Preview: Midnight Club Los Angeles

You have a kick-butt car, the streets of Los Angeles at your disposal, and competitors looking to grind your ride into the asphalt...ah, the highlights of street racing. Rockstar’s Midnight Club: Los Angeles takes car tuning, street racing and multiplayer competition to the next level. Visually stunning cars set against landmarks from a real life Los Angeles could make this Midnight Club one of the best in the series.



A good racing simulation can give a true fanatic years-on-end of replayability. What makes a good racing sim, good? Simple, everything that Midnight Club: Los Angeles is offering to gamers this fall. Running on the RAGE game engine that powered the ubiquitous Grand Theft Auto IV, MC: LA is all about real-time weather effects, day-to-night cycles and traffic and pedestrians that change in density according to the time of day.

The real highlight of Midnight Club: Los Angeles are the cars themselves (well, duh.) Featuring sporty vehicles such as the 2008 Saleen Mustang, Chevrolet Impala SS, Nissan Skyline GT-R, Chevrolet Cobalt SS, Audi R8, Cadillac Sixteen Cadillac CTS-V, the new Dodge Challenger and Audi RS4, to name a few. As you can tell, MC: LA is definitely in no short supply of hip automobiles.

In conjunction with the spiffy selection of vehicles, there’s also a very deep set of car modification tools. As we know, car tuning has become a community all until itself in the world of interactive gaming, and Rockstar San Diego is continuing to push the boundaries on the amount of customization and creativity that can go into each car. From various bumpers, hoods, headlights and conceptual design parts, to completely original vinyls, customizable interior and custom paint jobs, car enthusiasts will have an absolute field day with the car customization alone.

The game itself will mirror the likes of previous Midnight Club games by allowing players to freely roam around town, finding races and challenging opponents. Yes, this is a free- roaming game made by Rockstar that actually has no known hookers, gang violence or police shootouts...chew on that Jack Thompson! Anyway, after each race if the vehicle sustains damage, players can choose to do some patch work using spare parts or manually drive back to the garage to re-beautify the selected vehicle.

Police also play a returning roll in the way races will end, given that they will chase players if they prove to be a road nuisance. Chases that result in players being pulled over will have fines adjusted to the length of the pursuit. So players bent on the need for speed will either have to put up or get busted. But given the vast amount of LA’s roadway that’s just itching for burnt rubber, it shouldn’t be too hard to lose the cops. In fact, MC: LA is already being hailed for its very detailed take on the city of lost angels. There’s plenty to see and a lot of road to cover with a map that’s bigger than all the maps combined from Midnight Club: DUB Edition.

In addition to all this Midnight Club: Los Angeles will have multiplayer modes and driver specialities. Some of these special moves include EMPs to slow down the competition, a slow-motion feature called Zone, and Roar, which sends vehicles blasting out of the way by using a shockwave. These specials add a certain fantasy flare to the racing. But hey, if it’s fun then it’s fun.

You can look for Midnight Club: Los Angeles to hit store shelves for the Xbox 360 and PS3 on October 27th, with Midnight Club: Los Angeles Remix for the PSP to hit stores later this year. Be sure to stay tuned in with Blend Games for more info, previews, reviews and news on all your favorite games.

Tips N4G