MIDNIGHT CLUB II

GAME DETAILS :-

Developer : Rockstar San Diego

Publisher : Rockstar Games

Engine : Not Revealed

Genre : GT / Street Racing

Release Date : June 30 , 2003

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS :-

Operating System : Windows 98 / Windows 2000

CPU : AMD Athlon Thunderbird C-Models / Intel Pentium III Processor

Memory (RAM) : 256 MB

Graphics Hardware : DirectX 9.0 Compatible Video Card with Memory 64 MB

[NVIDIA : GeForce 3 Ti Series
ATI : Radeon 8500 Series]

Hard Disk Space : 1.6 GB

GAME FEATURES :-

Midnight Club II is about giving the player access to a gigantic citylike environment, complete with back alleys, monuments, and plenty of intricate shortcuts. The game's main mode is its career mode. At first, you're set loose in the city in search of adventure. This adventure comes in the form of hookmen, who are racers that patrol certain sections of the city. You challenge these racers by rolling up behind them and hitting your high beams. You then have to stay on their tail until you've proven yourself worthy. Once you've done so, you're thrown into one checkpoint race after another, challenging various hookmen and winning their cars as you defeat them. You start out on the streets of Los Angeles, but you'll eventually move on to Paris and Tokyo. The large cities are extremely cruise-worthy, and it's obvious that a lot of work went into putting the environments together, but you'll want to cruise in the game's arcade mode, as you're almost constantly harassed by annoying radio chatter when cruising around in the game's career mode. The arcade mode lets you cruise aimlessly, race a number of laps on a variety of predetermined circuits, replay any of the checkpoint races you've completed in the career mode, and enter eight-player battle races, which let you play in either a standard sort of capture the flag game or a bomb-oriented variant called detonate, where players race to pick up a detonator and drive it to a scoring spot on the map to earn points. The game also has a race editor mode that allows you to place your own checkpoints and configure your own races. These custom races can then be saved and taken online. The game's online support features a good number of options, but it's a little sparse in spots. Just about anything you can do in the game's arcade mode is available here, though instead of being limited to playing against the game's AI or a second player, you can play against a total of seven other human opponents. The front-end options that tie the online game together are a little lacking. A ranking system would have helped make individual races more meaningful, and some sort of wagering system would have helped raise the stakes. The game also locks your car choices once a race or series of races has begun online, which means you'll have to quit and find a new game to change cars. When you first start the career mode, you'll be driving a standard car, but eventually you'll unlock various abilities that help you race and maneuver more effectively. You'll be able to control your car in midair, burn out to gain speed off the line, earn nitrous boosts, earn extra turbo boosts by filling a drafting turbo meter, and pop up onto two wheels at will.

The game gives you a Crazy Taxi-like arrow that points in the direction of the next checkpoint, but given the game's numerous, winding paths to victory, this arrow is totally useless. The game also makes use of rubber-band AI to keep races close, so you'll definitely notice that the AI racers are always on your tail when you're doing well and will rarely pull so far ahead that they become untouchable, provided you're taking a viable route to the finish line. Midnight Club II's cars and motorcycles aren't licensed, though you'll notice that some of the cars in the game definitely look similar to some popular makes and models. The only thing you can customize is a car's color. Each car is rated in four areas: speed, acceleration, handling, and number of available turbo boosts. The sound used throughout Midnight Club II is pretty standard. The engine noises, the sound of your tires on different surfaces, and the whooshing explosion of a nitrous boost are all present. The music is targeted at fitting the style of the cities more than the racing action itself, and it rarely meshes well with the game's high-adrenaline style and gameplay. The other major sound component is the radio chatter from the game's hookmen in the career mode. The Latino racer calls you "ese," the British racer ends most of his quips with "ya mug," and the Australian racer has a vocabulary that sounds like someone sat down with a VHS copy of Crocodile Dundee and a menu from Outback Steakhouse and threw in as much "local" flavor as possible. Despite its flaws, Midnight Club II should appeal to fans of arcade-style racing games because it's pretty solid in most respects.

GAME REVIEW :-

7.5/10

Midnight Club II Trailer :-