Rockstar's Last Racing Game Was Its BEST! | Midnight Club Los Angeles RETROspective
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- čas přidán 5. 11. 2023
- Welcome to RETROspective! A new series where we take a step back in gaming an review games, and times in video game history through today’s lens!
Our first RETROspective is one that also takes a stop at the “Gears” side of this channel’s name with a look at the last Rockstar racing game; Midnight Club Los Angeles! We take a look at where the franchise started, what made this game so great, and what the future holds for the series!
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Check out the videos I referenced here!
"Midnight Club Street Racing Intro" - • Midnight Club: Street ...
"Midnight Club: Street Racing PS2 Gameplay HD (PCSX2)" - • Midnight Club: Street ...
"Midnight Club Los Angeles 湾岸- Rate My Ride - Top 10 - May 2, 2009" - • Midnight Club Los Ange...
"Need For Speed Unbound - Level 5 MAX Heat Cop Chase Escape (Ferrari FXX-K Evo Gameplay)" - • Need For Speed Unbound...
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Portions of music by:
"Here" by extenz - soundcloud.com/extenz/here?ut...
"Revolution" by extenz - soundcloud.com/extenz/revolut...
"Spring" by Nostalgy - soundcloud.com/user-57630131/...
"xoxo" by Nettson - soundcloud.com/nettson/nettso... - Hry
I've been a Need for Speed guy for most of my life, but did Midnight Club LA really won me over back then. The quality of life, graphics , customization and car variety was top notch from other racing games of the era. Shame we haven't seen another entry in the series in over 15 years
Man putting the gap between games into years makes LA feel so much older than it plays 😂
@@games_n_gears That's indeed true, but it can't be denied the impact that it left on the racing game genre.
NFS games are nice, BTW.
@@bigbeauf_____3167 Absolutely
This game was mad underrated in hindsight
Absolutely! Even back then I remember playing it and being shocked that it wasn’t as big of a deal as other racing games at the time
This midnight club seemed badass cause the drivers and story had more personality and the cinematic camera angles were insane!
I was watching this and really enjoying it. So much nostalgia. Looked down to only see you had 31 views and 3 videos and absolutely baffled at the quality of the content, excellent work mate
Thank you so much, that means a lot! This channel is a hobby of mine so while it may take a bit of time in between videos, I still give it my all behind each one! Stay tuned for more!
MCLA is STILL my favorite racing game of all time! I have a digital copy on Xbox Series X that I still play once in a while.😁
I got this game when I got my very own Xbox 360 in 2014 when I was 8. I absolutely adored this game when I was a kid, it introduced me to a lot of 90s and early 2000s classic rap music. Tracks like Gangsta Rap Made Me Do It, and Day n Nite kept me playing. I would be ecstatic if they brought the series back!
DUB Edition and Underground did the same for me! It’s amazing how something so small (in the grand scheme of the entire game) like music makes the largest impact on our playthroughs and lives
@@games_n_gears referring what you said in the video, a remaster would make me so happy. This game and Need For Speed: Most Wanted (2012) introduced me to the street racing game genre and I fell in love with it. They don’t make games like they used to!
i thought i was watching a 100k view video. the video deserves more views
Thanks for watching! Maybe we can get there one day!
Glad I found your video. I really appreciate creators like you bringing attention to this gem of a racing game. I didn’t know you can still play online with the Xbox series X!
I was surprised to learn that too! I was even more surprised when I found out that it was re-released in an Xbox One box with the 360/One branding on it! Naturally I picked it up off eBay after I learned this, maybe I’ll make a short about it!
Now would be a great time to revive the midnight series !
I agree! Especially now that GTA 6 is upon us and should free up resources for at least a remaster!
Man I miss the Midnight Club games! Had so much fun playing them as a kid! Keep up the high quality content my bro! I really enjoyed this video!
Thank you! I didn’t expect this video to blow up as much as it had so I’ve been hard at work on both the next History of Zombies video, and another racing one!
