Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition Review

By Kristan Reed Published 26 April, 2005

We thought it might have some heavy Reggae in it, but we were wrong. Shame.

Version tested: Xbox

Order yours now from Simply Games.

Rockstar must have been carrying around a massive guilt complex after the release of Midnight Club II. You don't go from making possibly the biggest ballbuster the arcade racing genre has ever seen to one of the most forgiving without indulging in some serious hand-wringing behind the scenes. Whereas Midnight Club II positively delighted in your failure, the third in the street racing series is so easy you can almost hear the game apologise every time an AI controlled car overtakes you. "I'm terribly sorry, after you sir, I appear to be in the lead..."

Okay, that's a gross exaggeration, but winning is a formality in all bar a handful of the fifty-odd career races you'll face in MC3, and, not only that, you can easily triumph over vastly superior opposition in all but the last handful of races with the very first car you buy (in my case, a D Class R32 Golf). Clearly something went awry with the progression system and difficulty-balancing in planet Rockstar. While MC2 suffered from almost vertical difficulty spikes and cheating elastic AI, MC3 grossly overcompensates for that. It's no exaggeration to report that MC3 sets a new low benchmark for ease and accessibility for racing games, and while that might be a good ploy for making racing newbies feel good about their prowess, it leaves long term fans such as us and those with a modicum of experience in arcade racing feeling very underwhelmed indeed, and almost longing for the ballbusting sense of challenge and satisfaction gleaned from the flawed gem that its predecessor was.

Don't forget the motor city

'Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition' Screenshot 1

As previously, Midnight Club is all about non-linear night-time city street-racing. Once again it's set across three cities (in this case San Diego, Atlanta and Detroit), and the game's central differentiator is that it's not based on a series of tracks. Instead it lays down checkpoints, giving you the ability to effectively choose your own route in each race, darting down cluttered alleyway shortcuts one minute, blazing a trail through the middle of a shopping mall the next. It's excitingly unpredictable, with the AI never taking the same route from one race to the next, making it a unique racing experience that is as much based on your intimate knowledge of each city itself as each twist and turn of the race.

While previous Midnight Clubs have been largely based around racing against a series of cocky characters, winning their rides and moving onto the next, the latest MC fleshes out the idea to include various non-essential side tournaments such as City Races, Club Races - races which basically earn you cash and better vehicles. As such, there are now many more vehicles to choose from, but the basic career progression remains if you wish to plough that particular furrow.

Indeed, in a quest to see all three cities as quickly as possible and unlock all four car classes (D, right the way up to A) we spent the majority of our time facing off against the game's 17 street racers in a three or four part race series, earning prize money, speccing up our ride and moving onto the next. Having sweated blood doing this in the previous game, it was genuinely surprising to find just how relatively straightforward beating the game was this time - and all this with a car that wasn't fit to kiss the tyres of the kinds of vehicles we were racing against.

Racing for the hapless

'Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition' Screenshot 2

The handling this time felt that much more forgiving, the cities less claustrophobic, the roads and alleys that much wider and more accommodating, the AI more forgiving. Every way you look at it, the game appears designed to give you less of a challenge, and is less interesting as a result. On numerous races we wiped out, crashed headlong into a building, took innumerable wrong turns, but almost always managed to make up the lost ground and blast past the AI near the finishing line and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat on our first or second attempt. Now, as a result, very few races were that memorable, and that's a stark contrast to the previous effort, where particular races are still etched into our brains two years on because they required such a degree of mental concentration and skill in order to win. Frustrating, yes, but satisfying as hell.

Another key change to MC2's winning formula is its special moves system. While all of the main moves such as Drift, In Air Control, Nitrous Boost, Slipstream Turbo and Weight Transfer (for motorbikes) have been retained, a bunch of new ones have entered the mix - but only for cars of a certain class. The newly implemented Agro move lets you plough through the competition as if they weren't there but is only available to SUVs, Trucks and Luxury Sedans. The new Roar, meanwhile, sends out an engine rev so loud traffic scatters out of your way - but in this case is only available to Muscle cars and Choppers (bikes). It's a tricky one to call, but it's slightly annoying that both these moves are only available to otherwise underpowered vehicles. It's tricky in the sense that you can appreciate that these new moves help balance up these vehicle classes' relative weaknesses, but at the same time there's a very good chance you'll never actually bother to buy these vehicles as it's arguably easier to win races using vehicles with higher general stats - i.e. the Tuner cars.

