Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition

Written by Chris Reiter  on June 16, 2005

Review: Damn you look sexy. Engine that purrs like a kitten. "Doors" that stay open all night. And girl, your car ain't bad looking either.

Tweet

Comments

Before, the racing streets of the night life belonged to Rockstar. They could dance on it, pee on it, and even make love in its dank and dirty potholes. If burning rubber with a super fast charged, slick, styling new vehicle was ever done in a video game, it was done because Rockstar made it possible. Then competition came along. The video game industry's biggest bully, Electronic Arts, rolled in and called out to the innovators of Rockstar, "Yo bro! We be like, making dis sim-like underground street racer. It gonna be tight, just like yo moms!" With a bullet wound to their head and a quick foot on the gas pedal, Rockstar zoomed off to lay out their own plan of action to realign the force of "true" underground racing back onto their side. But how could something be done so drastically as to reinvent the way we thought about the racing genre? Midnight Club II already topped off its previous installment so much that Rockstar had to ask for help this time from the only pimps in the business who could get their new ride smelling new car smell fresh again. DUB Magazine, the leading read for car enthusiasts, features the hottest rides from the beautiful people of the world as they brandish their customizations to the extreme. DUB is like the clique leader of car fashions, and with Rockstar, they're finally sending Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition off the assembly line and down the runway for all gamers to get a taste of the franchise's hippest, happeningest flavor yet.
а
Change. It's a word people commonly fear, and it's natural. Parents will tell their kids with eyes that pop out of their skull and fingers that wiggle, "Grandma's coming: time to CHANGE those attitudes of yours!" A nervous guy on a blind date will hear from his obnoxious roommate, "Hey, your blind date is coming any minute. Did you remember to CHANGE your underwear?" Even bums living on the street are always asking for some "CHANGE." Change isn't just a word, though. It's also a habit, or an act of progress. While not everyone can always see eye to eye with certain transformations, there are those who would agree that CHANGE is sometimes for the better. In this case it is. Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition's "change" isn't exactly mind-blowing or over-the-top extraordinary, but nevertheless it is pretty big. Car customization is where Rockstar has taken their series to the next tier. Motorists who love their vehicles are often found to also be infatuated with tweaking their automotive contraptions. Paint jobs, larger tires, tinted windows, surround sound stereo. You name it: car lovers become indulged in the passion and obsession of tuning their beasts so they handle better, look prettier, and overall roar louder than all the other pussy cats meowing along the open highways and byways. Naturally, the process of car tweaking isn't new to the Midnight Club franchise. On the other hand, never before has a racing game allowed you to tune-up your ride to a selection of parts and options this expansive.
а
Rims, tires,аand bumpers. Brakes, engines, and paint jobs. Vinyls, license plates, and taillights. Badges and spoilers. Shocks and airbags. Nitrous fittings and underbody neon lights. Pretty much anything you can think of that could alter the appearance or performanceаfor a vehicle can be sized and outfitted for you in Midnight Club 3. Tires too puny? Pick from a list of choices and pump them up to a manly build. Car paint looking a little too red for you? Dress it up some. Go green, bet black, or slap on a fancy new ensemble of a metallic or glossy body design with decorative vinyl paint and your preference of color. Want your license plate to read "SCRWYOU" and display the state in which you are from? Mine does. Seriously, no kidding now, this is the real deal. You can fine-tune your very own ride from an automotive cache of more than 50 vehicles (including cars, motorcycles, trucks and hummers) by utilizing an overwhelming number of feature customizations from one handily interactive garage hub. Inside here away from the cruise mode (which enables you to drive around a mammothly large 3D model of one of the game's three cities that are filled with AI-controlled cars and nonlinear racing challenges), you'll be able to view what you'll be driving before heading out using the right analog stick to shift around to different angles. Purchasing or selling vehicles, and buying or switching to the vast amount of upgrades or customizations that are available from the outset or will be available once unlocked points out that much time can and will be spent just perfecting your driven vision before it ever actually hits the pavement.
а
But not everything in life is free. Yeah, you heard me guy shoving a copy of Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition into your coat pocket you just stole. Not even love for a video game franchise can pay for a ticket out of prison. Parts, upgrades, and even some decorative adjustments -- these things cost money when you're working on a car in real life. Here, it's just the same. The only way to win money in a race-written universe is of course to race for it. Midnight Club 3's campaign mode (the primary source for single players to progress throughout the game's entirety) starts out a little differently than its predecessors with the money issue. At the start of the game, players are without a car and have but $22,000 to afford whatever vehicle they want from an extensive rotation of selections (just so long as the car's not locked and doesn't cost more than the default funds). Once the exchange is made and the car is out on the street, cruising along the city parameters set by the openly vast San Diego, California model for choosing from a group of nonlinear challenges is the general idea from here on out. Variations of tournaments, AI driver opponents, and optional challenges await players across the map of the game's three new cities (which takes place now in San Diego, Atlanta, and Detroit). Marked by yellow trophies and yellow stars (once these are unlocked), in addition to money completing these tournaments gains players new vehicles, as well as acquiring special abilities at different points. The challenges presented in these tournament rounds range from vying while seated in specific vehicle types, to racing against a clock by swerving around a barricaded track that's been stripped of traffic, competitors, and even the ability to boost yourself with much needed nitrous rounds. Choose to race certain drivers instead of the tournaments nets a decent amount of money, but primarily these events also target an opening to otherwise inaccessible parts throughout the garage. As for optional competitions, those are for extra scratch. They'll keep popping up on the grid as multiple opportunities to receive small sums of dough to keep the flow rolling.
а
Still the same in this arcade underground themed racing game, the racing formula of Midnight Club 3's different events borrows the means to howаthey wereаhandeled in Midnight Club II. Screaming through the streets on top of choppers andаsport bikes, inside of a hummer, a tuner or a muscle car, a luxury vehicle, or even a special unlockable such as a police automobile, the streets are yours to control as the checkpoints that are marked byаheightened and billowing orange, green, and red flare gasses can be scored any way through any of the open-ended cities.аOf course it isаfeasible to drive some miraculous distance off tangent from the targeted guidelines and swerve all the way back through each checkpoint later -- but that's just foolish. The point being that each city structureаis as open as you want it to be: to go where you want to go, to fly wherever you want to fly, to just win the race from whichever paths and angles you want to take toаbeat it in. This isn't too hard to accomplish, just so long as you're able to use the mini-map to guide your ride through to each checkpoint first and wiggle your way ahead of the sometimes crazy competition in addition to evading annoying cops. Making that even more of a possibility this time areаan array of obtainable automotive super powers. Your motorbike or your muscle car as you know it will let out a loud roar that sends a sonic wave out in front of you toаbe able toаclear theаstageаfor your incoming superstar. Tuners will find that they can literally slow down time temporarily so to be able to avoid crashes into walls or to easily curve through upcoming AI traffic that's littered through each city block. As for trucks and SUVs, they'll do what they're known to do, which is to act like a defensive tackle and pummelаthrough any oncoming vehicle dangers and not be affected by a field of damaging and time drainingаmomentous contact. These awesome abilities naturally add a unique depth to what would otherwise be a racing franchise drying from a total lack of originality.