Pros: The largest number of customization options available in any racing game.
Cons: Fading ingenuity.
The bottom line: Midnight Club is still the best underground street racing series around. Although, I just don't think Rockstar put enough effort into making its third entry the best it could be.
Before, the racing streets of the night life belonged to Rockstar. They could dance on it, pee on it, and even make love in its dank and dirty potholes. If burning rubber with a super fast charged, slick, styling new vehicle was ever done in a video game, it was done because Rockstar made it possible. Then competition came along. The video game industry's biggest bully, Electronic Arts, rolled in and called out to the innovators of Rockstar, "Yo bro! We be like, making dis sim-like underground street racer. It gonna be tight, just like yo moms!" With a bullet wound to their head and a quick foot on the gas pedal, Rockstar zoomed off to lay out their own plan of action to realign the force of "true" underground racing back onto their side. But how could something be done so drastically as to reinvent the way we thought about the racing genre? Midnight Club II already topped off its previous installment so much that Rockstar had to ask for help this time from the only pimps in the business who could get their new ride smelling new car smell fresh again. DUB Magazine, the leading read for car enthusiasts, features the hottest rides from the beautiful people of the world as they brandish their customizations to the extreme. DUB is like the clique leader of car fashions, and with Rockstar, they're finally sending Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition off the assembly line and down the runway for all gamers to get a taste of the franchise's hippest, happeningest flavor yet.

Change. It's a word people commonly fear, and it's natural. Parents will tell their kids with eyes that pop out of their skull and fingers that wiggle, "Grandma's coming: time to CHANGE those attitudes of yours!" A nervous guy on a blind date will hear from his obnoxious roommate, "Hey, your blind date is coming any minute. Did you remember to CHANGE your underwear?" Even bums living on the street are always asking for some "CHANGE." Change isn't just a word, though. It's also a habit, or an act of progress. While not everyone can always see eye to eye with certain transformations, there are those who would agree that CHANGE is sometimes for the better. In this case it is. Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition's "change" isn't exactly mind-blowing or over-the-top extraordinary, but nevertheless it is pretty big. Car customization is where Rockstar has taken their series to the next tier. Motorists who love their vehicles are often found to also be infatuated with tweaking their automotive contraptions. Paint jobs, larger tires, tinted windows, surround sound stereo. You name it: car lovers become indulged in the passion and obsession of tuning their beasts so they handle better, look prettier, and overall roar louder than all the other kitty cats meowing along the open highways and byways. Naturally, the process of car tweaking isn't new to the Midnight Club franchise. On the other hand, never before has a racing game allowed you to tune-up your ride to a selection of parts and options this expansive.

Rims, tires, and bumpers. Brakes, engines, and paint jobs. Vinyls, license plates, and taillights. Badges and spoilers. Shocks and airbags. Nitrous fittings and underbody neon lights. Pretty much anything you can think of that could alter the appearance or performance for a vehicle can be sized and outfitted for you in Midnight Club 3. Tires too puny? Pick from a list of choices and pump them up to a manly build. Car paint looking a little too red for you? Dress it up some. Go green, bet black, or slap on a fancy new ensemble of a metallic or glossy body design with decorative vinyl paint and your preference of color. Want your license plate to read "SCRWYOU" and display the state in which you are from? Mine does. Seriously, no kidding now, this is the real deal. You can fine-tune your very own ride from an automotive cache of more than 50 vehicles (including cars, motorcycles, trucks and hummers) by utilizing an overwhelming number of feature customizations from one handily interactive garage hub. Inside here away from the cruise mode (which enables you to drive around a mammothly large 3D model of one of the game's three cities that are filled with AI-controlled cars and nonlinear racing challenges), you'll be able to view what you'll be driving before heading out using the right analog stick to shift around to different angles. Purchasing or selling vehicles, and buying or switching to the vast amount of upgrades or customizations that are available from the outset or will be available once unlocked points out that much time can and will be spent just perfecting your driven vision before it ever actually hits the pavement.

But not everything in life is free. Yeah, you heard me guy shoving a copy of Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition into your coat pocket you just stole. Not even love for a video game franchise can pay for a ticket out of prison. Parts, upgrades, and even some decorative adjustments -- these things cost money when you're working on a car in real life. Here, it's just the same. The only way to win money in a race-written universe is of course to race for it. Midnight Club 3's campaign mode (the primary source for single players to progress throughout the game's entirety) starts out a little differently than its predecessors with the money issue. At the start of the game, players are without a car and have but $22,000 to afford whatever vehicle they want from an extensive rotation of selections (just so long as the car's not locked and doesn't cost more than the default funds). Once the exchange is made and the car is out on the street, cruising along the city parameters set by the openly vast San Diego, California model for choosing from a group of nonlinear challenges is the general idea from here on out. Variations of tournaments, AI driver opponents, and optional challenges await players across the map of the game's three new cities (which takes place now in San Diego, Atlanta, and Detroit). Marked by yellow trophies and yellow stars (once these are unlocked), in addition to money completing these tournaments gains players new vehicles, as well as acquiring special abilities at different points. The challenges presented in these tournament rounds range from vying while seated in specific vehicle types, to racing against a clock by swerving around a barricaded track that's been stripped of traffic, competitors, and even the ability to boost yourself with much needed nitrous rounds. Choose to race certain drivers instead of the tournaments nets a decent amount of money, but primarily these events also target an opening to otherwise inaccessible parts throughout the garage. As for optional competitions, those are for extra scratch. They'll keep popping up on the grid as multiple opportunities to receive small sums of dough to keep the flow rolling.

