Midtown Madness 2

"Augh! My car!"

Midtown Madness 2 is the followup to Microsoft's Midtown Madness, and boils down to this -- you get two sprawling cities to drive a variety of cars through and perform simple challenges in. Is it worth your money -- is it FUN?

Gameplay
First of all, you get two cities to drive around in, as mentioned above -- San Francisco, and London. San Francisco is full of steep hills, a portion of a freeway and even a couple of small buildings you can enter. London...well, it's got almost NO hills, a maze of roads, and even an underground tram system you can drive around in that links parts of the city. So what exactly do you do in the game? Well, you pick your city and your mode. Off the top of my head, I know there's Checkpoint and Blitz, both racing through predefined spots in your chosen city. There's Cruise, where you are free to drive anywhere for any time period. And there's the mission mode -- probably the best single-player part of the game. In this mode, you assume the role of a Cabbie if you're in London, or a stunt car driver if SF is your thing. You'll get to jump from barge to barge, race down Golden Gate Bridge at top speed, even outrun the cops. The cops are what bring the score down because they just don't make any sense! As soon as a cop car spots your car, it'll instantly start chasing it, and ramming it, even if you aren't breaking any laws. In Cruise mode, this applies to regular computer cars as well. Drive within speed limits and in your lane and you'll still get rammed from behind at stop lights. Apparently, the game was not made to drive within the rules. Cars? I think there's about 25 to choose from, they are all pretty different, each has a few paint jobs. Some are insanely fast, but will crash out if you try to drive up on the sidewalk. So there's some strategic planning for picking the best car for where you are racing (or just where you want to go). The game, incidentally, is one-player only (no two-player split screen) unless you play online multiplayer...where the real fun is...
8/10

Multiplayer
The best part of the game. Microsoft was oh-so-kind to include their free online Zone service for hosting and setting up Midtown Madness 2 online games, and I can proudly say that they are still in moderate use even years after MM2's release.
The best part about online Multiplayer, is Cops & Robbers -- think of it like capture the flag but with only one flag. Multiplayer games are generally very customizable, so everyone can drive with the same car, have the same colored car on teams, and so on. 8 players max, and it runs with pretty much no lag, if you have a decent to fast internet connection. Of course, there's the issue of cheating, but generally, online users handle this well, and you find there are many people who simply want to play a game without cheats or hacks. It's immensely fun and never fails to keep you coming back for more.
10/10

Graphics
Pretty good. First of all, being a little bit of an older PC game now, you don't need the latest and fanciest graphics card to run it. The game moves along at a very good framerate if your computer is a decent speed, although there's a little slowdown if your car smokes (might just be my computer tho) or if you're at a part of the city where you can see a large portion of it! The cars look good -- if it's one you're driving. Computer cars tend to retain the boxy look, but when you're on a freeway with 50 or more cars I don't think they could all have detail as good as your own car anyway. The cities themselves are good, if a little linear (roads have very sharp angles and hills), and the cars seem just a little big compared to the size of buildings. Monuments of both San Francisco and London are faithfully reproduced, if a little lacking in detail, but you'll recognize the Golden Gate Bridge and Buckingham Palace right away. Overall, not the best graphics ever in a racing game, but for a wide-open city environment they're pretty detailed.
8.5/10

Sound
Kind of lacking. First of all, there's no real music on the menus or in gameplay. You can put music on while you drive, but then you lose your city sounds. You can also, optionally, plug in a CD and listen to it thru a car-radio style interface, but when I tried that, the CD sounded tinny and quiet. The city itself sounds good, although certain sound effects might get on your nerves sooner or later (i.e. the San Francisco 'boat noise'). The engine sounds...well, what's to say. They make noise and each different car sounds different. Crashing, busting trees, slamming through glass, all pretty good. Playing with computer cars, if you crash into them, you get to hear them spout off clever E-rated catch phrases like "Get outta my way, boy, get outta my way, yee-haw!", and "I just paid this car off!" and "Augh! My car!" You also get some generic voice work in the single-player missions; a supposed movie producer and London cab driver lend their talents, but they quickly get annoying. Overall -- decent.
7/10

Controls
Not much to say about controls. The cars drive slightly arcadey, perhaps (i.e. turning almost 180 around when you are completely stopped) but handle realistically, too. Each car drives VERY differently and you'll notice this as soon as you go from the City Bus to the Ford F-350. I would love to try this game with an actual wheel, but a gamepad works just fine for me. No complaints.
9/10

Replayability
Online internet multiplayer is the biggest source of replayability this game has to offer. At first, it's fun just to go exploring every street and alley of San Francisco and London...but after a while, it's just more fun to play with other people. Checkpoint and Blitz races against computer-controlled opponents are okay at best -- nothing beats playing actual people from all over the world. Also, you will be playing for a while at first just to unlock all the cars (I believe there are about 7 or 8 that are locked at the start).
9/10

Summary
MM2 is worth your money. Even with it's sequel, Midtown Madness 3, making an appearance on the XBox, PC users can still enjoy a great open-ended racing game in Midtown Madness 2. If you're a fan of any type of driving game, you've got to have this in your collection.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 11/19/04