Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition is the
recently announced third entry in Rockstar Games' street racing
franchise, which originally debuted on the PlayStation 2 in 2000
as part of the first wave of PS2 games. At the time, street
racing hadn't quite made the splash like it has in the racing
genre lately, so the game was viewed as a stylish and unique
arcade racer that served as a fine showcase for the newly minted
PlayStation 2's power. The second entry in the series expanded
to the Xbox and PC as well as the PS2, and it stayed true to the
original game's formula of open-street racing. The addition of
online play to the mix helped keep the franchise evolving as
well.
This latest entry in the series, once again developed by
Rockstar San Diego, builds on the previous entries in the series
with the same refined graphics and gameplay. However, in
addition to those expected sequel elements, Rockstar is tossing
in a healthy dose of style thanks to its partnership with
DUB
Magazine, an automotive lifestyle publication
that has been very influential in the rap and hip-hop
traditions. We had the chance to take a brief look at an early
work-in-progress version of the game to get a taste of what to
expect.
We were able to see the PlayStation 2 version of the game. An
Xbox version is also in development, though there are no plans
for a PC version at this time. We saw the game's slick-looking
menu system followed by some racing through the late-night
streets of Detroit. Here we got to see a good amount of
pedestrian traffic and some extremely fast racing action as the
game's refurbished graphics engine strutted its stuff.
Truthfully, we didn't get to see more than a few minutes' worth
of racing, but we did get to see actual gameplay. We
didn't see more than a few different vehicles, and the damage
modeling wasn't implemented in this build, either. Now let's
talk about what we found out.
Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition will make use of the same basic
framework as the previous entry in the series, in that it will
feature arcade, career, a race editor, and online modes to
explore. There will also be a garage in which to fully customize
one's collection of vehicles. This time out, the game will place
a much heavier emphasis on customization thanks to its
incorporation of over 50 licensed real-world cars and tons of
different authentic aftermarket parts, which is a departure from
the made-up vehicles seen in previous Midnight Club games.
Rockstar's partnership with DUB Magazine will give you
the opportunity to fully customize your in-game wheels, which
will come courtesy of well-known manufacturers such as Cadillac,
Mercedes-Benz, Mitsubishi, and Ducati, to name just a few. The
game's emphasis will be squarely on high-end, high-performance
luxury vehicles, including sports cars, sedans, SUVs, and
motorcycles.
The gameplay will supposedly throw some new twists at you in
order to keep the experience fresh while retaining the
open-ended nature of the series that it is known for. Once
again, players will have the freedom to navigate from checkpoint
to checkpoint at their discretion, and they will have to
outmaneuver aggressive computer-controlled vehicles (or human
players, in the online mode) to get to the finish line first.
One subtle change this time around is that the game seems to
move even faster than its predecessor--but the streets have also
been lengthened, resulting in what seems like insanely fast (but
not unmanageably fast) inner-city racing.