Another point worth mentioning regarding the special moves is the fact that it's now ridiculously easy to gain a Slipstream Turbo, meaning you barely have to position your car behind a rival for more than a couple of seconds before your boost is fully charged. Previously it was something you had to work hard to gain, but in MC3 everyone seems to be boosting like crazy, to the point where you start to wonder what the point is.

Nip and tuck

'Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition' Screenshot 3

There are admittedly plenty of improvements to the latest Midnight Club, however, but on reflection many of them are cosmetic. The most obvious is in the visual department, with a massive overhaul in the game engine finally dragging the series up to the sort of acceptable standard we've been campaigning for all along. Even with the basic D class cars the sense of speed is quite ridiculous - almost up to Burnout levels of insanity. At this point everything works incredibly well, with the amount of on-screen debris, in-your-face sparking carnage and chaotic neon blur proving to be quite a rush. If you're groping for comparisons, think Burnout 2 in the dark; it's no less exciting, slightly less challenging, but with the same floppy handling, total disregard for realism, and - dare we say it - need for speed. Next to its most obvious nocturnal street racing rival, though, it's far more thrilling, less patronising, handles better and worthy of far more attention from the real petrol heads looking for a cheap thrill.

The audio's been improved a notch too, with an occasionally pleasing soundtrack that won't be to everyone's taste, but deserves praise for a) being a massive improvement on anything EA's managed lately, and b) dropping in some Queens Of The Stone Age, Iggy Pop, Idlewild, and Ash to balance up the predictable Hip Hop overdose. Credit is also due for Rockstar's decision to remove some of the annoying voiceovers of the previous MC, although we're slightly baffled at Rockstar's current obsession with the Latin community. What is an "Esé" (if there is a spelling for this term) anyway? I certainly don't know.

MC3 starts to lose its saccharine rush if you're forced to play it in extended bursts. One race tends to blur into the next. The cities aren't memorably different from one another in the way they once were, and, if anything, the game gets less fun once you start unlocking some of the speed demon machines. Oddly, the assured handling becomes more twitchy, the game engine struggles to cope with particle effects (especially mist and smoke), which causes the handling to feel sluggish, and at times it actually becomes almost unplayably fast, you engage in traffic-dodging lotteries and the game feels less fun in every sense. But by then you've almost unlocked everything of note (or could do, because by then you'll have a roster of cars mostly superior to anything racing you), and the game becomes a tidying up exercise. A 'gotta catch 'em all' completion run that will keep you going for a few weeks after the initial career stroll, but not really test your skills to the limit - and as a result the incentive soon wears pretty thin.

Real racing

'Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition' Screenshot 4

Perhaps the one saving grace that stops the game from descending into true mediocrity is the prospect of solid online play against genuinely skilled human beings that won't forgive your foul ups in the way that the AI always does. Not only that, this arena lends a degree of purpose to the gazillions of customisation options that are otherwise fairly pointless unless you actually enjoy spending $11,500 of your gaming currency on spinning rims. You'll have noticed that thus far we've resisted even talking about the whole tedious marketing-lead DUB-magazine endorsed customisation side of the game, mainly because - for us - it added nothing whatsoever to the gameplay. As non car aficionados it has about as much relevance as it being sponsored by Jelly Tots, and as such it's admittedly wasted on us. But should you be someone that cares for what DUB considers cool things to pimp your ride with, then it has a bewildering array of options. But then what car game doesn't these days?

Weary cynicism aside, the online component is solid enough to carry some of the game's evident single-player weaknesses, but only if you're going for the more straight-up serious races. There are a bunch of other novelty modes, like Capture The Flag, Paint, Autocross, Tag, and Frenzy, but it's arguably only the game's career mode races (i.e. Ordered, Unordered and Circuit) that will be played more than a few times over in multiplayer.

All-round, Midnight Club 3 may have more cars, more customisation options, new special moves, look better and sport an enhanced online component this time around, but the lack of a tangible challenge and carelessly implemented progression system rips the soul out of what was an immensely promising series. The things that needed fixing in MC2 have all been addressed, but poor old Rockstar has completely overcompensated in trying to please everyone, and ends up making a more accessible version, but one that feels like it has had its soul removed. Next time they might get the balance right, but for now we're left to reflect on Rockstar's great missed opportunity to sew up this genre once and for all. Worth a rental, but not one to take pride of place in your treasured collection of racing greats.

Order yours now from Simply Games.

7 / 10

Read the Eurogamer.net scoring policy
Picture of Kristan.

About Kristan Reed

Kristan is a former editor of Eurogamer, dad, Stone Roses bore and Norwich City supporter who sometimes mutters optimistically about Team Silent getting back together.

