Midtown Madness

Moby ID: 304

Description official description

Drive around the streets of Chicago in a series of races, or just try the various timed challenges! The entire city is recreated, with more landmarks and major streets drivable, complete with pedestrians and traffic cars! Drive your "common" cars like Cadillac Eldorado or Ford Mustang, or go superexotic like Panoz Roadster, or drive a super-though F-350 HD pickup... Or even the Detroit City Bus and/or a Freightliner truck... Lots of variety, lots of scenary to admire, lots of challenges to attempt... And when you get bored, try the multiplayer, including tag, football, cops and robbers, and many more modes.

Spellings

  • 疯狂城市飙车 - Simplified Chinese spelling

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

Credits (Windows version)

92 People (54 developers, 38 thanks) · View all

Project Director
Game Designer
Producer
Technical Lead
Graphics Lead
Business and Tequila
Vehicle & Pedestrian AI
Vehicle Simulation & Physics
Networking & Game Logic
Graphics Engine
City Construction
UI and Input Devices
Audio
Biped Art & Animation
2D/3D Art (Vehicles)
Chicago City Design
3D Art (City LOD)
3D Art (City)
3D Art (City and Vehicles)
2D/3D Art (All Areas)
Sound Designer/Composer
Composer for Tracks 14-16
Lead Tester & Prod. Assist.
Tester & Production Assist.
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 84% (based on 35 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.6 out of 5 (based on 43 ratings with 9 reviews)

A good but flawed driving experence

The Good
You get to drive around Chicago without and don't even have to obey the speed limits (though the police in the game might not agree with that!) and some fun single player racing modes.

The Bad
Somehow one city to drive through is not enough, I mean after a while it gets dull driving speeding your way through Chicago over and over, and there are hardly any secret routes to take which makes it a bummer. Furthermore some of the cars are hard to unlock because the difficulty in the single player modes can get way hard unless you know what you are doing.

The Bottom Line
A good alternative to Driver though it will get old fast. But in short a good game.

Windows · by Grant McLellan (584) · 2001

Nice city racing, but poorly executed

The Good
The idea about cruising and racing around town is very nice, as at the date of publishing there were not many games with city racing theme that allow freedom of movement. The challenges are quite difficult and you have to make a lot of tries before you can win all the races.

The graphics are nice and the game allows you to use higher resolutions, so it can look nice at the present time. The choice of cars cover different types from different periods. It is also possible to drive with a bus or a big truck, but these cars are unusable in races. You can just drive through city and nobody can stop you.

The Bad
The game is absolutely ruined by the cars physics. There are settings from arcade to realistic behavior of the cars, but the only thing changes is the grip of the tires. For example at most arcade settings, the car turns like hell but if you have a mustang, bus or truck and drive more than 20mph, your car will flip on its side in the first turn immediately. Most realistic settings means no turning at lower speeds - practically, when you skid and find your car not in the right race direction, the race is over, because you'll never get the car into the right direction. The turning ability is bounded somehow to speed (at faster speeds turning is better). I used a joystick, maybe it's better with a wheel.

And another thing I didn't like were the cops, when in pursuit - they fly around you like some turbo-fly and it looks very funny, but not realistic.

The Bottom Line
Midtown Madness is nice game ruined with poor execution. If you like a challenge - try it. If you want good racing game and fun - avoid it.

Windows · by Silmarillion (70) · 2008

A fun racing-style game

The Good
I like that this game is rather fun just driver around in Chicago, a well-detailed Chicago, in a matter of fact.

It is fun racing too, with it's 3 racing-modes.

The Bad
I don't like that it's impossible to do a burnout without the panoz GTR-1.

The Bottom Line
I would describe this game as a fun racing game, but it's rather boring that it's some kind of traction control and ABS in every car, except at the winter...

Windows · by Thomas Backman (20) · 1999

[ View all 9 player reviews ]

Trivia

Inaccuracies

There is an error when referencing one of the vehicles on the North American (and some European) cover art. (See extra cover art for example.) It states the Classic Ford Mustang Fastback as a "67 Mustang Boss 302". However, the Boss 302 did not enter production until 1969. It is correctly stated what Mustang it is in the game.

Pricing

In the Netherlands Midtown Madness got sold for the half of the normal retail (like $20) price to see if this could reduce the illegal copying. Afterwards they didn't try this with any other game, so probably it didn't work.

Awards

  • GameSpy
    • 1999 – Racing Game of the Year

Information also contributed by DOS Boot

Analytics

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  • MobyGames ID: 304
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Thomas Backman.

Additional contributors: Erwin Bergervoet, Brolin Empey, Unicorn Lynx, Patrick Bregger, Victor Vance.

Game added October 3, 1999. Last modified January 29, 2024.