Midnight Club II
Description official descriptions
On the streets at night, anything can happen. And if you have a car that can race the distance, there's money involved too.
This is the premise behind Midnight Club II, in which you must work your way up the ranks of illegal street racing by challenging and defeating the best over three cities.
Each race occurs in a different area of the city, and all you have to do to get started is flash your lights at the person you wish to drag. Then follow the map for the track route and go hell for leather. Further along, shortcuts will also come into play, giving you an advantage in getting to the finish first.
Each race you win racks up cash, which goes towards new and much faster cars for the more difficult challenges. You'll also get the chance to go two wheels with a selection of highly mobile bikes.
Multiplayer modes include the usual all-on-all race mode, and capture the flag, in which you must race to the opposing flag somewhere in the city and return it to your destination.
Spellings
- 午夜俱乐部2 - Chinese spelling (simplified)
Groups +
- Games pulled from digital storefronts
- Genre: Open world driving
- Green Pepper releases
- Middleware: Bink Video
- Midnight Club series
- PlayStation 2 Greatest Hits releases
- PlayStation 2 Platinum Range releases
- Setting: City - Los Angeles
- Setting: City - Paris
- Setting: City - Tokyo
- Software Pyramide releases
- Xbox Platinum Hits releases
Screenshots
Promos
Credits (PlayStation 2 version)
212 People (168 developers, 44 thanks) · View all
Producer | |
Associate Producer | |
Game Analyst/Production Assistant | |
Lead Programmer / Opponent AI | |
Technical Director / Networking | |
Car and Motorcycle Dynamics / Pedestrians | |
Audio / Battle-Modes / Police AI / Tools | |
Front-End / HUD / UI Design | |
Visual Effects | |
Rendering / Asset Management | |
Tools / In-Game Race Editor / Additional UI | |
Race Tools / Ambient Vehicles / Triggered Events | |
Networking | |
Optimizations | |
Additional Programming | |
AGE Lead Programmer | |
AGE Technical Director | |
AGE Physics | |
AGE Audio | |
[ full credits ] |
Reviews
Critics
Average score: 82% (based on 39 ratings)
Players
Average score: 3.6 out of 5 (based on 52 ratings with 1 reviews)
Take NFS Underground and add GTA 3 and you got Midnight Club!!
The Good
There's too many things to list that are good about this game. Featuring over 20 cars, which are all modeled from real ones, just with creative names such as Torino, which looks like a souped up Mitsubishi Eclipse, to a Interna, which is a Honda S2000 convertible, and also includes Motorcycles such as the Cochete which looks more like a Suzuki, but it's these creative titles given to cars that make them sound cool.
The graphics and modeling are top-notch and is the base for a good game. When travelling through the three open cities of Los Angeles, Paris, or Tokyo, Rockstar San Diego did not miss one single landmark. You'll be seeing all sorts of crazy signs ranging from neon lit strip clubs to little cozy restuarants and even the famed Hollywood signs and the huge houses on Beverly Hills. Since most of the driving is done at midnight, the developers did not miss the night driving reflections or the smooth road surface that offers many types of traction levels.
Gameplay is solid, featuring new play modes including a Cruise mode, for those nice Sunday drives in your new car that you unlocked in Career mode. There is also online play available as well as Arena Battles, like Capture the flag or Detonate, with Mario Kart like powerups to screw up other drivers. Career mode features races or sprints with checkpoints to go through and there are no walls so you can go anywhere you want.
It's very challenging game, and appeals to hardcore racers who like stiff competition and winning opponents cars in pink slip races. You'll be restarting at least 3-4 times per race just figuring out which route is best and fending off the other malicious drivers who will cut you off in a turn or slam against you into an oncoming car.
Sound and music tracks are from underground music scene such as Art of Trance to Nokternal, or hip-hop artists such as Tre Little and 8-ball Aguilah. You can also import your own set of MP3's to listen to while you crusie around or race. The cutscenes are pretty good, you'll be meeting a lot of wannabe tough guys and ditzy party girls that'll talk trash to you. One thing for certain they never say the same thing twice. There's a lot of variation in the dialogue.
Controls are smooth going and the interface is easy to use. If you're a big fan of Need for Speed Underground series, then should have no trouble with this game. There are many things to unlock and many new tricks to learn as you progress through career. They'll be teaching you how to do a burnout, using slip-stream turbo, driving on two wheels using weight transfer, doing nosies or ducks on a motorcycle to enhance speed or create drag to slow down in the turns. There's also drifting mechanics by using the handbrake to whip around those hard narrow hairpins turns.
There is also a race editor to make your own set track with a set number of checkpoints. There are no restrictions to where the checkpoints are, or how many laps there is in a race. It's those options that add replayability after career mode is finished.
The Bad
For some it could be downright frustratingly difficult to play since the racers are very hard to contend with. They'll slam into you, make you hit traffic or a wall. The physics engine needs some work. Most of the cars you drive will have a sharp turning axis even at high speeds, you can go around a 90 degree turn at 150mph... There is no in-car view, there's bumper cam, but that's as close as you can get in a car. I love to ride a car that has authentic speedometers and controls. Adds some more realism to it. There is no drag option in the game like NFSUnderground 2 had. The game tends to crash a bit after playing it straight for 2 hours. Or the graphics seem to lag and I got a pretty good video card and system for this game, but sometimes you'll get slowdowns in heavily congested areas when it's raining. There's no visual upgrades or import parts to buy...
The Bottom Line
Definitely one of the best racing games out there that rivals the Need for Speed series. You'll find both challenging and fun with all the different play modes and the massive variety of cars available. Every race will be different, every technique is available to use to your advantage and theirs if they use it too. A fun game with high replayability with the Race editor mode and cruising around mode!!
Windows · by Twilightseer (252) · 2006
Discussion
Subject | By | Date |
---|---|---|
Annoying AI design flaw | Daniel Saner (3509) | Jun 14, 2008 |
Trivia
Awards
- GameSpy
- 2003 – PC Arcade Racing Game of the Year (together with Need for Speed Underground)
Analytics
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Related Sites +
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Midnight Club II Website
Official website for Midnight Club II
Identifiers +
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Contributors to this Entry
Game added by Kartanym.
PlayStation 3 added by Charly2.0.
Additional contributors: Unicorn Lynx, Cantillon, Patrick Bregger.
Game added May 23, 2003. Last modified July 15, 2024.