Read more articles from Kristan by visiting the Kristan Reed archive page.

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Comments (38) Latest comment 7 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Wobbler #1 7 years ago

    No score? Is this the start of a brave new world for EG?
    Edited by 1 at 26/04/05 @ 14:20

  • Derblington #2 7 years ago

    I NEED a score!

  • rauper Verified Managing Director, Eurogamer Network #3 7 years ago

    No, it's an error :)

  • krudster #4 7 years ago

    Actually, it does have a score, but this could be fun: what do you think I gave it?

  • Mugwum Verified Operations Director, Eurogamer Network #5 7 years ago

    Jesus. Fire the guy who screwed THAT up.

  • Derblington #6 7 years ago

    I reckon a 6!

    edit: I've only read the last paragraph.
    Edited by 1 at 26/04/05 @ 14:19

  • Wobbler #7 7 years ago

    I'd agree. Sounds like a 5-6 to me. Probably a 6.

  • ralphwolfenstein #8 7 years ago

    6

  • ssuellid #9 7 years ago

    Its an 8.

    usually a safe guess ;)

  • Wobbler #10 7 years ago

    LOL at ssuellid. But this isn't as good as Halo, surely? ;)

    There should be only 3 scores: "Better than Halo", "As good as Halo" and "Worse than Halo". That would sort things out ;)

    Gestalt has a lot to answer for :)

  • Derblington #11 7 years ago

    7!!!! Change it to a 6!

  • krudster #12 7 years ago

    Six is probably accurate for the single player portion; only the presence of reasonable online hoists it up to a 7.

  • Derblington #13 7 years ago

    Well I don't have Live! so I'll treat it as a 6! I bought it off a mate the other day for £5(Rockstar freebie copy) so I reckon it'll be all right.

  • mad_caddy #14 7 years ago

    can you knock it down to 5.

    Games should lose points if they increase the number of chavs who are let out into society so they can spend their job seekers on the next big blinging game!

    Edited by 1 at 26/04/05 @ 14:46

  • Razz #15 7 years ago

    /hands mad_caddy a trophy, cheque, and keys to the city

  • mad_caddy #16 7 years ago

    /holds trophy high, spends cheque on a wall around city, throws out chavs, locks city, hides key in hidden location where chavs cant find it (in a copy of a non chav game), organises a big party...

    if only!
    Edited by 2 at 26/04/05 @ 14:56

  • Feanor #17 7 years ago

    This is an interesting review. I haven't seen many other reviews say the game was too easy, just easier than MC 2. But since I bought MC 2 largely because of Eurogamer's 9/10 review and had a very similar frustrated-then-satisfied experience playing it, I'll give MC 3 a miss.
    Edited by 1 at 26/04/05 @ 14:58

  • driptray #18 7 years ago

    This is such disappointing news :-(

    The fun in MC2 for me was doing each race over and over, perfecting my route. This sounds pants in comparison. Is there no way to up the skill level?

  • Sid-Nice #19 7 years ago

    rauper Wrote: No, it's an error :)

    Like most of his other review scores. :)

  • drks #20 7 years ago

    i quite like it really. it's fun. most of the crticisms are fair though

    for some reason i enjoy it a lot more than burnout 3
    Edited by 1 at 26/04/05 @ 15:31

  • krudster #21 7 years ago

    Sorry dude, after 20 odd hours I was pretty much bored senseless at how straightforward the whole thing is.

  • Tweakmonkey #22 7 years ago

    The dreaded third album syndrome - try to please everyone, and then bugger up the winning formula!

  • C13 #23 7 years ago

    Interesting review indeed. I've bought the game and a lot of things are absolutely right.

    One of the main problems i have with the games is the way the races resemble. Sometimes you have to work your way through a couple of tuner races (or bike races or whatever) and you just do them to earn some money. It's frustrating cos sometimes you can loose a race with one crash. On the other hand, this is a good thing, cos it makes the game level a bit higher. It is not over easy at all.

    The speed is insane indeed, even at 30 fps it's pretty much at the same level as Burnout 3. Still, somehow B3 has something more polished to it. MC3 cities are nice, big, detailed, but the whole thing isn't that perfect as you you would wish. It's a compromise. And i don't like the Rockstar car handling schemes. I don't know how to describe, but somehow the sliding and wobbling does resemble GTA vice city/san andreas a lot. Even reminds me of Innerstate 82.

