How do you rework a three-year-old franchise? What do you add? What do you take away? Where do you look for inspiration? These are questions that Rockstar San Diego has been working on since Midnight Club: DUB Edition went into post production, and this is the result. That infamous Rockstar Advanced Game Engine, is really something to see in action in Midnight Club: Los Angeles… but there is a twist though

		SHE ROCKS VW Scirocco 1998 Designed by the same guy that created the De Lorean DMC-12, apparently, the Scirocco is something of a cult car, at least among those who own one. While they were reliable, and sexy, in their day, the simple fact is that they’re 20 years old now. Common issues include quite catastrophic rust and a weak fuel tank. This isn’t just the wistful ranting of a wannabe Scirocco owner though, as we got to drive one in the game, as proof of the retro nature of some of the cars in the game. While the number of motors in total hasn’t been confirmed, judging from previous efforts, we reckon around 60 will make it into the game. The inclusion of all those cars that you wanted to own, like the Scirocco and the Golf GTi, will add a new level of interest to the game. Indeed, we found that playing around with the ‘rocco yielded far better results than expected. Thankfully the handling of the cars differs greatly, from muscle cars to tuners to little run-arounds. The 2006 Ford GT, for example, handled like a dream, with a lightning top end and the handling to keep it on the road. The Mustang Saleen 302, by comparison, was a little too twitchy at the higher speeds, while the 1998 Nissan 240SX gave us one too many frights. Then, of course, there’s the bikes. We managed to get a little play around with a 2007 Kawasaki Ninja, which offers a completely different, but oh so gratifying, experience.

That twist is something we all take for granted. Daylight. Yup, Midnight Club: Los Angeles has done away with the post-sunset theme and, despite keeping the name, is looking to make racing fun again, be it at night or during the day. This fact is something that blind-sided us at a recent catch-up with Rockstar at its lowkey London Studios, where we got hands on with one of the finest racers we've played for a good long while. Had Midnight Club: LA not been quite so sexy in so many respects, we – along with Rockstar, we suspect – might have been forced to rely entirely on the shift away from night-time racing to garner anything interesting from the game. Fortunately, that’s not the case, and while the hours spent with this glorious racer were over lamentably quickly, there’s an awful lot to talk about and, more importantly, get excited about. First things first, let's talk guts. We've got big ol'flabby ones, that are only good for two things, resting our pints on and generating reactions. Our reaction to Midnight Club: Los Angeles is very much along the lines of ‘Whoa, shit!’ or some similar expletive of surprise and awe. Surprise because we were expecting a good deal more style than substance, and awe because it had us on the edge of our seat for the entirety of the time spent playing it. What strikes you first is the fantastic feeling of being on a knife edge the whole time. Even in the lower-powered cars, the excitement comes not from mere speed, although there’s plenty of that, but the drama of racing. Midnight Club requires some hard driving; that sense that whatever happens, you have to stay in control of your vehicle, while pushing it to its limits naturally creates a dynamic balance to the game. A balance which is impossible to brand, label or otherwise moniker in the way you might expect of a contemporary racer. The Midnight Club franchise, in that respect, takes the last – and best – vestiges of traditional racing titles, those ones that really make you sit up and take notice, and builds a next-gen game around them. It’s questionable whether the racing genre, comparatively, is likely to change much with the advent of the PS3 but, Los Angeles certainly displays a genuine upturn in both scale and excitement, and next gen or not, that works for us.

It’s difficult to verbalise the kind of jump we’re talking about. It’s not huge, and you’re never going to have to relearn anything about the genre, but Midnight Club: LA is playing with the patterns, and moulds of racing, which will hopefully lead to a more rewarding racing experience. The best example of this can be seen with the race modes. What can you do with race types that hasn’t already been done? Not a lot, but you can try, right? And that’s what Rockstar San Diego has done. It’s surprising that few other racers have adopted the race mechanics of Midnight Club, as they’re about as inventive as you can get. This time though, there’s a couple of gems. The most intriguing being the Dynamic Freeway Races. While there’s a degree of interest in the way they work, we have to say that one of the most impressive aspects of Midnight Club is the buzz of the freeway. Sliding in and out of the traffic like a turbo fox after a rocket chicken is one of the greatest joys we’ve had on the PS3, and with the motorway encircling the city, it’s a never-ending delight. Indeed, once a race is over on the freeway, you can enter another race instantly by flashing your lights at the next hookman (fellow racing buddy). The dynamic nature of this means you’ll never run the same race twice on the freeways. They’re a bit different to many of the other race types as well, in that rather than initiating a race and hauling your ass to the start line, these begin straight away, allowing you, if you’re clever, to get the jump on your fellow racing chumps by getting into an advantageous position as you zoom by. You’ll only be able to hold it for a finite period of time, as it’s one of the more challenging aspects of Midnight Club: LA, and if you’ve played any of the previous titles, you’ll know how difficult it can get.

