I've decided to let you all in on a little secret. As much as it pains me to say so, there IS something that Microsoft can do right! No, this isn't an article about how to build your own monopolistic corporation from scratch. Remember, we're a gaming site, not an adjunct to the Wall Street Journal! But you have to admit, Microsoft has been doing a damn fine job of obtaining and publishing reasonably good games in the past couple years. Titles like Age of Empires, Monster Truck Madness, and Midtown Madness have all proved to be well done, and dare I say "fun" products.
Quick Peek:
Car horns blaring, police sirens wailing, and enough dented and destroyed vehicles to make your own salvage yard!
Release Date:
October 2000
Developer:
Angel Studios
Publisher:
Microsoft
Homepage:
Midtown Madness 2
|
|
Now, no self respecting evil mega-corporation would dare allow a successful game to go without a sequel, and Microsoft has chosen to honor this time held tradition, but with a twist - Make a sequel that is actually fun and that improves upon the original game (imagine that!). Witness the success of Age of Empires II, a game that has earned a permanent home on my hard drive. I know it's hard to give credit to Microsoft, but they've got their proverbial shit together in the games department. So let's take look at the next title on the Microsoft Sequel Express: Midtown Madness 2. Our 3DGN operatives have come up with a beta of MM2 (no doubt in exchange for favors with our editor's prized Australian Corriedale Sheep), so let's check it out.
The original Midtown let us attempt to skewer pedestrians amidst the streets of downtown Chicago. MM2 doubles the opportunity for carnage by providing two new locations to choose from - the narrow alleys of London and the crazed up and down streets of San Francisco (insert 70's cop show bass riff here!) Although the maps are not completely fleshed out in the build we received, they are generally well done and are sprinkled with enough detail to capture the essence of the cities they portray. I particularly enjoyed the elevation changes in the San Francisco map. A nice departure from the relatively flat worlds in other racing games.
MM2's graphic engine is what I'd call 'serviceable' - you aren't going to confuse it for the Unreal engine anytime soon; buildings and some vehicles can be a tad on the blocky side from time to time, but when you're whipping your El Dorado through London at 100 plus miles per hour, you'll hardly notice! I was able to max the graphics settings at 1024x768 with no stuttering or slowdowns (Voodoo 3, Celery 850, 128MB RAM). MM2 isn't the prettiest racer out there, but it's fast and smooth. The current build has some problems with shadows and 'floating objects', but Microsoft is aware of the problem, and I expect it will be fixed before release. Criticisms aside, there are lots of niceties currently in the game. Mailboxes spew letters when smashed, all sorts of delicacies explode from properly shattered trash containers, and crumpled cars lose tires and other assorted parts on impact. These bits of detail bode well for the environment that will exist in the final build.
Over in the audio department, we find a respectable compliment of sounds to treat the ears. Vehicle engines sound, oddly enough, like engines. Horns blare when you run a red light. Car alarms ring out in the distance when you trash a row of parked cars. All in all very well done. The vocal commentary from MM1 has been carried over to its descendant but was not complete in the current build. Judging by the sheer number of place holder comments, expect to hear a wide variety of opinions about your driving! (I usually wind up with something like "Mustang fastback, poor performance, line 8.")
|
