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I never knew about the Midtown Madness games when they were in their prime. I discovered them by reading about the Midnight Club series. The Midtown Madness games are essentially precursors to Midnight Club. From what I understand, Rockstar was impressed with the Midtown Madness games so they formed a partnership with Midtown Madness developer Angel Studios who went on to develop the first Midnight Club. After that, Angel Studios was purchased by Rockstar Games’ parent company, Take-Two Interactive, and became Rockstar San Diego. As you may or may not know, I’m a big fan of Rockstar’s games and I enjoyed what I’ve played of the Midnight Club series so I figured I would give Midtown Madness a shot.
Developed by Angel Studios and published by Microsoft, Midtown Madness was released for PC in May, 1999. Before playing, I did consult the game’s PCGamingWiki page to see what I would need to do to get it running properly on a modern system and learned of Open1560, an open-source reimplementation that fixes issues and allows you to run the game easily on modern hardware. It’s very easy to install and I’m happy to say I had no real problems with it.
Midtown Madness is a racing game set in the city of Chicago. I guess I would consider it an open world racing game but everything is initiated from menus. It is definitely an arcade style racing game and comes with several licensed vehicles. There are two difficulties or ranks; Amateur and Professional, and multiple single player and multiplayer game modes You can freely drive around the city and explore in the Cruise mode. Blitz races have you speeding through checkpoints to reach the finish line before time runs out. Checkpoint Races have you attempting to speed through all the checkpoints before your opponents do. And finally there’s Circuit Races where there’s no traffic vehicles, police, or pedestrians, and you must finish laps as quickly as possible. These modes are present in multiplayer which also includes a Cops & Robbers mode but, unfortunately, I was unable to experience the multiplayer so this review will only focus on the single player.
I think for its time, Midtown Madness showcased some pretty cool stuff. It does feature physics and you can adjust the physics realism of your vehicle along with changing the color at the vehicle selection screen. Each vehicle comes with different stats in horsepower, top speed, durability, and mass. Some vehicles do need to be unlocked and each one handles differently. Your vehicle can take damage and totaling it in some modes means game over. The game does feature police that will chase you and other than knocking you around, there’s not much to them. It’s not like Need for Speed III. No roadblocks, no spike strips. The police here are basically moving obstacles.
I found that properly controlling vehicles did take me some time and I, personally, would recommend a gamepad with joysticks over keyboard and mouse. I lost a lot of races because I kept crashing. And, yes, I considered the fact that I probably do suck but another fact is that it’s not easy to make slight turns. Or at least not as easy as it is in racing and driving games today. And even with a joystick, it’s still not perfect. With a keyboard and mouse, turns are all or nothing so it can be very easy to oversteer. Making slight turns comes down to quickly tapping the turn keys. It’s much easier with a joystick. Not perfect but, for me, it was a night and day difference. There’s a lot of shit you can crash into like vehicles and buildings and weaving through heavy traffic and even opponents can be quite the challenge if you don’t have a grasp of the controls and handling.
I will say I was impressed with the city on display. It’s not Chicago in it’s entirety but does feature some real-world landmarks and buildings and, in my opinion, it’s detailed well enough to convey a real-world urban kind of feel. There are jumps here and there and objects scattered around the city that you can drive or crash into and send flying. After winning a race, you can configure various options for subsequent playthroughs or attempts including the number of laps and opponents, time of day, weather, and traffic, pedestrian, and cop density. Unfortunately, there’s no way to select the opponent vehicles. You can decide on how many but not the vehicles. Pedestrians will fill the sidewalks and traffic vehicles will fill the streets. You can’t run people down but it can be fun watching them and run and scatter as you speed by and crash into things and you’ll often hear people shouting.
For the most part, I enjoy Midtown Madness. I think it’s a fun arcade style racing game. I think most of, if not all of my gripes are undoubtedly due to its age. The map is small by today’s standards and I feel there’s not enough races. While some are definitely challenging, it is possible to complete all of them in a single day. At least on Amateur. And there’s not a whole lot of vehicles to select from. It would have been cool to see a custom race mode of some sort where you can plot out your own checkpoints.