The absence of any branding, or any enforced ‘cool’ also does wonders for the credibility of a racer that simply relies on being an awesome game to appeal. There’s little focus on tricking out your motors, and while it’s still an integral part of any career mode, Rockstar has realised that the age when anyone’s even faintly interested in spending forever ‘pimping their whip’ has passed. There are buckets of customising options, including interiors and individual body parts, and even a decal creator which will allow you to scrawl your name down the side of your motor, as well as slap a giant panda on the roof, should you so desire. Tuning your car is essential though, and this can be done graciously simply, letting you spend a good time more on the road than other titles. That’s another key philosophy, and one well worth pointing out; if you don’t want to see a menu screen, you don’t have to. Sure there’s a few pop-up menuettes that jump into view every now and again, but your gaming session need not be interrupted at all.

It’s a tricky game to stop playing. Almost right from the off, we’d shuffled forward in our seat to within an inch or two of sliding heavily onto the floor, and it was with real reluctance that we relinquished control. Most of the joy comes from that feeling of being balanced on a razor thin tightrope, suspended over abysses of skill on the one hand, and speed on the other. That’s helped endlessly by the sexy new camera, one of the most impactful things we saw. Use a nitro, and the dynamic camera will shoot to a low angle at the front onside of your car (or over the shoulder with bikes), which emphasises the feeling of speed and tenuousness of the whole affair. Punch into a drift corner and you’ll be treated to a more side-on view of the car as the camera swoops around. This not only makes the driving more satisfying, but in no way impairs your ability to make your way through the traffic. There’s a range of camera types, including an interior one, making the most of the dashboard customisability. A decent map is an essential part of any racer nowadays, and in that respect Los Angeles has it down. Both the mid-race map and the GPS one, which covers an area easily as big as all three cities in the previous game, serve their respective purposes brilliantly. The former demands only a millisecond’s glance to register the direction to your next checkpoint, while the latter makes sure you can find races, hookmen and hangouts with ease. Oh, yeah, hangouts, we forgot about those. To offer a degree of meat to the single-player, avoiding the issue of a lack of direction, hangouts have been placed around the city to let you hook up with various insalubrious types who offer themed races to spice things up. One group might suggest a number of pink slip races, another might serve up some muscle car action while others concentrate on other race types and classes.

	INTERESTING TIMES Multiplayer at midnight While we didn’t get any time with the multiplayer, one mode is well worthy of note. As well as the standard modes, including all the offline races being available, and a few extras like Capture The Flag and a comprehensive online race editor, Midnight Club: LA is expanding on the Cruise mode. The reason for this, is that the developer found with DUB Edition that gamers were simply popping into the mode and creating their own races. Rather than racing the courses, groups would gather together, call out a landmark and belt towards it. No checkpoints, no start points, just pure racing. Rockstar San Diego has tried to build this into Los Angeles by letting players drop in a finish line anywhere in the map and just bomb towards it. This kind of stuff is frontline.

We played a huge amount of Midnight Club 1, II and DUB Edition, and while they were brilliant, they did have irritations, that have been addressed with this iteration. The first being the bunging effect of certain races. Every now and then, you’d encounter a couple of races that halted your progress, forcing you to retry the same races over and over, regardless of how frustrated you were. With Los Angeles, the reputation system does away with that by giving you points and cash even if you come last. This, along with a self-adjusting difficulty, which will select opponents of appropriate quality, means your progress will be unhindered in that way, removing what was the largest obstacle to completing the game.

Although we didn’t encounter the fuzz in any close-up sense, they’ve been included in Los Angeles as well as your trusty police scanner, which will tell you when the cops are around to allow you to slow down and let your speeding buddies take the flak. Other in-car entertainment includes your MP3 player, which lets you flip between tunes using the D-pad, again without the use of menus. Then there’s your Sidekick, like a BlackBerry, but for Americans. This device makes you available to those hangout folk, and the various other unsavouries populating the city, who will email you with challenges and information. This side of things is hardly revolutionary, but it fits with the mentality of a menuless game. Much like any other aspect of the game, the menu is there to remind you of previous and current challenges, but the emphasis is firmly on creating a title without interruption.

We’d be remiss in our duty if we didn’t give an alternative side of things, but if we’re honest, it’s difficult to point out those things that could wind up as negatives. Sure, it’s not a saltatorial manoeuvre on Rockstar San Diego’s part, but then it didn’t need to be. Midnight Club is a great franchise that hasn’t resorted to overdoing the style for want of substance. Our only gripe could be the special abilities Roar, Agro and Zone, which make a return, and if they aren’t implemented well, could tarnish what is a very attractive prospect. Midnight Club’s aesthetic style is unique, and one which many may see as inferior to, say Burnout. That’s not to say it’s anything but stunning, but for those who expect big colours and an aggressive boldness in the visuals, the artistic take of Midnight Club: LA won’t do it. No load times more than makes up for it for us, though. It’s a little harsh to mention things like texture dropout and pop-up, at this stage in development, but it’s going to need a bit of tweaking to hit a really playable stage. We’re confident it will though, as Rockstar isn’t prone to releasing substandard titles.

Those possible negatives aside, our overriding feeling is positive. It was with a level of amazement that we found ourselves feeling really thrilled about a racing title. In the hours we got to form our opinion of Midnight Club: Los Angeles, we went from mildly excited to positively elated, then slightly morose as we left the building, knowing we wouldn’t be able to play it for a couple of months. The thing is, though, your experience won’t end with the misery ours did. Midnight Club: LA is a very appealing prospect, and one you should definitely keep your eye on.