Publisher: Microsoft
Ages: sevenand up.
Parental
Advisory:
Reckless driving
For outrageous, madcap racing through city streets, Microsoft's Midtown Madness 3 lets players drive- actually it's more like flying-through detailed recreations of Paris and Washington, D.C. It's a good title that offers fun single play and serves great multi-player options.
The game lets players drive some 30 vehicles that include licensed cars from major manufacturers and city buses or taxis. In the career mode, the game offers some 14 driving careers that include a limousine driver, pizza deliverer, taxi driver, secret agent, police officer, and more, and some 50 missions. Interestingly, there's a story behind all this. Something about being an undercover officer who has to drive lots of vehicles. Complete a certain number of missions, and the game unlocks new ones. The race modes also include the usual blitz, checkpoint, and cruise modes.
As in past Midtown Madness games, the routes are freeform and players get to find and use hidden routes and shortcuts-just as long as they make the checkpoints. The physics in Midtown Madness are quite forgiving. Players can scream around turns and cars can take lots of damage before they break down.
Graphics are first rate and do an excellent job of depicting the cities and action. Midtown Madness 3 serves detailed renditions of Paris and Washington, D.C.-complete with ambient traffic and animated pedestrians. Between the two cities, Paris is the easier one to navigate.
While Midtown Madness offers fun split-screen two-player and eight-player system-link modes, its online play is the game's crown jewel. Across Xbox Live, the game lets up to eight players compete across the Internet in a variety of fun games.
Midtown Madness 3 if the kind of game that almost everyone in the family can play and enjoy, and it offers fun options, particularly in its head-to-head play. If you can look past the reckless driving, it's a great game for the family.
www.daytrum.com Editorial Staff
