Midtown Madness 3

THE BAD:
~The music
~The glitches

SUMMARY:
At first this game looked crap, though when I saw a person rampaging through the city in a Garbage truck I knew I was going to love this game.

This has to be one of the most fun and enjoyable car/racing games out there. It is not a totally serious game in where you have tracks to follow. As the 2 enormous levels; Washington DC and Paris there is no linear play here. So when you are playing a mission you have the freedom to go anywhere you want.

The graphics at first were a bit dodgy, but you become accustomed to it. After a while you will notice the detail the game makers (DICE) have put into the game. The pedestrians have been created well and the cars you find in the cities. Though in the background you'll notice that the cars are moving in a jerky way. The rain on the roads is exceptionally detailed where; when your car drives you can see the rain pattern splitting creating a cool affect. This is one of the many details you can find in the graphics.

The vehicles in the game vary dramatically, as you can drive around in a school bus or take the roads with a fire truck, or chase people around in a cop car, drive real low to the ground in a mini, or zoom along the streets in a flashy red dodge viper. There are over 35 cars in total that will keep you occupied for quite some time.

In the game you will be able to find paint jobs that adds more appeal to your favourite car of choice. Some of these will be easy to get whilst others will be extremely hard to get. For some of them you will need to jump up high off ramps or go down hard to find alleys to get them. As there are a lot of them it just adds more things to do.

There are many modes in which you can pick to play the game. They consist of; Under cover work, Cruise mode, Blitz and Checkpoint. Lets start off with the most fun of all, Cruise mode. Cruise is where you have complete freedom to do what ever you want, like roam around the whole of the city exploring all that there is, causing traffic jams, running into cars, damaging every light post you can find, look for paint jobs, act like a normal humane person on the roads where you follow all the laws etc. There is so much to do. Also in Cruise you can change the settings of the pedestrian level from none to very heavy (meaning there's lots of people). Change the traffic levels from none to very heavy (the more, the more fun and messier). Change the whether like snowing, rain and sunshine. The seasons, summer, autumn, Winter and Spring. And you can also change the time of day; Morning, noon, evening and night. You can also adjust how many cops there are so when you are caught speeding they will chase you, there is a maximum of 4 cop cars. You don't have to have cops chasing you.

Working under cover is an option where you have different missions to do in the 2 cities. In Washington DC you'll do such things as a pizza delivery guy, a cop, a sales person, a limo driver, a detective and much more. In Paris you can be a delivery guy, an ambulance driver, a police officer, a taxi driver and much more. In these missions you will have to face some competition, as you need to prove that you are the guy to hire for the job. This competition will eventually get out of hand and will be taken very seriously which adds a bit of challenge to the game. Each job will consist of 4 missions except for the last as that has 3 missions.

Blitz is another mode where you must complete a circuit within a certain amount of time. In this mode you are still free to roam around and take any route that you feel more comfortable with instead of going with the suggested route. If you’re in a slower vehicle it means that the time to complete the circuit in is longer, so if you have a faster car it means that the time is shorter.

Checkpoint says it all. Yes it is a checkpoint race where you have to get to a certain checkpoint in time. Very simple.

The music overall isn't that great but the good thing is that this game lets you have your own music to cruise down the streets with. But sometimes it might repeat the same soundtracks. The sound is good with no real flaws.

The in game glitches aren't much but they are annoying. Say if you were to look left then face the front for a split second the buildings may go white (but not all the time, and not all buildings).

The multiplayer in the game isn't totally the best multiplayer around but it's ok. The downfall to the multiplayer on the xbox is that there is no traffic and no cops.

Results:

Game play: 9 /10
Graphics: 8 /10
Sound: 7 /10
Replay value: 8.5 /10

Overall: 8.1 /10 - 4.1 /5

Overall this is an enjoyable game that is well worth getting as you can easily play it over and over and over again and it will still be fun.