Midtown Madness

Microsoft and Angel Studios have put quite a lot of thought into Midtown Madness. Realistic city driving, realistic scenery and landmarks, as well as realistic car handling. There have been several types of city-based racing games; but for the life of me, I can’t recall one that wasn’t a coin-operated arcade game. Midtown Madness approaches racing from a chaotic angle—high-speed driving in downtown Chicago. If the police don’t get you, the traffic will.

The graphics were solid and streamlined for performance, but still had quite a bit of detail for a racing game. The crashes, although spectacular, lacked somewhat. Sure, if you took enough damage, black smoke would come out from under your hood and handling became difficult. But where was the blaze of fire from burning oil and fuel lines upon that last devastating crash? Or, why wasn’t the driver ever knocked unconscious in any of these crashes? It seemed for the most part that the cars were indestructible. I also thought the game needed more camera angles than just the trailing and the dashboard views.

The sound was typical for a racing game – engine noise, squealing tires, and who could forget the sound of metal crunching? But something else was added: a city atmosphere. Elevated trains, screaming pedestrians, angry drivers, and a few other sounds bring the city to life.

The car selection is interesting, to say the least. First, there is a sporty little Volkswagen Beetle, the new tiny 1999 type. Next is the 1999 Mustang GT, fast and light but it takes a little more damage than a Beetle. There is also a Mustang GT police cruiser, which is pretty much the same. Next up is a 1968 Mustang fastback. This is a special car and you have to meet certain race criteria to unlock it as a selection (more on that later, the fastback was my favorite city cruiser). The list goes on... Until you get to the ultra fast and ultra huge. The ultra fast Panoz GTR is pretty much a NASCAR auto made street legal with taillights. It has trouble hopping curbs, and hitting things isn’t good for it. On the other end of the spectrum is the ultra huge. A bus. Yes, a city bus. Try and stop it as it mows through row upon row of tiny import automobiles. Acceleration is almost non existent, but I feel very safe taking the bus now. Saving my favorite for last: the Freightliner, a few tons of raw diesel power, plowing for the finish line like there’s nothing in the city except you.

Since I have been playing more than a fair share of driving games lately, I thought it wise to invest in a force feedback steering wheel. Midtown Madness takes full advantage of force feedback and does it well. Under the options menu, there are two slider bars for feedback controllers. One is for road sensitivity, which helps in cornering by giving you a better feel of the road surface and in controlling slides. The other slider bar controls crash sensitivity, which makes controlling your car a bit more realistic when you start bumping into things like mailboxes, phone booths, walls or police cars.

This game comes highly recommended. How often is it that you get to go 120mph through crowded city streets and face no consequences? However, I do have to advise anyone who buys this game to wait thirty minutes after playing this game before trying to drive in the real world.