    The speed factor is a thrill on the other hand. I'm glad i can restart a race really easy without loading, it happens to me a lot. Mostly, you don't know exacty where you are going. You blaze through the city at insane speeds, trying to follow the arrow to the next checkpoint (which are very visible btw) and hope to hold of the other racers. At times i finish with a pounding heart - i haven't even experienced that with B3.

    The music is ok, some techno and rock is nice mixed with the hip hop/rap. The car sounds are good too.

    Visuals are good, as long as u don't look at the detail too much. It's not really bothering you at all during a race, cos u can't take notice and everything else sucks up ur attention.

    Gameplay is a bit heavy sometimes. In my opinion i get not enough money for the races i win and the cars cost too much. For instance, in NFSU2 you won most of the cars and u just spend your money on the tuning. In MC3 the cars cost loads of money and the tuning is expensive too. It wouldn't hurt giving a way some more cars/bikes, so i could sell some! About the bikes: i'm not a real bike fan, so for me the bike races are a drag, but i got to do them.

    Handling is forgiving in a way. I would prefer a little less arcady style, more much like NFSU2, a bit heavier. But on the other hand you can do pretty much anything with your car and have a good chance of getting away with mad jumps, ramming traffic, using buildings for cornering etc. I love the way you can slow down time for getting around a corner, but the roar for sending a shockwave throught traffic bothers me more then helping me out.

    Tuning is nice: more interesting parts, more choice, better visuals, more colours (VERY IMPORTANT in comparison to NFSU2), more rims. The vinyls are... they will do, most of them. The part i like best is how you can paint your car, window tinting and especially lowering the car, setting wider tires, bigger rims.

    So, my conclusion. My review might look negative, but i like the game all the same. When you are racing it is fun, waving through traffic and getting a kick out of winning. The most bothering thing is the path that's set out that makes u unable to choose your own races. For instance. There are 13 tuner race 5 in San Diego, 5 in Atlanta and 3 in Detroit. So you have to unlock the three cities and race them all to get your Nissan Skyline (and sell your tuner racer). But for unlocking the three cities, you got to do a whooooole lot of other races. It takes too long i guess...

  • Martin #24 7 years ago

    It is way too easy, agree. Only the crappy cop car AI is a threat, really. And the framrerate when it starts to rain is despicable.

    I still like to juice up my cars though - especially the old muscle cars. Too bad that the main customization focus is on ricers though (understandably but non the less unfortunate).

  • Mirkan #25 7 years ago

    A brilliant opportunity to point out that I do occasionally agree 100% with EG. MC3 initially seems to be everything you wanted it to be, but by the time you reach the second city; Atlanta, and find that it's essentially identical as far as atmosphere goes (whereas MC2 had vastly different feels for each city) you're likely to start worrying. Customization isn't what it's cracked up to be, either, if you want to drive stuff like Corvettes or Dodge Vipers. You stick a colour onto it, and find that decals just look tacky.

    The "insane" factor is considerably lower aswell, with not half of the jumps and crazy window breaking of MC2. This is disappointingly down to earth, all things considered. While the lack of opposition doesn't bother me a whole lot since there's Live play, cities don't feel as meaty as before. I mean, sure, there's your stereotypical latino mentor to move things along a bit, but the things he says are often redundant because a message on screen has already informed you that "The Crazy Ass Motorcycle Club" wants a piece of you. Or whatever. It's weird that they've obviously taken a lot of time to get stuff right, and ended up with so little... righty stuff.

    Definitely and absolutely a 7.

    Arguably the best thing about this game is that it includes Detroit, which is an excellently moody city with crazy back alley racing that manages to come across as beautiful (in a gritty way) even filtered through these GTA cardboard graphics. It's a great appetizer for Burnout Revenge, which will no doubt pull it off even better.

  • C13 #26 7 years ago

    It might be wise to point out that i haven't played MC3 so i wasn't familiar with the game type and i can't compare.

    For a newbie like me that action of jumping and ramming and driving through buildings was pretty exhilerating.

    The decals are tacky so are most of the vinyls, but both aren't my cup of tea anyway, i don't mind. I even didn't like putting them on in NFSU2. It's a pity though you can't put more than one layer on your care. At least you had that in NFSU2.

    And yeah, the cities resemble a lot. And yeah you got strange talking hispano types, but i won't be bothered by those. I don't know any game characters who are interesting anyway. C'mon, you can't say Halo's Master Chief is cool? Just the idea. The only cool person i know as a game character is Serious Sam :-)

    Anyway, just a thing about the cops. Who cares they are crap. I don't need hard cops in this game. I have enought trouble already keeping my car on the road waving through traffic, buildings and competititors at those speeds. I don't need a cop like in the good old days of Test Driver or the original Need for Speeds, who obnoxiously pull you over...

