Midnight Club: Los Angeles

The main character in a Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder

Midnight Club: Los Angeles is set in the city of Los Angeles, again providing an option to completely free-roam (in an open world environment larger than all the three cities combined from the previous game, Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition). New additions are a 24-hour day-to-night cycle, weather effects and traffic with licensed vehicles, adding a realistic aspect to the game. The new dynamic weather system has been reported to alter the gameplay experience, making the vehicle more prone to sliding on slick surfaces. If any damage is inflicted upon a vehicle after races, the player does not necessarily need to drive back to a garage for a full repair, but, instead, can choose the "Quick Fix" option through which old, junkyard-esque parts will be added to the car. To get back that "nice, new car look", the player must actually drive back to repair their vehicle at a garage or gas station. This also means that totaling a vehicle is only possible within a single race or event. With the RAGE system being used for this game,[1] traffic levels fluctuate throughout the day, with light traffic at night, heavy traffic in the morning and afternoon, and heaviest traffic in the evenings. Motorcycles are again part of the game, including the Ducati 999R and the Kawasaki Ninja ZX-14. Convertible cars, customizable interiors, in-game photo mode, and customizable exotics are all new additions. Developers placed great emphasis on the elimination of load screens, stating that the player could literally jump from career mode to an online race in under ten seconds.

Los Angeles is said to be the longest of the four Midnight Club games, with more than ten different types of races including series races, tournaments, pink slip races, and freeway races. For most of these races, players must race an opponent to the start line in order to earn extra rep (a leveling system used to determine the player's skill in the game) before the actual race begins, although this can be skipped. Races have four difficulties: easiest, medium, hard, and hardest. These difficulties are color-coded with green being easiest, yellow being medium, orange being hard, and red being hardest. Each successive difficulty of race has greater rewards than the former.

There are a number of special abilities that have been brought into the game (a returning feature from the previous installment). These include an EMP, which disables the electronics of every vehicle around the player; Agro, which makes the player's vehicle indestructible-giving the ability to plow through traffic without slowing the car; Roar, which sends out a sound wave that will move traffic out of the player's way for a clear and straight path through the streets; and Zone, able to slow time and allow a temporary boost in handling. The previous installment had restricted special abilities to specific cars, but all vehicles in this game can now use any one of these above mentioned abilities, as chosen by the player. These abilities can also be changed at garages whenever necessary.

Police return but are no longer scripted to a specific race; they take notice of simple infractions in the game world (running red lights, speeding, burning out, hitting their cars or nearby cars, and driving offroad). If caught, players have the choice of pulling over (which will initiate a special cutscene when the police car approaches) or leading the police into a pursuit. The game goes into "Pursuit Mode" after a period of time or if the police lose sight of the player; this will also happen if the player decides to start the engine and flee the scene during the "pull over" cutscene. Infractions causing the game to go directly to pursuit mode include speeding and excessively damaging a police car. Police authorities will chase the player no matter where they are, and the longer the player evades capture, the higher the fine the player has to pay for if arrested. If the player's vehicle takes too much damage (totaled) during the pursuit, they are also arrested.[6]

Additionally, there are sixty collectibles that the player can find hidden throughout Los Angeles. These appear as yellow oil barrels with Rockstar's logo printed on them. Every ten collectibles that are found will unlock one of six game modifiers (mentioned in-game as "cheat codes"), while finding half and all of the collectibles will unlock achievements. However, enabling any of these special modifiers (with the exception of a modifier that unlocks an overhead view camera) will prevent the player from earning money, rep, and further career progression.

A man from the East Coast moves to Los Angeles. The character, known only as "Player", takes a major role in the game. In the intro of the game, he is on the phone with the L.A. City Champ, Booke, telling him to meet at the fast-food restaurant Carney's Express Limited. He gives the protagonist the choice of three cars, one to pick, in the beginning of the game: a 1998 Nissan 240SX, 1983 Volkswagen Golf GTI, or 1988 Volkswagen Scirocco.[10]

Once the player has built up enough of a reputation, they gain the ability to become Champ of the city and of each car type. The first one that is offered is becoming City Champ. At a point in the game, Karol calls telling the player about Booke being back as City Champ. Booke then tells the player to race regional opponents to see if they can race against him. After the player beats them, Booke calls saying he is impressed, and to meet him at the Standard Hotel for a race which ends up being the City Champ race vs. Booke and one of the final races on Career mode. When the player wins, the player not only becomes City Champ, but other championship races open. Once the player wins 35 races with the vehicle types after unlocking Group 4 vehicles, the Champs of all five vehicle classes in the game challenge the player. The characters are Oswaldo (Motorcycle), Julian (Tuner), Lester (Luxury), Pete (Exotic), and Marcel (Muscle).

After the player becomes City Champ, Karol calls and has a proposition. He asks the player to get $1 million to help co-own his two garages with him for his business. In return, he lets the player have anything in the garages for free. This proposition also affects Doc's South Central garage although the game does not mention it.

After the character has completed 100% in Los Angeles in the PSP Remix version, an unknown man somehow has reached his cell number, and calls saying that he wants to meet him at the Los Angeles International Airport on "his flight to Tokyo", which causes the character to say, "You talking about the Mid Night Club?" After the call, the Tokyo career and map can be accessed in Midnight Club: L.A. Remix.

Midnight Club: Los Angeles was met with positive reception upon release. GameRankings and Metacritic gave it a score of 81.66% and 82 out of 100 for the PlayStation 3 version;[16][19] 80.64% and 81 out of 100 for the Xbox 360 version;[18][21] and 78.96% and 79 out of 100 for the PSP version.[17][20]

Most reviews praised the game's detailed depiction of Los Angeles, great amount of depth and multiplayer options, consistent frame-rate, stylish presentation, and varied soundtrack. The areas that were criticized included the clichéd characters, slow texture loading when players start up the game and unbalanced difficulty.[42]

• Official website