Still the same in this arcade underground themed racing game, the racing formula of Midnight Club 3's different events borrows the means to how they were handled in Midnight Club II. Screaming through the streets on top of choppers and sport bikes, inside of a hummer, a tuner or a muscle car, a luxury vehicle, or even a special unlockable such as a police automobile, the streets are yours to control as the checkpoints that are marked by heightened and billowing orange, green, and red flare gasses can be scored any way through any of the open-ended cities. Of course it is feasible to drive some miraculous distance off tangent from the targeted guidelines and swerve all the way back through each checkpoint later -- but that's just foolish. The point being that each city structure is as open as you want it to be: to go where you want to go, to fly wherever you want to fly, to just win the race from whichever paths and angles you want to take to beat it in. This isn't too hard to accomplish, just so long as you're able to use the mini-map to guide your ride through to each checkpoint first and wiggle your way ahead of the sometimes crazy competition in addition to evading annoying cops. Making that even more of a possibility this time are an array of obtainable automotive super powers. Your motorbike or your muscle car as you know it will let out a loud roar that sends a sonic wave out in front of you to be able to clear the stage for your incoming superstar. Tuners will find that they can literally slow down time temporarily so to be able to avoid crashes into walls or to easily curve through upcoming AI traffic that's littered through each city block. As for trucks and SUVs, they'll do what they're known to do, which is to act like a defensive tackle and pummel through any oncoming vehicle dangers and not be affected by a field of damaging and time draining momentous contact. These awesome abilities naturally add a unique depth to what would otherwise be a racing franchise drying from a total lack of originality.

Be it bike, car, or truck, Midnight Club 3's control scheme never fails to live up to the good name Rockstar's franchise sets in managing techniques. Players already familiar with past Midnight Club driving will feel at ease soon enough with the directions for every vehicle being guided under the directions from the previous games. Well, almost. All the same functions are here, from X to go, square to brake, triangle to change the view, circle to flash the headlights, the left analog to steer, and the back buttons used to do almost everything else from hitting the emergency brake to firing up nitrous bursts. Don't worry if you're a newbie, since in-game video instructions are always laid out after coming upon a new vehicle type or a new feature, for instance. A couple of things that have changed for Rockstar's third Midnight Club though, is that special powers are activated with the press of the L3 stick. Another important factor deals with the fact that all cars, trucks, and variations of bikes need to evolve over the course of the game. Buying or winning a new vehicle doesn't mean it'll run perfectly to every player's preference. You could be a Jetta fan and buy one from the list, but the performance of the car's not going to handle as smoothly without all the numerous engine upgrades made possible by the shop. This two-way deal of racing for cash and then figuring out where that money's going to gives Midnight Club 3 a worthy amount of lengthened time you'll definitely spend going back and forth to play.

Got friends, cuz? Because if you don't, taking your game online is the next step that'll set you free from your loser life of single player exclusivity. Up to eight players can engage in several modes of play spread out in formations such as in the series' traditional game of Capture the Flag, where teams of drivers attempt to steal the flag from separate destinations and run it back to their base location in the city without getting caught. There's also Frenzy mode, where the objective to speed through traffic toward a specific location with no brakes and multiple nitro bursts in between makes things interesting. Something more interesting is Paint, which has players gaining territory by being the fastest to drive through a series of individual checkpoints that are spread out along the streets. Battling between other racers for total dominance in conditions like these pops open a can of some great old fashion fun in familiar multiplayer styles, in addition to some that have yet to be treaded. There is of course a way for players to exhibit the same multiplayer veins offline too. Unchanged from previous Midnight Club iterations, just two players can go head to head in the many options of Arcade. The Racing Editor that allows for anyone to set their own desired checkpoints, daytime and weather conditions, player and vehicle regulations, and so on, are also back for players to mess around with and show off to others online for anyone drawn to create all different scenarios in the interchangeable world of this racing verse.

