wasn't ITC that went...

How is the driftability of the cars in this game? I was watching one of Nail's videos:

From what I remember, not much, but I'd wait till someone replies who has had more experience of it than I did

x) lambo miura? my family name (i'm not kidding)


well i wish i had a next gen console so i can play this game..... it's like number one on my "games to play" list right next to Gran Turismo 5, Forza 2, and GRiD

Don't forget DiRT or wait for DiRT 2

And GTA IV!!! Yes, you can drift in that, trust me, I can

Oh yes...there are quite a few cars in the game that make excellent high speed drifters...and the Miura is one of the funnest in this regard. But MCLA has a lot of traffic. You'll need to get lucky with the traffic if you really want to do some killer drifts, otherwise they'll mess you up.

It's not real safe to practice in areas off the road either, like parking lots, parks, public squares, and the like. If you do that, someone calls the cops and then they send a car out to investigate. And this happens within about twenty or so seconds of you entering the non-car area.