  • volb #27 7 years ago

    Kevski, you sound like a project lead or something from Rockstar.

    I am guessing more specifically someone who spent a lot of time thinking in terms of mass-appeal features, market expectations and rival products and would feel personally insulted by the resulting "meh". Alas, the art of marketing is merciless.

    'Not saying that you definitely are, though. The line between self-promoting designers and polite fanboys is ever so slim. The most effective way to distinguish between the two would be to repeat "polite fanboy" over and over until the words touch each other and self-combust, thus solving the dilemma. However, I will now stop my rant there before I quote Sherlock Holmes or do something stupid like that.

  • Rusta #28 7 years ago

    I found MC2 too hard, loved it but quit playing coz it was just too hard. Does that mean I'll like this one then?

  • ParticleMan #29 7 years ago

    I agree with the review. I found the game simplistic, way too easy and sub par in terms of graphics and frame rate. This would have looked good last year but the bar has simply gotten higher.

    7 is generous. But congrats to Eurogamer to voicing what game players are experiencing and not capitulating to Rockstar's bollocks.

  • pjmaybe #30 7 years ago

    7's on the generous side. The game is dull, irritating, poor AI, sub-par graphics. THOUGH with all that it still manages to be twice the game NFSU2 was, yet gets a worse score.

    Strange

    Peej

  • MikeD #31 7 years ago

    7's on the generous side. The game is dull, irritating, poor AI, sub-par graphics. THOUGH with all that it still manages to be twice the game NFSU2 was, yet gets a worse score.

    Hmm, nfsu2 got a 6.

  • Stilicho #32 7 years ago

    I've got to add support for Kevski. This is the most fun racing game around at the moment. Contrary to what the review says ALL of the multiplayer modes are a huge laugh especially CTF & Paint, and the single player game is also massively enjoyable. This is definitely a 9.

  • Martin #33 7 years ago

    "Arguing on the Internet is like running in the special olympics. Even if..."

    C'mon, you know the rest.

  • C13 #34 7 years ago

    Oh no i don't know that saying...

    tell me 'Even if what?'

    And yeah... it has progression problems... only the toughest will come through, hahaha!

  • Martin #35 7 years ago

    "Even if you win, you're still retarded."

    I thought everyone knew that one.

    Perhaps it's just me having argued a lot on the Internet. ;)

  • Genji #36 7 years ago

    Would it be an exaggeration to suppose that many people just skip the review and go stright to the score? Personally, I think that it's redundant to put a number at the end of a review, trying to condense all of your thoughts into it. In a perfect world, people would just skip the scores entirely.

  • bloodflowers #37 7 years ago

    I put months and months of my life into MC2 online 'back in the day'. I was playing it right from the day the PS2 network adapter was released, until there were no more people to race, and then I bought an Xbox just for the game and continued racing there. I was leader of the European clan that spent the most time at the top of the ERA League (think of something a bit like Team Compete). We all loved that game, it was pure, blistering gameplay.

    I very nearly refunded MC3 after playing it for a few hours. Eventually I didn't, because there's still nothing quite like the experience the MC series offers in a direct link between skill and adrenaline hit. You won't get wiped out by a random bit of traffic when racing online, you'll win or lose based on whether or not you pulled out all the stops.

    The reason I was so disappointed with it, is graphics. They're terrible. There are more surfaces, there's more detail and pretty reflections, but the 60fps seen in MC2 on the Xbox is -gone-, replaced with "maybe 30 sometimes". It makes every corner 20 times harder than it needs to be, as it's harder to focus on the hard edges when they don't move smoothly. I'd much rather have had simpler graphics and some smooth speed, rather than stopping playing because my eyes hurt. This should have been mentioned in the review as a negative, not a positive. The review also dismissed CTF matches, but in MC2 these were incredibly popular. In MC3 these have been utterly ruined, as hitting a building at 200 no longer results in the driver dropping the flag. Ever tried to catch and hit (solidly, due to the lag) a newbie bouncing off the walls in a nitro frenzy? It's impossible.

    Of course, the above thoughts are very much to do with the online side of things, but that always was the games strongest point. Pity Rockstar had to spoil it adding glitz, easier gameplay, and bland cities for the US market.

  • Murbal #38 7 years ago

    The game's being returned today, I feel a little embarrased for having picked up a copy in the first place! Give me a copy of MC2 over this tripe any day......