Fast, Midnight Club: Street Racing was the initiator for interfacing a capital racing series that would blow everyone away with its large levels, high speeds, and street racing approach. Faster, Midnight Club II was the prime purveyor, the pusher of limits, the tester of tank-filled testosterone, taking the game to the next level where larger and slicker intertwined conventions were produced. Fastest, Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition is the final collaboration for Midnight Club's long voyage on the PlayStation 2. Whatever visual pieces were missing from Midnight Club II's jigsaw puzzle have now been filled in. And the thing about that is, not much apparently was blank. For those who've enjoyed Midnight Club II in the past, get ready to say hello to the game again. Two years ago, Midnight Club II released and wowed gamers with a sharper and more stylistic approach to what had been done with the original even two years before that. Cities were an enormity compared to the ones in the first Midnight Club, with all sorts of directions that could part your car's passage through, beneath, and over. If you've seen what Midnight Club II had looked like, Midnight Club 3 isn't much different. But that's not totally bad news. After all, Midnight Club II was and still is a great looking game amongst the PlayStation 2's vast arsenal. However, even back then Midnight Club II was never perfect. Windows and doors that were painted onto buildings, and clean and clear but not definitive car models were some of the quips that still remain evident in Midnight Club 3 today.

One way or another, it's just easy to tell that Midnight Club 3 isn't much more than its predecessor because both games look similar. Whether it's possible for the Midnight Club II graphics engine to receive a superfine polish to its finish remains to be seen, as Midnight Club 3 very much shares a likened quality with that very game. Buildings contain glass entries that can be rammed and shattered into flying shards to make way into a sort of lifeless and ordinary baseball stadium in one city. Streets and alleyways flip papers through the air as the sense of speed rushes forward, knocking over poles, and busting open trash cans and mailboxes. Ramps can be found here and there making for long distance leaps along the moderately textured, stoplight reflecting streets. But one thing that's definitely changed is the name of the city locations. These aren't the same grounds as in previous games (they never are), and with the shift in effect comes more hills. Unlike the former Midnight Club games, Midnight Club 3 strips itself of sticking to mainly straightened lines. California for example is a state known for its steep downhill curves. Just like a woman's breast, its San Diego location gets them. Another unique twist happens to be the effect of the game's super powers. Slip into the zone of time pausing benefits, and the screen goes from a blazing display of motion blurred lights and objects to a steel blue fragment of time where your vehicle will wiggle a few seconds quicker than the rest of the screen's activity. Use the call of the wild on the other hand, and a translucent wave will push aside pileups of cars as if someone were blowing on a gathering of ants. Naturally, the time of day still turns from black night to clear morning on some occasions, and the weather still pours down fleeting rain and blinds one's vision with grayed fog clouds from time to time. In truth, vehicles still look about the same as they did in the past. The AI traffic especially still sports basic models with tinted black windows. Customizing vehicles now with fancy extras such as flash-enabled neon lights underneath the car and a combination of other elements allows each vehicle to look extra special, fixing the game up with those few missing touches it was begging for.

Up, down, jump around, Midnight Club's come to town. Setting the music scene straight like a rocket, Midnight Club 3 will wrap your ears around the sound of funky beats like a locket. Rap, rock, trance: if you like these groovy genres you're going to dance. Some tracks and groups are recognizable (i.e., Marilyn Manson, Jimmy Eat World, Nine Inch Nails), the others are undefinable, but most of them man are filler material in this fast-flickering motor land. Now that I got your attention, did I forget to mention all the solid audio that'll be refreshing? Nitrous jetting out of the rear, turns that force the tires to screech in a steer, and crashes with cracked windows and rising smoke makes it look like you drank beer -- it's all here. More comes in the form of each city's garage keeper that steeps ya with a voice that'll always meet ya. Street thug slang derives from the gang of mechanical guys whose wise words tell no lies toward building your ever growing enterprise. Tuning in when you win to lay the low down on new tricks and such, and you can come home to meet them in the shop for a 3D animated view of the story's progressive nature with who wants to race you of the bunch. With these garage characters, the game's personality isn't just a one-note derivative racing subject -- but it is lacking the faces behind those you racing in all the uh...um...DUBject?

The first time, Midnight Club: Street Racing was... Inspiring. Innovative. Imaginative. The second time Midnight Club II was... Bigger. Bolder. Better. The third time Midnight Club 3 is... Well, it's all about the customizations now, isn't it? Motivations can change for developers when they sense fear in themselves; fear that strikes when competition is around the corner and aiming to take a piece of the very thunder they've mastered. Rockstar's initial goal for the Midnight Club franchise was to expand beyond the normal and just introduce players to a driving world they had not yet entered. They explored its every corner practically, and then EA's Need For Speed: Underground came along and claimed it would do so much more differently at a greater shot for the champion title. All that franchise did though was open up its own little chop shop aside from the crappy ad-filled aspects of its racing engine. Rockstar never needed a third Midnight Club, but they went for one anyway. In the end, the drive and determination that initially set them apart from the rest of the pack in their earlier Midnight Club releases seems to have vanished now in an attempt to outdo EA's move to topple Rockstar's racing dynasty. There are merits and new ideas in Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition for sure; however, super powers and the most comprehensive list of substitutable parts possible alone isn't quite sufficient to slice into the series with a fresh enough cutting edge.