Midnight club la was a hidden gem i remember the first time getting into it i was blown away by the story, soundtrack and the map, sure the car list was mid tier compared to midnight club 3 but i was impressed by the fact that every car had it's own realistic interior, but for online i had alot of great times with it, racing against other people and using the rate my ride to make a ton of money its something that you don't see in racing games, also i remember rockstar hosted a pizza hut tournament and whoever won would win pizza for an entire year, it was the first and last tournament rockstar has ever hosted.
This channel is destined for greatness
I just picked it up for $10 for Xbox 360. Gonna play on my series x. Cool thing I didn’t know was I almost bought the complete edition for $20 but the guy said it wasn’t backwards compatible. When installing the game, gave me complete edition for free 😅 watched this as it installed and hyped to play.
The last MC game I played was the OG on ps2 I think. I played that everyday it was awesome!
Great video!
Oh wow that’s awesome! I had no clue that the complete edition was included for backwards compatibility. I picked up the complete edition in the Xbox One packaging that works on both consoles before making the video because I thought it was so interesting
The map looks more detailed than gta 5!!!
Midnight Club LA is my favorite racing game. I love the vibe, the different vehicle types, the soundtrack, the four abilities, the physics, and I like that it had a story, but wasn't a major focus. I enjoyed the characters. I would've preferred if the difficulty wasn't nerfed, but that's me lol. Also, I love tuners and was glad I didn't have to stick with zone anymore. That was my least favorite. Also, I think I would've appreciated Need for Speed: Carbon more than I did had I played it BEFORE Midnight Club 3.
I feel like the difficulty of the older games comes from the less precise handling model which is why LA feels much easier. It definitely has its moments like in the faster races and some pink slip races, but a difficulty setting would be nice for an added challenge!
I can hear kid cudi “day n night” as I’m speeding down Fairfax 😅
For a channel used like a hobby the quality of this video rivals some higher tier youtube videos well done
Thank you! It’s the winning combo of a degree in digital media and some OCD thrown in for good measure!
I am currently playing through it and it is fun, but hard. They could easily bring it back today as the racing game genre is popular, but no developer is really pushing hard to be the greatest. If Rockstar really wanted, they could add all of the fake GTA cars into the game with real stats and prices so they would not have to give into pressure from manufacturers and can have all of the creative freedom they want without licensing fees as well. As for location, they could do three maps as LA, Miami, and New York as it would be familiar to them.
I’d love to see a Midnight Club game with unlicensed cars again because of how creative rockstar has been recently, but I also think that the market would hate it now because of how ambiguous having a fully licensed roster has become.
It would definitely be cool to see a remaster of LA with Rockstar’s GTA based models though!
Love this video mate. Just recently did another playthrough of NFS Underground 1 & 2 on PC and they absolutely hold up!
Over the summer I went back to UG2 with the HD mod and it was absolutely brilliant! I think they may be up next for a video!
While I was watching the video, I thought it had millions of views judging by the quality of it! Such good content
I really appreciate that! More to come in the future!
amazing quality especially from such a new channel! maybe try making the audio a bit more even though because sometimes when the music comes in it is way louder in comparison to your voice!
good video :)
Thank you and will do! I appreciate the feedback, especially around audio!
@10:34 now that was awesome!!! I never knew this game was like burnout?!
keep going bro i tought this had at least 300k views
Thank you! And god I can’t even imagine hitting that many!
@@games_n_gears with this content u will be there in a month don't forget me 😂
@@qtname6197 I’ll do my best and bring you along haha!
I go Bach and play this like once a year, oddly enough I’ve never finished it
That’s understandable! There’s so much content to get through, plus the grind to a million to buy out the garage!
I solute you, we recently have other more youtubers talking about midnight club.
Now they should talk about split second velocity 👀
Ive never played it but I keep seeing footage of it on videos about the racing genre as a whole! I think I’ll need to take a look at it!
@games_n_gears i miss those typa racers. It's rigged, yes, but it makes the best jarring racers in a reality TV show format
Nice retrospective
Thank you and I’m glad you enjoyed! I’ll be doing more of them in the future!
