Lawrence.com

Open-ended street racing is back with the return of Rockstar's Midnight Club. The first two entries in the series were solid racing games but suffered from a lack of car licenses and the inclusion of some ridiculous stereotypes. Thankfully, DUB Edition features more than 60 licenses, and the stereotypes are less frequent (although still somewhat present). It features the same trademark open-ended gameplay and easily surpasses the previous games.

While the other two were certainly fun games, the unlicensed cars were a little disappointing. Driving around in a fake car called the Torrida simply isn't as fun as cruising around in a Dodge Viper. Thankfully, the inclusion of officially licensed vehicles does wonders for Midnight Club 3. The number of these vehicles is truly impressive, and you'll see extremely accurate representations of Lexus, Cadillac, Nissan and Mitsubishi automobiles (among many others).

The game starts you with a modest amount of money, which allows you a choice between several initial vehicles. Cars in MC3 are split into four different classes. Starting out, you'll only be able to purchase Class D vehicles. Win enough races and build your reputation, and Class C vehicles will be delivered to your garage. By the time you get to Class A, you should have an arsenal of amazing vehicles at your disposal. The various vehicles can be purchased or won as tournament prizes, and include cars, trucks, SUVs and motorcycles.

The sheer selection of cars is impressive, but the customization you can perform is even more amazing. Each of the cities includes a garage (complete with mechanics that cover just about every ethnic stereotype), and this is where you'll be spending a lot of time. Within each garage is a Performance Shop, Detail Shop, Body Shop and Paint Shop. The Performance Shop is the most important by far and allows you to upgrade your vehicles' stats. It's a very user-friendly system and should be easy even if you don't know a spark plug from an alternator (like me). Available parts are sorted by a class system similar to how cars are handled. At first, you can only upgrade your car with Level 1 parts. Most parts can go up to Level 3 (with the exception of tires), and higher levels become available as you progress through the game.

The other three shops are not essential by any means but offer an unlimited amount of exterior customization. Picking your paint isn't just an issue of color, but also whether you want metallic, pearlescent, or color shift. Once you're done there, you can change the color of almost anything. Your nitrous, rims, window tint, even the color of your HUD they can all be customized to your liking. Almost every external part of your car can be changed. If you want a different hood or tire size, you can do it. Items such as hydraulics and rims don't help you at all in races, but the option is there if you'd like them. You can even pick authentic license plates from every one of the United States. Once you've left the garage, you truly feel like it's "your car." The personalization level is off the charts.

Graphically, Midnight Club 3 is simulaneously impressive and frustrating. The cars themselves look amazing, and all have a realistic "shine" to them when driving around. Cities look good as well and feature an amazing amount of destructibles. On occasion, you'll be driving in the rain, and it looks extremely realistic. While impressive, the crashes aren't quite as shocking as in Burnout 3. Unfortunately, it's sometimes hard to see where you're going. Everything zooms so fast around you, and there's an enormous amount of activity occuring onscreen. This is good, but not if it makes the course hard to see. It's hard to tell where to turn sometimes, and this can destroy your chances of winning some races. An on-screen arrow will point you to the next checkpoint, but your car is usually going too fast for it to matter.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas' soundtrack featured James Brown, Creedence Clearwater and George Clinton, automatically making it the greatest ever. Once again, Rockstar proves it knows how to put a soundtrack together. There is a giant assortment of songs, and almost all of them fit the gameplay. While I don't particularly like some of the rap selection, and generally hate almost all of the techno songs, they are appropriate for the game. That's far more important than anything in regards to a game's soundtrack. All of the songs put you in a racing mood, and you can always add or remove them if you don't like them (or add your own custom soundtrack). Midnight Club 3 also features some great sound effects, ranging from realistic engine sounds to glass-shattering crashes.

Rockstar seems to be obsessed with the "three-city" system. Ever since the original GTA, many of their games have featured three huge maps to explore. The selection in DUB Edition is San Diego, Atlanta and Detroit. They're good choices, but not quite as exciting as MC2's Paris and Tokyo levels. After purchasing your car and getting everything ready, the game will deposit you in the middle of San Diego. You'll immediately notice how many different ways you can play this game. Optional races are scattered everywhere and are a great way to make some extra cash. Pressing the Back button will bring up the city map. Tournaments are marked by a trophy icon, while opposing racers are represented by a blue triangle. If you want to accept the race, you just drive up to its location and press the White button.

Races are extremely fast-paced and intense, and many different variations are offered. Some will be three short laps around a block, while others will be a huge trek around the entire city. The majority of races are "Point A to Point B" affairs, with checkpoints scattered in between. Others will have only one checkpoint, and racers can choose any path to get there first. Autocross tournaments pop up from time to time, and these transform the city streets to resemble an actual racing track. Most of these feature you racing opponents' times rather than tangible cars. The sheer variety is what keeps this game from getting old too quickly.

Police will set up roadblocks and subsequently make chase if you irk them too much. They are extremely aggressive, and seem to enjoy constantly pinning you against walls. Thankfully, your car can simply plow through various items such as light poles and trees. I've always found it extremely annoying in racing games if you came to a dead halt whenever you hit such items, and MC3 avoids that problem. Hitting traffic and walls will slow you down considerably, but it's fairly easy to recover your lost time. Running into gas stations, however, will immediately make your car explode. The cars control very well, with gas and brakes being handled by the shoulder buttons. Motorcycles aren't quite as responsive, but they do offer the option to transfer your weight to make tighter turns.

Multiplayer is fun, but the cluttered graphics are doubly apparent when the screen is split. Regardless, many different modes are available, and they're all worth checking out (both offline and on Xbox Live). Paint is similar to Tony Hawk's "graffiti" mode and requires players to run around the map trying to tag different checkpoints. If you'd prefer, you can simply put the game on Cruise mode, and you and your friend can just drive around the city at your own pace. The main problem with multiplayer is the method of selecting your car. You don't see any visual of your car, only the name. This is a problem if you're not exactly sure what a SRT4 or a R32 is. There were times when I thought I was selecting a car, only to start multiplayer with a motorcycle.

Midnight Club 3 adds three arcade-like special moves for vehicles. Muscle cars and choppers get Roar, tuners get Zone, and SUVs and trucks get Agro. Roar allows you to send out a shockwave, scattering traffic everywhere. When you acquire the move, it tells you to use it to scatter traffic in your enemies' path, but it can just as easily get in yours. Zone allows you to slow down time and make very sharp turns. This can come in extremely handy if you're about to zoom past a turn you need to make. Agro is the most entertaining, as it allows you to simply plow through traffic as though it was nothing. The "slip-stream turbo" move is always available and will save you countless times. Once you're behind an opponent, your slip stream meter fills up. When it's entirely full, you can press X to give your car a giant boost, flying past most of the competition.

If you're even a moderate fan of racing games, you owe it to yourself to pick up Midnight Club 3. The standard story mode alone will last you close to 20 hours, and there's tons of unlockables and optional races to keep you busy for a long time.

Graphics: B

Sound: B+

First Play: A

Last Play: A-

Gameplay: A-

Overall: 90% A