I happened to notice Best Buy was offering Midnight Club LA for $30 to Premier Silver Reward Zone members and I had a few certificates waiting to be used, so I was able to pick up Midnight Club LA, for the PS3, at the smooth price of $4.99.  There are two reasons I didn’t jump on the game sooner, with the most important reason being how absolutely excruciatingly buggy GTA IV was for me on the PS3.  The second reason was that I picked up Motorstorm Pacific Rift not too long ago and its racing excellence scratched my itch nicely.  That said, there are some things you should know about Midnight Club LA…

Midnight Club LA uses the same RAGE engine that GTA IV uses, but everything looks “cleaner”… by cleaner I don’t mean it looks more sterile or better define, but that the graphics just looked like they’re the result of a game engine that stayed in the oven a little longer.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the GAME is near perfection, just that I’ve seen very little to complain about graphically in the game.  Day and night are very effectively handled, the sense of speed is definitely there, and one of the coolest “gameplay to map” transition effects I’ve seen in a game is present allowing you to instantly pan from gameplay to an overview of the in-game city at the touch of the SELECT button.  Returning from the map to gameplay, especially at night, is something I’ll admit to doing over and over just to watch.  The effect is REALLY well done.

Within the first 10 minutes of playing the game, I’d fought the urge to get out of my car probably a half a dozen times.  It just seemed like I should be able to do it, ala GTA IV, but MC:LA is a pure racing game, so I can accept that you’re stuck to your car, except for cut scenes.

Starting races is fairly straight forward.  From cruise mode, you simply drive around until you find another racer (that will have a color-coded icon above their card) and flash your headlights at them.  You then can opt to race to the starting line (for reputation points) or cut straight to the race’s starting line.  Here’s where I think Rockstar got things JUST right.  When you’re racing through an open world, especially in games like Burnout Paradise, it’s pretty easy to accidentally take the wrong route or crash while looking at the map.  In MC:LA, the race markers are yellow smoke plumes that are easily visible from a distance and they have distinct direction markers indicating any turns you’ll need to make as well as the severity of the turn.

Another nice touch is that you don’t have to TOUCH the smoke marker, just pass reasonably near it.  This allows you to make an optimal racing line without artificially tagging the marker.  Also of note, the current and next waypoint are marked on your minimap giving you a nice, easy indication ahead of time which direction you’ll be heading.  All in all, I have NO problem knowing where I was going even on the first run through races.

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