Played on:
Windows
Arcade-style racing games are becoming more and more rare on the PC; there are the usual number of racing sims or rally games, and there is the genre of "illegal" street racing games that Midnight Club 2 falls into. The difference, though, is that the glut of street racers are mostly budget titles that are only a bit of fun for a short while. Midnight Club 2 is a fully featured game with great graphics, a solid racing system, and plenty of action in single- and multiplayer modes.
Midnight Club 2 is made by Rockstar San Diego, the company that brought us the Midtown Madness games before Rockstar bought them out. You will see some of that style here, but you will also see a bit of Grand Theft Auto when it comes to the game world. The cities in MC2 are all large, seamless playgrounds of a sort, and the engine does a great job keeping the frame rates up while showing us plenty of eye candy.
The frame rate on lower-end computers was not too great - an Athlon 1GHz with a Geforce 2 and 384MB PC133 memory served up sluggish speeds at anything but the lowest resolution and lowest detail. But on the machine I list above, the game runs absolutely great with all detail turned on at 1280x1024. I found Midnight Club 2 to be technically very sound; there were no bugs I could dig up, and the game didn't crash a single time.
Midnight Club 2's menu interface is quite disappointing; this game was ported directly from the PS2 and it shows. The multiplayer interface is a bit unwieldy, and the rest of the menus are a hassle to work with. I was able to easily hook up a PS2 controller via a PSX to USB converter, and it worked perfectly in the game - all controls were easy to set up.
There's certainly something that must be said; even though this is an arcade racer, the need for analog steering (either by gamepad analog sticks or from a steering wheel) is pretty important. You can get away with using the keyboard, but the game is hard enough when the controls are spot-on. Get some analog steering one way or another.
The streets of Midnight Club 2 are full of little details, much in the way that the streets of Liberty City or Vice City in the GTA games are. There are also three full cities to traverse - Los Angeles, Paris, and Tokyo. There are plenty of details thrown in to make each city unique, and they all have quite a few ramps and other structures to jump off of or do stunts in. The cars themselves also look great, and the large amount of traffic & pedestrians you will weave through all blend together to make the cities come alive. The nighttime city lighting reflects off of roofs and hoods very nicely, and all of the animation is fluid and convincing.
Some of the visuals in Midnight Club 2 actually look better than those in the GTA games, which is quite a feat in my opinion. There aren't as many minor little details to explore and find, but after all, this is a high-speed racing game.
Even though this is an arcade-style racer, Rockstar San Diego knows that players pay attention to things like physics and handling. MC2's cars handle extremely well to an exaggerated degree, but the handling is predictable and can be mastered to a high degree. The physics come into play mainly during the stunts that you will need to employ to beat some races, and it all feels solid and real - if a bit overdone.
Most of the game takes place at night; you start off with an introductory couple of races, but after that you are let out into the streets to find someone to race. In this way, you can skip a tough race, win a different car from one of the other computer opponents, and come back with a better chance at victory. Speaking of opponents, they're all unique, although they tend to get on your nerves after a while - especially if you've lost the same race for the twentieth time. The cops can also complicate things in some races, and they are at least a threat some of the time. They aren't especially persistent, but they can screw up a race for you if you're not careful.
