Get ready to drive like you’re evading a prison sentence as we check out the greatest Midnight Club games.
For those who love titles like the best Need for Speed games or pulling off epic takedowns in Burnout, the Midnight Club games need to be in your collection.
The graphics, the attention to detail, the courses… the cars!
Seriously, I’m considering dropping off this article and going to play a few tracks now.
The streets are a mean place, but can you conquer them?
1. Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition (2005)
In a series known for chaotic and over-the-top racing, Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition seemed to hit the sweet spot where high-octane fun meets just-right driving physics.
With a giant campaign spanning recreations of San Diego, Atlanta, Detroit and Toyko (Tokyo being an addition in the “Remix” version), players were in no shortage of things to do.
And that is if you ever managed to leave the garage… with seemingly endless customization of nearly 100 different licensed vehicles. We’re talking sports bikes, choppers, trucks, SUVs, sports cars, muscle cars… you name it.
And the music, the music, the music. That is what you all came for, right? With a whopping 124 tracks to choose from, players often found themselves loading up the game just for the tunes.
It was totally up to you if you wanted to crash your way through the destructible environments listening to 50 Cent or Nine Inch Nails.
Players appreciated the diversity and challenge offered throughout this giant open world racer.
Rockstar Games really hit their stride with Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition Remix, improving on the nearly perfect Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition (which scored pretty high on our list of the greatest PS2 racing games AND must-have racing titles for the PSP!). And the series seemed to be chasing that standard in following releases. It just never felt as sweet.
2. Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition Remix (2006)
It only stands to reason that the complete edition of the top game in this spot would come second, right?
The Midnight Club series is technically only 4 core games long, though Rockstar made some extra cash by releasing ‘updated versions’ the year after the original versions dropped. They came with new features such as new cars and levels and, for fans of the series, were more than worth the money.
This updated version of MC3 came with 24 new vehicles and featured some new brands that players had missed from the original.
There were also extra races and maps for battles too, as well as a whole bunch of new songs to listen to. Anyone who loves racing games knows that music is half the battle to getting that top spot. If you’re not pumped up, then there’s no chance of winning!
3. Midnight Club: Los Angeles (2008)
As the final installation in the Midnight Club series, Midnight Club: Los Angeles had a lot to live up to (following the number one entry on our list). Rockstar San Diego pulled no punches here, especially in the amount of playable content.
The recreation of Los Angeles covers more area than all three cities from Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition combined!
“Los Angeles” also introduced a 24-hour day and night cycle and dynamic weather effects.
Fans of Midnight Club: Los Angeles saw re-releases in the form of Midnight Club: L.A. Remix (PlayStation Portable) and Midnight Club: Los Angeles – Complete Edition (PlayStation 3 / Xbox 360).
And with online play that supports up to sixteen players, gamers had seemingly endless content to keep them coming back.
4. Midnight Club: Los Angeles – Complete Edition (2009)
Who’s ready for another updated edition?
The Complete Edition of Midnight Club Los Angeles follows in the same footsteps as Dub Edition Remix up above, bringing new maps, vehicles, and missions to the fold.
26 new races are available for budding drivers to take on, as well as a heap of accessories and body kits to use when souping up your ride.
That’s the bit that would make me buy an upgrade every time; I’m a sucker for modding virtual cars and fine-tuning them to get an edge over my mates!
The South Central Expansion pack in this edition brings with it a bigger version of the map from the previous game as well as a Mercedes CL 65 and Audi S5 for players to wield.
The total number of cars goes from 43 to 58 with this new edition, with the arrival of a Range Rover Supercharged for all the fans of the SUV life and the ever-impressive Aston Martin DB9 for the Bond enthusiasts. There’s also a new bike to take out too, though in all honesty, I don’t tend to pay them much heed.
For me, it’s all about four tyres in Midnight Club.
5. Midnight Club II (2003)
Midnight Club II takes everything that we loved about the first title in the series and supercharges it (much like the Range Rover in the section above!).
Rockstar took the opportunity to add a tonne of new features into the mix with this second game including my favourite technique – Burnout. For the uninitiated into the world of Midnight Club, that means cranking the handbrake and accelerator in such a way that gives players a much better jump off the starting line at the beginning of a race.
Cars don’t perform like a sack of potatoes when they get bashed up too – damage has an effect on your car in the sense that when a car has ‘had it’, you’ll be unable to race until the game loads a new one for you, resulting in you falling behind in the race. It won’t swerve all over the place or crawl to a finish, however, it’ll just look rubbish until it explodes.
The multiplayer mode, as with any racing game, was a tour de force. I loved Capture the Flag as it added a bit of jeopardy and sneakyness to the game and wasn’t just about getting from A to B.
With 32 cars there was plenty of choice for 13-year-old Seb to find a vehicle in which to try and beat his Dad. The cars all had different names, but automotive buffs could figure out which was which. A Dodge Viper will always be a Jersey XS to me!
6. Midnight Club: Street Racing (2000)
As the first in the Midnight Club series, “Street Racing” really set the stage for what to expect in the franchise: action-packed races in beautifully detailed open-world environments… with character.
IGN’s review penned it perfectly: “In addition to the litany of cars, the huge cities are riddled with secrets and original ways to make shortcuts, which makes single-player gameplay and two-player games extremely fun”.
The game’s maps of London and New York City were considered very large and detailed for games at that time.
And while most agree that the game did not age as well as future iterations in the series, it obviously set Rockstar up for a powerful franchise. And it only got better from here.
7. Midnight Club L.A. Remix (2008)
This list had to have a last place (that’s how all lists work, after all), and L.A. Remix is filling it.
As you might have guessed, this is a scaled-down ‘remixed’ version of the main console game. Split into two halves, players can play in either Los Angeles or Tokyo, using different cars for each part of the game.
The game obviously needed a condensed version of the map of L.A. to race around, and it uses the Tokyo map from the 2006 remix of Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition to add extra depth.
One disappointing factor is that the PSP version of the game doesn’t have any cinematic cutscenes. So, we’ve got no movies to drive the narrative forward and only a selection of cars can be used at any one time.
In my opinion, it’s a bit of a Frankengame that has been put together with the hope that it will appease fans but falls somewhat short of greatness.
If you’re looking for a PSP racing game to play, then get the Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition of the game on PSP; you really can’t go wrong with that. There’s no Race Editor mode in the PSP port, but it’s something that can easily be lived without if all you’re after is racing action.