Rockstar need to make and online drag racing game. Pinks. Swaps. Bets. Etc. and I know they can do it with ease
Online pink slip racing would be a ton of fun and I can see huge rivalries starting from that!
Can you do a documentary video on L.A. Rush? The video makes me want to play racing games on my console.
I’ll add it to the list! It’s another game that I’ve heard good things about, but also have not played!
To everyone who wants to play this even tho they grew up with PC´s and NfS liike me: The Complete Edition runs good on Xenia! I play It since last year after listening to its brilliant OST years before :) Only thing I didnt like is that you cant restart individual races of a tournament, only the whole series. And failing a race can happen quickly with difficulties in navigation to the next waypoint or crashing out.
I was weirdly sure MCLA's playlist had more music than 3 tbh
It was difficult to find official sources for the number of tracks, but what I found came from the Midnight Club wiki so it may be off
Let’s get this seen by rockstar we need midnight club 6
Now this is fucking quality!
just to let folks know the tire width does effect the performance of the car by a big margin
I actually had no idea about that! Thanks for letting us know!
@games_n_gears welcome! maybe do a video on it after you test it out
I think I may have to do a Short about it once I do some testing! I’ll be sure to shout you out too!
Midnight Club LA was graphically amazing, sadly the only thing it had going for it even at the time though, the singleplayer drags on with pointless XP grinding and it's barely got a story in the first place. Not that it necessarily needed one as a racing game, but the thing that Midnight Club really got right from the beginning was its chraracters, it added onto that with 2 and then just slowly forgot about it. 3 still had the names and car designs of rivals where you could still see and imagine what kind of character you're racing against, but I honestly can't even remember a single name from LA. Even trying to make the most out of each event type, by the second half of the campaign you have to grind for levels just to get a single conversation with another character, the shifted focus to online and levelling ruined the singleplayer.
That one interesting character you show is the only "character" there is, literally the only character to show some kind of emotion. lol The bad guy is just there, the garage guy is just there.
The map may be more detailed but it's very appearant that the devs were more and more restricted in what they could do to make the map interesting to drive in while keeping the realistic look, earlier midnight club titles had jumping opportunities hidden everywhere that could get you an advantage, LA still has them but considerably less so, it just makes the core gameplay more boring.
Same with race types, unordered races were barely a thing you'd see in the single player campaign, let alone interesting designs. MC2 brought the unordered race to its limit for each map, making you think really hard about the routes you take, LA just has like 5 points you hit to a finish line if an unordered race ever comes up...
The pink slip races and tournaments also completely ruined the progression this time around, a few levels in a tournament opens for a concept dub edition camaro iirc, win that and you're set for the whole campaign. It's just like the whole focus was on graphics and no one cared to look at the gameplay.
To me, MCLA was a huge letdown in all but graphics and customization, I enjoyed the soundtrack of MC2 more, I enjoyed the map of MC2 more, I enjoyed the characters of MC2 more, I enjoyed the races in MC2 more, and if you really care about graphics and customization then you're better of with MC3.
I definitely agree with you there on the XP and progression side of things. It was one thing I encountered in my playthrough as I was looking forward to unlocking the GTR to customize. Downside is by the time I finally unlocked it, I had acquired both the DUB Camaro and the DUB AMG making driving the GTR totally useless compared to those OP cars.
The one thing that I found helped with that is by trying to complete the side quests of driving specific cars like the low riders or SUVs, and I think had they been stricter on car classes or categories during races, it would’ve given a much better balance during a playthrough
@@games_n_gears I also forgot, the time trials were lots of fun imo, at first you got to drive a car you'd only unlock later. Again the problem was progression, you already have better cars by the time you finally get to claim your first time trial car.
I don't know much about the development history of the game, but to me the XP system was either a requirement from management or just there to stop players from rushing through the campaign. I agree just a simple car class lock and not making prize cars too overpowered could've saved the campaign structure.
