PlayStation 2

Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition

In my mind, this is really the complete racing package. There wasn't one moment during my time with this game that I wasn't engaged and having fun. Ultimately, that's the mark of a great title in any genre.

Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition is one of those arcade racers which seems to come along only once in a very long time that is packed so full of content that you won't want to stop playing. The sheer amount of cars, races, and customization options are unmatched, and to be blunt, Midnight Club 3 is the best racer of this generation.

Outshining many of the street racing games already out there, Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition is pure racing joy for those who like their import tuning and midnight street racing done to perfection. As a fan of the second game, it was hard to imagine the series getting much better than this but with so much added to the game’s addictive racing will surely make some new fans with this one. Go out and buy this one, you won’t regret it.

With a hefty online package kicking replay into high gear, Midnight Club 3 delivers on every front in a big, big way.

Now that the bulk of import-tuners have come and more or less gone, Rockstar, with its third iteration in the Midnight Club series, has tackled what is arguably the most stylistic and well-rounded arcade racer of the bunch. Developed in San Diego where the tuner scene is highly visible even to the ignorant, Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition is rooted deep in the mod subculture and never gives up faith or sells out to commercialism. The intertwined message of stellar gameplay and entrenched culture gives the game a feeling of authenticity sorely lacking in similar racers.

Before, the racing streets of the night life belonged to Rockstar. They could dance on it, pee on it, and even make love in its dank and dirty potholes. If burning rubber with a super fast charged, slick, styling new vehicle was ever done in a video game, it was done because Rockstar made it possible. Then competition came along. The video game industry's biggest bully, Electronic Arts, rolled in and called out to the innovators of Rockstar, "Yo bro! We be like, making dis sim-like underground street racer. It gonna be tight, just like yo moms!" With a bullet wound to their head and a quick foot on the gas pedal, Rockstar zoomed off to lay out their own plan of action to realign the force of "true" underground racing back onto their side.

Rockstar San Diego knows how to make a great racer. Its Midnight Club series has always been an edgy, fast line of racer in the overcrowded arcade racing genre, and Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition is the best yet. The import tuner-style of racing is the theme here, and it's safe to say that DUB nails this better than the likes of NFSU and those other would-be tuner games.

Though the competition is plentiful in the street racing genre these days, Midnight Club has come back strong. It has all the options you'd expect in this kind of game, but crucially, they're mostly all implemented well. It's the first game where I've actually felt a sense of attachment to my customized car, and it's one of the most entertaining racing games around.

By sticking to a formula that it knows well, Rockstar San Diego has pulled of yet another excellent racing title. While still similar in many ways to Midnight Club 2, the two remain sufficiently different that neither negates the other. The new customisation options are also put to good use without ever being shoved down your throat. If you enjoy a very fast, forgiving racer that makes good use of open-ended environments both offline and on, the we heartily recommend Midnight Club 3.

Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition is a very good game that is only held back by its lack of cities and how long it takes to progress from one city to the next. If you're looking for a fun racing game that allows you to customize your ride in almost any way imaginable, then you'll want to put down that Need For Speed Underground box and pick up Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition.

Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition is unashamedly an all out arcade racer, and a thoroughly enjoyable one at that. It might not offer the depth of the Gran Turismos and Forzas of the world, but few games can deliver the same thrill that MC3 offers for its duration. The game's Career mode will last you up to 20 hours and online play could see you playing this for months to come. Even if you have no interest in car modding, Midnight Club 3 should be experienced for the sheer adrenaline rush that it offers.

We expect the world from Grand Theft Auto creator, Rockstar Games. The company has done so much to redefine a particular sector of the gaming universe that most onlookers figure the rest of their lineup can do the same. So when the publisher teamed with DUB Magazine to produce a title celebrating gorgeous cars moving fast, we expected the game to look just as good as the rides. Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition isn't quite that hot, but it's nevertheless a fantastic arcade racer.

Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition tries very hard to please all audiences in the hopes that everyone, regardless of background, will want to pick up a copy. For those who want a straightforward, easy pick-up-and-play racing game, we have Arcade Mode; while Career Mode caters to grease monkey types who want to spend an inordinate portion of their gameplay customizing their cars. There's (some pretty bad) emo cuts for the pop-punk crowd and hip-hop or reggae for the "thug lifers". All told, it's a worthy effort, if a fairly flawed one: one of the better looking and handling racing games out there, but there don't seem to be as many locations or tracks to race in as other, comparable games, and the extremely poor direction arrows and schizophrenic lack of focus (is it a customization game, or a racing game? For hip hoppers only, or for more general audiences?) may leave this one sitting on the shelf more often than not.

Pas aussi révolutionnaire que sa campagne publicitaire le laissait entendre, MC 3 possède tout de même un potentiel indéniable, qui passe par un fun immédiat et l'adjonction de modes arcades assez sympathiques. Toutefois, on ne peut mettre de côté les lacunes graphiques et l'absence de réelles innovations, qui empêchent le soft de Rockstar de briguer les hautes sphères vidéoludiques. Il reste que MC 3 s'impose comme une alternative crédible à NFSU, et surtout un bien meilleur concurrent que SRS ou encore le piteux RPM Tuning. Et une belle jante pour la 12 !

A couple of weeks ago I picked up Gran Turismo 4 with the intention of reviewing it for the DP Wire. The problem is, I quickly discovered I don't like the Gran Turismo series. I didn't like #3 and I didn't like #2 and I didn't like #1, and I?m not really sure why I thought I'd enjoy #4. It's great eye candy, but eye candy is a dime a dozen on modern consoles. I don't care about the realistic angle of the game; realistic cars at high rates of speed cut me off every day on my morning work commute. Call me old school, but if I'm going to spend my time driving around in a video game, I want to go fast, I want to live dangerously, and I want to be cool. Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition lets me do all those things.

It's been almost a year since Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition hit the shelves, and seeing as the game topped the charts back then it's hardly surprising that it's getting a re-release on both PS2 and Xbox at a lower price point.

Au final, Midnight Club 3 se veut une bonne alternative à Burnout 3 et Need for Speed Underground 2, faute de mieux, mais si vous avez le choix je ne saurais que trop vous conseiller de vous tourner vers la version Xbox, beaucoup plus fluide et bien mieux réalisée. Si la progression dans le jeu est désormais plus variée, le tout reste répétitif à souhait. En somme, le jeu s’impose comme une alchimie instable entre ses deux modèles, sans jamais vraiment faire mieux.