Midnight Club

Weeeel first of the christmas releases......I wasn't sure about this but I've read some good reviews so took the plunge, It's a cross between Test drive unlimited and burnout paradise, strictly an arcade street racer but with better physics than the previously mentioned games. Open city stuff, spot a racer flash him and the race egins, lots of races and it's all tied together by a need for speed style storyline. Rockstar have done a really nice job with this in making the cars feel real(ish) whilst keeping that arse out balls out cat out(?) racing feel, you've even got police chaces thrown in to keep you amused LOL.
The cars as they say are the stars, not a huge lineup but theres soe huge scope for tuneing and customising, in fact think need for spee here (the film) and it's really a case of earning the rewards. I put in 4 hours and came away with 1 car with stage 1 tuning and a few custom bits.......you wont be filling your garage up in a couple of days with this one LOL
So onto online........or rather not, I've not tried it yet so can't coment other than there looks to be a varied amount of race modes and even a TDU free roam mode but with twice the numbers of TDU, ie 16.......should be good fun when I have somthing other than my rusty datsun with stock wheels to take out on the world wide web LOL

OK well got sucked in and put quite a few hours in last night won a camaro SS muscle car in a pink slip race and eventualy maxed out the datsun LOLI was hitting my limit or rather the limit of the cars I had in single player so I jumped online for my final half hour some time around 3am.......yeah sucked in LOL
So online, well it's huge! I just hit the freerun mode for a short while last night to find TDU style open map with a few guys online, you could start impromptude races with whoever or all of them (upto 16) using the tracks and game modes already there or make your own! I ended up mucking around doing distance jumps with a load of french guys who were on bikes. Coms were good (apart from they were in french for some reason?) and I didn't see any lag!
So anyway if anyone played need for speed most wanted.......It's adsactly like that in single player but with a silky smooth frame rate and much better graphics! also the car handeling is very good, probubley the most realistic "arcade" racer out there. under steer, over steer, power slides, lift of over steer, it's all there but all easy to control. Good sense of speed, 160mph through trafic really feels on the raged edge! Theres a good day night progression and also weather, racing down a water loged road is quite spectacular at night with all the car headlights. So the cars, well theres a big difference in the handleing of each car which is good to see and a nice damage system by which you can wreck your car in a race to the point that it's race over!
On the down side.......well hit a lampost or tree at speed you'll take the damage your car will "glance" off it but the offending item still stands! there are things libus shelters ect ect which do smash but hit a road sighn and physics are bent, not the sighn! Other things are the in car view......dosn't quite feel right theres a kind of "car turns around centeral axis" feel which is not evident in any other view. Difficulty.......it's dificult not a critisism rather an observation LOL. and thats it really!
Ok stuff I've missed, vinyl editor, it's there and looks fairly extensive but not played with it yet. The photo mode.....you can pause AKA Forza and take a picture then upload it to the MC website.....not done that yet either. Online "battle" modes capture the flag with cars accross a whole city anyone? customiseation....theres LOTS down to adding new dials in the car and what colour carpets you want.........yeah then take it online and show it off, talking of which theres a "rate my ride" bit where people can vote on your car and even buy it if they really like it......that part should be really quite good giving you in game cash rewards for making top desighns So overall? good game....8.9 on the rictor scale from me as I'm not a huge fan of arcade racers but this one is very good sit down for 15 mins quick blast or a 12 hour marathon session it provides fun whatever you want.

The photo upload system is broke at the rockstar forum end so heres one I took with the mobile phone



Pre wideboy body kit

Upload site now working........loos a bit better than my phone pic LOL