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 fun racing game.

The Good
The curise mode. You can just travel around the city, no holds bar, being able to rush head on to traffic is fun, jumping draw brides is a blast, and running from the cops. Good race modes to.

The Bad
Not enough cops, you rarely get chased. Can't run over people, and can't reck the cars, they always wind uo right side up.

The Bottom Line
A great game, which lets you expereince road rage, without worring about the cops.

Windows · by Blackhandjr (89) · 2000

At last... freedom to drive wherever you want.

The Good
The graphics are beautifully slick, and they run so well. I can run this game at 1600x1280 res with no problems, whereas most driving games get run at 640 or 800 if I'm lucky.

You can tell this game was designed with the MS Sidewinder wheel in mind. It's absolutely perfect with the wheel. You get a gte sense of feel and control, with the ability to precisely place your car on the road - damn handy when you're tanking down the freeway at 120mph.

The racing games are fun, and they are enough of a challenge to make it worthwhile. The cruise mode is stunning, allowing you the freedom of the city. You can either play your own games in this mode, My favourite is Speed. Get the bus, start out on a loop of the city, and keep your speed above 50 - see how many laps you can do. It's amazing that stuff like this doesn't even get boring.

The Bad
The car handling is a little suspect. If you turn down the physics realism, the the Mustang becomes a real handful. Turn a corner too hard and you're on two wheels every time. Although the cars themselves can take damage, nothing else does, except cops.

And speaking of cops, when cruising around obeying the rules, they'll come at you for any minor infraction and try and destroy you (a bit like Driver). Break the speed limit by 1mph and they try and kill you? Hmmm....

The network game is a joke. The collision detection is atrocious, and the way the other cars jump around the track shows up some bad coding. The set races are OK, but there's no league so you have to keep starting new races. The other games are really lame - the cops and robbers games get really dull after you realise there's only a few places the 'gold' will appear.

The Bottom Line
As a network game it sucks, which is a pity because it could be really good. As a single player game, it is fun, but the races/leagues don't last that long. This game would have a lifespan of a few weeks, if it weren't for the fact that it is so wonderful to drive.

Here's hoping they fix all this for the up and coming Midtown Madness II.

Windows · by Steve Hall (329) · 2000

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

[ 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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Identifiers +

  • 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.