Midnight Club: Los Angeles is a racing game not to be missed. I remember playing the original Midnight Club and not being too much of a fan, but started enjoying the series after its first sequel, but I'm unaware of the reason why. Regardless, the games in the series just keep getting better, and Midnight Club: Los Angeles is the best yet.
Let me first start out by saying that MCLA is a racing game unlike any other. Drifting away from the Need for Speed series, Forza, and Juiced for a moment, the game offers a small change in comparison to other racers: intense and in-depth customization. I think that's what really sold the game for me, aside from being a genuine street racing video game with an in-game cockpit view mode. I find myself attempting to win race after race just so I can trade in my previous car for a newer one that was unlocked through progressing through ranks, and then spend a good amount of time customizing it. It's not limitless customization, but I do enjoy the fact that there are a lot of items to choose from in terms of body kits, interior customization, colours and combinations, vinyls, neon lights, window tinting, and of course, vehicle performance.
I will admit, the story line is rather weak. Four years after Rockstar Games' release of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, and the company is still hooked on giving characters a ghetto or 'gangster' personality. "This doesn't take away from the overall quality of the game, though right?" Fa sho, fa sho my dude, fa sho. It's headache inducing though. I find myself shouting at the television, correcting the characters grammatically. "It's FOR SURE, not fa sho!" I would shout at them, to no avail. Not like I expect them to hear me or anything...but regardless. It's your basic story: young man comes to Los Angeles from an unknown town to make a name for himself in racing - slowly but surely rises through the ranks and becomes known as the "baddest racer all up and through LA."
Speaking of ghetto and gangster (pardon me if this offends anyone), but Rockstar wasn't shy to adding a plethora of rap songs in the game and only a small child's handful of rock or pop music. I felt like I was having their opinion that Los Angeles is full of gangster-ness shoved down my throat, and it was hard to enjoy the game when the only genre of music I enjoy is involved in the entire game, a mere 1.3%. I thought it was a damn shame to lack variety in music, but whatever.
The gameplay is thoroughly enjoyable - racing through the city and weaving in and out of traffic feels almost natural with this game. Every car handles differently, but slightly reminiscent to each other, so going from driving an '88 Volkswagen Scirocco to a Chevy Camaro SS to a Range Rover to an Aston Martin isn't too difficult to manage.
Midnight Club: Los Angeles is a racing game that almost any casual gamer will enjoy, despite the weak storyline and 'gangster' effect. I recommend the Complete Edition that comes with all of the downloadable content, which adds a lot more to the game.
Midnight Club: Los Angeles was a great swansong for the arcade racer, but now the genre’s a bit less packed, it’s time for Take-Two to bring it back.
Hold on now...Heat was actually a step on the right direction. Hell even 2016 NFS was. I wouldn't say it failed per se.
Yes, yess and yesssss!!
I loved dub edition back in the day, had a killer soundtrack aswell.
LA was sick as well, cmon rockstar give the people what they want and being a classic back!!
Dub Edition was my absolute fave!! I hope they think along those lines if they bring it back
Midnight Club 3 is the best Street racing game imo. Also Midnight club was the real start of waypoint racing. It really pushed the open world race design to the next level, Where you could race on roofs etc. We need it back asap
GR: "It has been far too long since we’ve got to play a new Midnight Club game. It has now been a decade since Rockstar San Diego released Midnight Club: Los Angeles for PS3, Xbox 360 and PSP. When its open-world racing title came out, it seemed like the natural evolution of the PS2-era street racing titles that were all the rage. The map of Los Angeles was massive (it was bigger than all three of Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition‘s cities combined), and there was more variety than ever before in terms of car customization and race types."
It’s time for Rockstar to make more new games period.
Ever since 2013, this major publisher hasn’t released a new game outside of releases. They’ll finally do so soon with RDR2, but that’s only one new game in 5 years.
We don’t even know what future titles this massive publisher has in the imminent future, which is unheard of for a publisher of that size or of any size. No other publisher could get away with that.
That maybe true but red dead redemption took 8 years to make and from what we've seen it looks fantastic. You dont want them to be like Activision and EA do you
If Rockstar's output is more akin to their output from previous generations, that's not going to make them like EA or Activision. Quite the opposite.
EA and Activision make far less core games now as well. The disparity between PS3 EA and PS4 EA is crazy. The PS3-era EA actually made a large variety of great games in spite of their questionable business practices
@ that
You think every publisher that offers multiple quality titles a year will end up like Activision or EA?
Rockstar released multiple games last generation and that never happened, so idk why they can’t do the same thing this gen. Yeah a game can take a long while to develop, but that shouldn’t mean they don’t release any other games as a publisher in the meantime
I definitely agree that we need a new Midnight Club, but I don't really trust Rockstar to be able to pull it off. The last couple entries were awful, and after seeing what the did with the dumpster fire that is GTA Online I can only presume they'll try to pull the same BS.
Midnight Club LA was not that great. If they make a new one, I hope they make something similar to Midnight Club 3. That game was the best in the series, at least for me.
A distinguished trio of Rockstar Xbox 360 titles are coming to the Xbox One Backward Compatibility catalog next week: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Midnight Club: Los Angeles and Rockstar Games presents Table Tennis.
Definitely with you on the Midnight Club but Table Tennis was pretty awesome too!.
Hell yeah! Gamestop has Table Tennis for $2.99 now, and Midnight Club LA Complete for $9.99, Guarantee the prices will rise tomorrow so get them now.
I literally just bought LA Complete but for PS3 instead due to their 4 for $20 ($16 with Elite Pro) sale. Glad I have my receipt at least.
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Quite a late review, dont you think
What is this 2008?
I'm sure there isn't a limit on how old a game can be, so calm down.
I love this game. I'm still playing it quite regularly seeing as it's installed on my PS3. Can just spend an hour or two cruising around doing absolutely nothing. It definitely beats out alot of modern racing games in terms of free roaming and replayability.
Hm I think some of your negatives aren't actually bad things for me. The whole gangster, ghetto, whatever feel is pretty cheesy but in a good way. Listening to some of their lines makes you cringe because they're so bad but I don't ever get this in other games so I kind of welcome it.
And my taste in music in music leans towards the indie rock side but some of the rap and hip hop in this, while different, is actually not that bad. But aaanyway ignoring all that, you can always play your own music :D This game does allow you to play your own music on the PS3, one of the less common features of games.
Anyway good review and the score seems quite spot on imo :)
back on the PS2 was some long nights racing online.i was in ARC club...alien racing club and it carry over to MCLA but didnt feel the same for some reason,wish i did cause the customization was AMAZING.still MC will always be the GREATEST street racing game E V E R!