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Review  Midnight Club: Street Racing
- By Nathaniel Walker
[Associate Editor]
I can almost imagine this being the kind of game that, some years ago, I would have slumber-partied with until the crack of dawn. Ah, to be again surrounded by best friends, Mountain Dew 2-Liters and packages of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups! I can almost feel the uproarious laughter, the fear of waking up Father, the level-conquering and boss-defeating, all of it interrupted only long enough to express general confusion over girls’ bodies. Nonetheless, while the days of 6th grade sleepovers may be over, and while we may not all be so immune to the enlarging effects of those Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, the hours and hours of nighttime videogaming remain yet within our grasp! Only, of course, if we should we find the right game to indulge our irresponsibleness.
Unfortunately, Midnight Club: Street Racing for the Gameboy Advance is not that game. I said I could ALMOST imagine this title being so sweet and eternally playable. Alas, the essence of Midnight Club is summed up entirely in the word “almost”. This game has an excellent and solid foundation upon which absolutely nothing is built. It is the worst sort of “almost”: the kind in which the only pleasure found is in the things it prompts you to imagine, without ever delivering a lick in reality. The game looks cool, feels cool, sounds good, and is utterly pointless. It is a racing game without tracks; it is a role-playing game without roles. And it rambles worse than I do.
Aesthetics:
The Gameboy Advance, as solid a little miracle of computer science that it is, has trouble competing with the bigger machines where raw atmosphere is concerned. 2D is hard put to draw a gamer into a virtual world the way 3D can. But this is the area in which Midnight Club really shines and stands out as an exception. It has atmosphere--and lots of it. It might not be apparent at first glance because the title is a dark game, cast heavily in shadows, but lots of little things give that darkness a depth and a texture that keeps the player interested in being a part of this world. The headlights emanating from the cars, the streetlights providing an oasis of light in a dark street, the empty and serene parks--it takes a few tries and maybe one has to be in the right mood, but I think the way this game looks is intriguing. The cars even look kind of cool, and despite the repetitiveness of their design, it is easy to recognize the different auto players on the streets.
The overhead camera angle, while putting the player at a bit of a distance, also gives the GBA enough processing breathing space to allow the game its speedy pace without losing any smoothness of motion. The “background”--so to speak--consists of building rooftops that do their job, avoiding monotone while not distracting the player from the action in between.
Control:
Simple and sweet. After a moment or two to get used to everything, the controls are a cinch to master. Everything is tight and intuitive, and the responsiveness is excellent. These are all crucial elements to get right in order for us to properly capitalize on the speed at which one zooms through traffic. I must tip my hat to the folks at Rebellion, the game’s designer, for the overall grace of motion.
Gameplay:
Here is where we crash and burn. And crash. And burn. The game is called Midnight Club: Street Racing, right? Well, folks, they should have called it Midnight Club: Street Following Around for No Apparent Reason (Certainly Not for Fun). Despite the strength of the game’s looks, and despite the smooth controls, you won’t be long playing before the only word out of your mouth is “why?” Sadly enough, I cannot answer. But I will tell you why I think you should blame the game and not your bloody self. The goal, my friends, is to find other automobiles that house the criminally adolescent like yourselves and race them for their car titles. That sounds relatively okay, right? Might be kind of fun for a while, you think? Well, you don’t race anybody until you follow one of his/her buddies around forever, just to prove to him/her that you are a pretty good driver. It is, however, hard to prove to somebody that you are a good driver when you are falling asleep from boredom because following people around is just not fun. But it gets worse. Assuming you follow pretty well and they hook you up with a race time and race place, you are in for even more frustration. The racing occurs through unmarked streets, where your competitors are the only persons who know the route of the race. Sure, the screen has a little compass arrow that assists you, but suggested cardinal directions are not much help in a world full of alleys and parks and other cars. You can’t watch the arrow and the road at the same time, you know. It’s just not safe! And so, by the end of it all, you are again following people just so you can stay on track. I know what you are thinking: how can one win a race in which they are just following somebody? That’s easy. You do it fifty times, memorize the tracks, and win some cars.
In summary, Midnight Club: Street Racing is about two things: following people around and memorizing things. I do that every day at work. I don’t look for more of it in my spare time.
Sound:
The crashing could use a little more punch and a little less scrunch, but that’s just me. I think the sound effects are generally good. The music, while not anything I would want played at my wedding, is one of the key elements that stirred up some nostalgia expressed earlier in this review. It is simple, repetitive, but it avoids being annoying by pacing itself. I’m a musician, so maybe my petty fixation on the two-tone melody is only a failure of my over-nurtured sensibilities. But I liked the sound in this game.
Multiplayer:
Might have been cool. But then again, if both of the players were human beings, who would follow who until the finish line is stumbled upon?
OVERALL:
I don’t want to be too hard on this game. I think it is fair to say that the folks at Rebellion are talented people who genuinely care about their art. It is a shame, nonetheless, that so much potential went unrealized when the game failed to go from program to story, from idea to vision. It looks great, it plays great, it sounds nice--but there is nothing to keep you there once you are drawn in. It is almost more fun just to “cruise around” than it is to shuffle behind your competitors in the hopes of cashing in on just another car that can only be kept after you write down just another password. Often I complain by saying that a game is good but could have been great. Midnight Club: Street Racing was bad but could have been wonderful. It almost hurts my feelings.
The Lowdown on  Midnight Club: Street Racing
| Aesthetics: Very Good |
Control: Very Good |
| Gameplay: Terrible |
Multiplayer: |
| Sound: Above Average |
Innovation: 3/6 |
| Lasting Appeal: 2/6 |
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Overall: Average!
"An Average Game"
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This game is:
Average
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ADDITIONAL
MEDIA: |
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None Yet
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IN A
NUTSHELL: |
| This could have been a contender. |
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