Midtown Madness 2

The Good
Lots of familiar cars // more exotic cars // interesting landmarks // pure adrenaline rush of driving the way you'd NEVER do in real-life // multiplayer modes // crash course missions

The Bad
LACK OF REPLAY CAMERA/RECORDER // graphics actually looks rather lousy compared to other car games // city TOO simplified at times, // crash course exams too hard and/or too unforgiving

The Bottom Line
Midtown Madness 2 is basically Midtown Madness x 2. You get TWO cities to play in now, and they've also thrown in more cars, and some missions in addition to the circuit, blitz, and checkpoint races. And of course, you can just cruise around. The driving model is relaxed and collision is toned down a bit to get you the arcade thrills. Should be a masterpiece, right? Not quite.

The car selection is sure eclectic. You get fast cars like Panoz Roadster, but you also get clunkers like Ford F-350 and Freightliner. The slow vehicles are useless against AI. They are mainly fun in cruise mode and multiplayer mode. Unfortunately, some of the vehicles must be unlocked by winning races, and that can cause some problems for some players.

The two cities are modelled decently enough, but many streets are compressed or taken out. Landmarks are simplified and/or ignored. Still, the thought does count, and recognizing the landmarks are a hoot. The real fun starts when you get behind the wheel... And start indulging in your car driving fantasies, such as climb up Lombard, drag race down Market st, and more.

The feature that everybody asks by now is why didn't the Angel Studios put in a recorder? It's the best way to review your jumps, figure out how you missed the turn, and so on and so forth. Instead, you don't even get an automaic highlight review nor a victory screen when you defeat all races. This game has very little positive feedback.

The crash course missions are interesting, but it still falls back to "take this somewhere really fast). The exams in the crash course can be extremely tedious and completely unforgiving. It discriminates against keyboard users due to their lack of fine control. One minor mistake and you have LOST the entire exam, and have to restart from the very beginning! When the exam is several minutes long, this gets EXTREMELY frustrating.

For example, the London Final Exam starts with a fast run and a taxi chase, which takes up 2.5 minutes. Then you need to race through the city going past multiple checkpoints. Then you make it to Tower of London, jump via the drawbridge, and start jumping from barge to barge. The margin of error is ZERO once you start jumping, as a failure means you either end up in the River Thames, or you have ruined your car to the point where it's impossible to continue. And never mind the time limit!

The various racing modes are somewhat interesting the first few times. Circuit is your standard circuit racing, but there's a catch... you can CREATE shortcuts by crashing through the barriers (which are too light). There may be other shortcuts you can use as well. Other racing modes have similar problems. As the traffic and such are random, winning is half luck.

All in all, Midtown Madness 2 failed to fix the flaws and instead simply provided more of the same. For some that may be enough, but gamers demand better, and Microsoft has failed in that regard.

The Good
As with the first Midtown Madness game, this is real hoot. Driver may be a better game in most ways, but it just can't touch this for pure driving enjoyment. If you've got a Sidewinder force-feedback wheel, then it just doesn't get any better than this.

As well as the collection of road races and time trials, there are a couple of mission based games to play. You can play either a London cabbie or a San Francisco stunt driver - a nice diversion, but nothing like the in-depth story of Driver.

Graphically, this game looks pretty good. The buildings and landmarks are not exceptional, but they do pass all but the most sternest examinations, and as with the first game, the cars you get to drive are accurate and well-drawn.

The Bad
Actually, quite a lot. Prepare yourself for a long moan.

1.) While the quality of graphics in this game look on a par with its predecessor, the game runs considerably slower. I can run Midtown 1 at 1600x1200 with all the options on and in runs like a dream. This game struggles at 640x480. Since the graphics don't look any different, I have to ask "Why?"

2.) The force-feedback feels a lot less convincing than before. There is a very fine line between "nothing's happening" and "I can't hold the bloody thing straight".

3.) The non-player cars (or mobile road-blocks) are really, really awful. They looked better in MM1 - these look too blocky and are mostly unrecognisable. The few cars you can identify, like the Range Rover, are painted lime green with a tan roof. Yuck! Get some taste, guys!

4.) And worse of all are the maps.....

When playing MM1, I always wondered, "Hey, I wonder how realistic this map is?". If their map of London is anything to go by than the answer will have to be "Not at all, matey." Let me explain...

I live and work in London, and I pass across the area in this game every day, so I know what I'm talking about. This map is hopelessly inaccurate. I looks like it was put together by a guy with an old roadmap, a few picture postcards and no sense of scale. I'm not asking for 100% accuracy. I just want to get a feel for driving round London, but other than a few randomly-placed landmarks and few red buses, there's absolutely nothing to say that this is London. I don't want to go into too many details, because I'd be here all day, and you'd get really bored. Suffice to say that not one road is right - the lengths, the widths, the bends - none of it. And the same goes for the landscape - Where's the Queen's back garden? Where are all the trees in Hyde Park? What happened to Picadilly Circus?

All I can really say is that even M25 Racer has a more accurate version of London.

The Bottom Line
I may have a small problem with the representation of London in this game, but that doesn't stop this game being a lot of fun to play. It's actually quite challenging in places, but not enough to really piss you off. Which is good, because what you really want to do is just drive around. Whether you want a gentle cruise around town, or a mad blast across the city, nothing can touch this.

Better than the first game? No. But a welcome addition.

The Good
New places to drive, new obstacles to overcome. Different cars, different races. Basically all that you would ask for after playing the first game. Force-feedback steering wheel support.

Having the choice of two different places is really nice. The bypass in San Francisco was better than Chicago's for all-out speed.

The graphics were maybe a little bit better than the original, but not a show-stopper. The sound is still good.

The Bad
The graphics suffer from some major glitches. Eventually I got accustomed to it, but I felt like an epilleptic having an attack. On a GeForce 2 Ultra, I expect better. I still haven't fixed the problems. The game also seemed to require a heftier machine. I wouldn't dare run this on my old 266 like I did the original.

Eventually, the selection of cars and "winning" the rights to new cars becomes annoying.

The Bottom Line
Overall, not bad at all. If you've got horsepower in your PC, grab this one. If not, you might want to consider the original (if you can find it).

Either game MUST be played with a force-feedback steering wheel. You physically can play without one, but it's like trying to eat ice cream without a cone.