I think the physics and partial recreation of Chicago are the real highlights here. The city is wide open so you have plenty of freedom and you can find shortcuts and alternate routes. You can speed down roads, crash into things, send objects and other cars flying and tumbling, and use big vehicles like the truck and bus to plow through traffic. For a game released in 1999, I think this was all pretty great. I would have definitely enjoyed this as a kid back in the day. But in today’s world, I feel there’s a lack of things to do. The Cruise mode gives you the freedom to do whatever you want. It’s a mode designed for you to test drive the different vehicles and learn the city. You can mess around and explore, of course, and can even get cops to chase you but that’s really all there is.
I think it’s the Checkpoint Races that really define Midtown Madness. It’s the most fun race type to me and that’s because it’s got everything that makes the game great. It gives you the most freedom outside of Cruise where you have no objectives. In Checkpoint Races, you can race through the checkpoints in any order and find and utilize shortcuts and will have to contend with opponents, traffic, and police. These races can be very intense and chaotic especially since the opponent AI can be aggressive as hell. They will often cluster together and crash a lot which can be exciting and sometimes frustrating. It really depends on where you are in the pack. They don’t give a shit if you’re in the way. But you can find ways to get around them and the pileups they often cause. It can literally be madness.
The races do get more challenging as you progress through each mode. Some can be tough and I found that some vehicles are clearly better for certain races than others which is often dictated by the opponent vehicles. Knowing when to brake is just as important as speed and acceleration because it can be easy to oversteer and crash if you’re not careful. Traffic vehicles will stop at lights and behave like typical traffic. That means they will make turns and drive through intersections and sometimes get in your way so you may need to react quickly. You may find yourself repeating races often until you can overcome what the real challenge is whether it be the course itself, finding the fastest way through the checkpoints, or the opponents you’re up against.
One thing I feel is worth mentioning about Midtown Madness is the community surrounding it. As of this review, it has a small but active community that releases mods. The website Midtown Madness 2 eXtreme is where you can find a lot of them including cars and tracks and locations. And I think it’s the community created content that really keeps this game alive. From what I’ve seen, there’s more content for Midtown Madness 2 but still plenty of stuff for the first game, extending its longevity significantly.
Visually, Midtown Madness definitely shows its age but it doesn’t look too bad. I think the vehicle models look pretty good although the traffic vehicles are noticeably lower in detail. Vehicle models show visible damage and emit smoke and crashes can result in tires going flying which looks pretty cool. The presentation is colorful, the city is detailed, and I think Open1560 allows for some good visual improvements. For a 1999 game, the 3D world on display looks pretty great and can even feel alive especially when you max out the pedestrians and traffic. As for the audio, everything sounds good to me and the racing is accompanied by an announcer who will spout some funny lines. Midtown Madness also comes with a fantastic soundtrack featuring a lot of catchy and funky tunes. Although, I did have issues getting music to play properly. I found some fixes on the game’s PCGamingWiki page but none of them worked for me. The main issue was songs not playing in succession. A song ends and that would be it, no more music. And sometimes music just wouldn’t play at all. In both of these scenarios, I would have to restart the race or move onto a different one. On the technical side, I did not encounter any issues.
I had fun with Midtown Madness. As I mentioned before, I think most of my issues with it are due to its age and I could see it had potential. I think it could have definitely been expanded and I’m thankful for the modding community because without it, I feel it’s a little lacking. Maybe not in 1999 but as time goes on, I feel the lack of content is probably the thing that has aged the worst. Other than that, it’s a great arcade-style racing game. We all know what racing games are like today and it’s not hard to see how Midtown Madness may have been an influence on how the genre has evolved over the years. The physics and open-ended city is good stuff. In fact, I would say the kind of freedom Midtown Madness offers was impressive for its time. The racing can be fast-paced and intense and it’s only a shame the game doesn’t offer more to do and more customization options. More race customization options, more races in general, more vehicles, etc. Thankfully, there’s plenty of mods out there.
I would recommend Midtown Madness because it is a fun game. For the most part, I think it holds up well and it is easy to get running on modern systems. I have high hopes the sequels improve and expand upon what was established here and I am looking forward to playing them. I would go so far to consider Midtown Madness a classic and it’s kept alive by the community which offers plenty of reasons to return. Definitely check it out.