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The first Midtown Madness is a fun arcade-style racing game. But I think what really made it unique for its time is the freedom it offers. Set in a partial recreation of Chicago, the city is wide open allowing you to basically drive anywhere you want, find alternate routes, and experiment. For a game released in 1999, what it was doing was pretty cool. However, I feel it could have benefited from more content and more customization options. On the plus side, it has a small but active modding community that’s been keeping it alive with custom content. I’ve been looking forward to playing the sequel, Midtown Madness 2, hoping it will expand on what has already been established.
Developed by Angel Studios and published by Microsoft, Midtown Madness 2 was released for PC in September, 2000. I did consult the game’s PCGamingWiki page to see what I would need to do to get it running on modern systems. The page does detail multiple solutions to get passed certain errors and I did use the dgVoodoo 2 wrapper to fix some compatibility and rendering issues and a widescreen tool to add more resolution options to the game.
Much like the first game, Midtown Madness 2 is an arcade-style racing game. It does come with a multiplayer mode which I didn’t get to try so this review will only focus on the single player. It’s structured much like its predecessor which means I guess it could be regarded as an open world racing game, although everything is initiated through menus. It comes with all the modes as its predecessor; Cruise, Blitz races, Checkpoint Races, and Circuit Races. But it also comes with a new mode called Crash Course which features lessons designed to teach you the mechanics.
Unlike the previous game, Midtown Madness 2 comes with two cities; London and San Francisco, and Crash Course contains lessons set in each one. I really like how this mode is more than just your basic tutorial. It’s stated that you’re assuming the roles of a cabbie in London and a stunt driver in San Francisco. That along with the announcer commentary give this mode a bit of personality making it more enjoyable than the typical just do what you’re told kind of thing. While the lessons are primarily designed to show you the ropes, some of them put you in cool or exciting scenarios. Completing lessons will not only be educational but you will also be rewarded with new vehicles and colors or paint jobs.
In general, I think Midtown Madness 2 is better than its predecessor but I was a little underwhelmed by the end. While it does feature more content, I feel it took me around the same amount of time to beat. You can get through all the races in a single day. At least on the Amateur difficulty. You can also attempt them on the harder Professional difficulty. There are more races in this entry but I felt like they were shorter than those in the previous game. For example, I finished a lot of Checkpoint Races in under three minutes. I felt like I was blazing through the game.
Much like the previous game, Midtown Madness 2 lacks certain customization options that I would have really loved to see. Excluding mods, you’re restricted to the races the game comes with. You can’t create races nor can you choose opponent vehicles. Once you complete a race, you can configure the time of day, weather, and adjust the pedestrian, traffic, and cop densities for subsequent runs, and for Circuit races, the number of laps and opponents. But that’s it. On the plus side, Midtown Madness 2 does contain a bigger selection of vehicles and many of the vehicles from the previous game are present here. They all do handle differently and feel distinct and some need to be unlocked as do certain colors or paint jobs.
You can play the game with a keyboard and mouse but I used an Xinput controller and had no major issues configuring the controls. Much like the last game, I preferred using the controller over the keyboard and mouse mainly because the controller’s joystick makes it easier to make slight turns. But when compared to the first game, I feel the vehicles here are a lot easier to control and handle in general and as a result, I found the gameplay to be a little more enjoyable. I had a much easier time weaving through traffic and navigating around obstacles. But to be clear, you still need to be careful and learn to brake when necessary otherwise you can easily oversteer and crash.
I also feel Midtown Madness 2 is a little easier or more forgiving than its predecessor. I don’t know if that’s just me or the result of certain changes but even on Professional, I can’t say I experienced a significantly tougher time during most races. In fact, I feel much of the difficulty comes down to the vehicle you select. The Crash Course lessons can be challenging but much of that comes down to the trial-and-error nature of the lessons and the fact that you’re restricted to using certain vehicles. As for the races, they get more challenging as you progress through the modes, but once you’ve unlocked the faster vehicles, you can use them to easily win most races which makes the lack of an opponent vehicle selection option for subsequent runs all the more disappointing.
The Cruise mode is where you’re given the freedom to do what you want. The mode is designed for you to test drive the different vehicles and explore the cities. I would say driving around 3D condensed versions of real-world cities was still a neat concept at the time of release but the fact is there’s not much to it here. I think it was more of a novel idea back in the day. Playing it now, I definitely got more enjoyment out of the the other modes that have objectives. However, I will say that for the time, the cities are well designed and detailed, more so than the previous game, and the traffic and pedestrians really help give them some life. The cities come with typical urban sounds, traffic vehicles mostly behave appropriately, and cops will chase you just like in the last game. And once again, they’re basically just moving obstacles.
Midtown Madness 2 is another colorful entry and I think it does look a bit better than its predecessor. The vehicle models look good and show visible damage, the cities are well detailed, and the different weather effects help create different moods and atmospheres. Traffic vehicles are noticeably not as detailed as the racing vehicles and the pop-in can be a bit of an eyesore but, overall, I feel the visual presentation is solid. As for the audio, I prefer the soundtrack in the first game but Midtown Madness 2 does feature some good, catchy, and I would even say moody tunes. Just like the first game, the gameplay is accompanied by announcers that spout some really funny shit at the start and end of races. On the technical side, the frame rate seemed to hitch or hiccup when I would make certain turns but other than that, I encountered no major problems.
I enjoyed Midtown Madness 2 and while I feel it is better than its predecessor, I think it also suffers from some of the same issues. The open-ended nature of the cities is a highlight once again and if you’re really into it, you can definitely get some enjoyment out of just driving around, messing around, and exploring in the Cruise mode. But the fact is there’s not a lot to do in the cities, themselves. Personally, I feel the best way to enjoy the game is through the races which give you objectives. The open-ended nature was undoubtedly neat for its time but just being open doesn’t make it special in today’s world. Basically, I’m saying this aspect of the game hasn’t aged all that well in my opinion. The developers could have done more with it. Don’t get me wrong, being set in open-ended environments has its benefits. Experimenting and finding new routes and ways to finish races is all good fun. But I really feel they could have squeezed more out of the open-ended concept and given the player more options.
I think if Midtown Madness 2 had more customization options, the result would have been more replay value for the single player. Thankfully, there’s a small but active modding community for it along with its predecessor and a lot of mods can be found at the website, Midtown Madness 2 eXtreme. This is great because, in my opinion, it’s the community keeping the game alive and worth revisiting. You can find new cars, cities, and tracks, among other things.
I would recommend Midtown Madness 2 because it’s fun. Overall, I think it’s is better than its predecessor mainly because of improvements made to vehicle handling and more content in general. But I am little disappointed with it because I feel the developers could have done more. The lack of certain customization options is what really holds it back in my opinion. Thankfully, Midtown Madness 2 has an active modding community and I would recommend going into it with the intent of installing mods.