I found 3's gameplay more enjoyable
Yes a Remake would be nice but after a decade you would first have to find a developer who understands MidnightClub, and putting in licensed cars with damage and relicensing the great OST wont happen again. And Rockstart seems to think that most of MidnightClub can be recreated in GTA...
I definitely agree with you there; asking for remakes of games now is a double edged sword because these developers don’t know how to make games like this anymore!
🏆🏆🏆🥂
is it just me or the guy in green at 6:59 has the same voice actor of Michael from GTA V?
That guy is The other Guy from
Mc3 DuB Edition remix
C'est vrai j’aimerais un nouveau Midnight Club 😅 comme GTA 5 sur ps5
Do nfs rivals, nfs most wanted 2012, & nfs heat next!
I haven’t played Rivals or MW2012 before but I think that could be a good idea for another series where I play through some games I’ve either never played or avoided!
is it this dark or it's the video?
I wouldn't say the racing is perfect in gta 5 compared to midnight club because more or less pay to win but racing online in gta is the closest to midnight club and I like it
I agree! Especially after the online update that added the car meets and garages. Those missions where you get to make a customer a car and deliver it are some of my favorites
Man.. the COMMUNITY when this game was online was UNREAL!!!!!!! I’ve got soo many screenshots on my PS3 hard drive of just friends w cars all over the map. What a game and they just took it from us for… GTA… yuck. What a shame
Im still waiting on a new game 🥴
We got GTA 6 coming next year, so they gotta be considering a new Midnight Club for after launch…..right??
@@games_n_gears I would love that. Markus Kienzl (Creator of the Themesong) tweeted some time ago that rockstar renewed his license for the song so... maybe?
Your music is a little too loud
Thanks for the feedback! Since this video I switched from my over-ear headphones, to regular old AirPods to match what’s I’d use to listen to CZcams videos anyway. I found that it’s helped me balance the audio a lot better on my newer videos, check them out!
Not true at all. I love la but La was not midnight club 3
No it wasn't, it's a great game don't get me wrong, but 2 and 3 were better.
Just curious, what makes 2 and 3 better for you? I love 3 because of the customization and the multiple locations (especially remix).
But I think LA edges it out for my favorite because of the leap it took in that generation of consoles with fully fleshed out online, highly detailed over-world, and even deeper customization!
Thanks for watching!
@@games_n_gears the the higher difficulty, and the over the top nature of the previous games. LA is good, but they toned down the difficulty and made it more grounded-in-reality. I just loved how much more wacky, over the top, and cartoony the older games are, but the DIFFICULTY is what made those older games for me. Too many times when i play a singleplayer racing game, i just take the lead on the first corner, and finish with a mile long lead. I love MC2 and 3 where with the difficult race layouts, navigation and shortcut finding, its traffic and obstacles, and relentless AI actually made me feel like my win was EARNED
@@r3uvsgaming That’s definitely understandable! I think that I’d have a harder time choosing between MC3 and LA if 3s handling was similar to LA, I find that’s where most of my difficulty with the game comes from.
LAs handling gives you more control, but it still feels like you’re on the edge of it when you get to the faster cars in the game.
I miss so much the time we had more game entries to choose from…. From burnout, TDU, Midnightclub… but now it’s only AAAs…. Which are lovely, but damn
I feel that and it was a big motivator in me going back to a game like MCLA! The funny thing is, those games were big AAA titles, but by today’s standards for budget and scale, they seem so small! The AAA devs need to understand that graphics aren’t the only thing that matters, and that the game being fun should come first!
@@games_n_gears Exactly! That’s why I truly hope the new TDU will sell well. I want all those game developers to be like “Hang on, there may be a market for these games after all”. I genuinely have hope for this decade, we all would love to see all the games we used to play make a comeback :)
Great video by the way! Subscribed!
@@grandhomme4183 Me too! Here’s to hoping TDU will bring the fun back! And thanks for watching!!
I'm replaying MCLA for the first time in years (June 2024)! It's the best game in the series! :D
this is the best racing game period. they need to re release it . this game has the best selection of mopar cars!!!!!!!!!