Midnight Club: Street Racing is not the average racing game. Instead of organized races that occur one after another, the player’s character is thrown into an enormous city where they are merely one small spec in the grand scheme of things. Glancing down at the handy map in the corner, red arrows will be zipping around all over. These red arrows represent competitors, and by racing up behind one of them, the arrow above them will turn from red to yellow. After following them for a little while, they’ll pick up on the idea that you want to race them, and in addition to the arrow above them turning green, the person will challenge you to keep up with them for a little while. Eventually, their vehicle will come to a stop, and the real racing portion will come into play.

The first time that a competitor is challenged, it will be a checkpoint race (marked by spotlights) with five other cars that when won, will garner up the cell phone number of the competitor. The number is added to your database, and if you feel like it, you can dial them up and challenge them to another race. The second race is a head to head checkpoint race that tosses up the opponent’s car as the reward. It’s then possible to call up the person a second time, and win an upgraded version of the previously earned car. And finally, the person can be called up a third time in order to try and win the top of the line vehicle for that set of cars. Once all of the initial competitors are defeated, the city champion will show up, and by beating him you can claim to be the new city champion and move onto the next location.

Odd as it might be, one of the most difficult parts of Midnight Club are the times when you have to follow the racers in order to initiate the challenge itself. The computer artificial intelligence is about as smart as MadCatz's Dance Dance Revolution dancing pad, and instead of following any sort of logical path, the cars will veer off into traffic, suddenly stop and do a complete 180 turn, and if you accidentally knock into the car, it can even enable a glitch where it will twirl around in circles time and time again until you smash into it and knock it back onto the correct path. And don’t get me started on the city champions; it will take all the effort, concentration and patience to even get them to recognize you’re there. It’s understandable that they’re supposed to be considerably harder than the rest of the competitors, but it becomes more than a little annoying after a while.

Given the nature of the game, Midnight Club doesn’t extend itself to small, constrained areas. With that in mind, Angel Studios went out and took thousands of photographs and hours of video footage of two areas enormous enough to fit the game: New York and London. Obviously, Angel Studios wasn’t able to recreate each city pixel for pixel, but the basic layout is basically the same, and any significant locations or monuments that actually exist in real-life can be found in the game. For example, in the New York stage, it is possible to take a 120-MPH trip through Times Square and smash into the fun-filled MTV building. There’s enough area to make sure that all the competitors are evenly spread out from one another, and there is plenty of space to smash, bash and if you feel like it, even race.

Along the same lines as Angel Studios’ other PlayStation 2 title Smuggler’s Run, Midnight Club uses the extra power of the PlayStation 2 to both be extremely appealing to the eye, and expand its gameplay horizons. In the eye candy department, one of the most impressive aspects is actually the many buildings that populate the game. Instead of the flat, blocky buildings with a single texture plastered all over to represent windows, there are individual steps leading up from the sidewalk up to the building’s entrance door. Some buildings have breakable glass, and even allow your vehicle to sneak around the office sections, if you want. Beyond the buildings, though, the lighting and overall attention to detail in Midnight Club is excellent, and the first time that you start up the game and are allowed the freedom to race anywhere and everywhere whenever you want is a great feeling. And because the PlayStation 2 can handle it, there’s quite a bit of traffic littering the streets, and if manipulated properly, can provide tons of entertainment by their own, lonesome selves.

And if you’re a fan of multiplayer games, Midnight Club will satisfy, albeit with the maximum players only being two. It contains all the modes from the normal Career Mode (head to head and checkpoint racing) and tosses in a new mode that’s easily the best of the bunch: Capture the Flag. Capture the Flag is associated with first person shooters more often than not, but Angel Studios has crafted an ingenious little game where everyone heads toward the flag icon, and once they pass over it, they have to bring it to another location. Sounds simple, right? What makes it so incredibly fun is that by smashing into the other players, it knocks the icon out of them and into you. Once six vehicles start smashing into each other all at the same time, it can get pretty insane.

Also have a copy of Smuggler’s Run? Angel Studios has included a little treat where if you have a save from Smuggler’s Run on your memory card, it will unlock secret vehicles taken from Smuggler’s Run that can be used in all the modes in the arcade section (it can’t be used in career). It’s a neat little touch, and something that other developers could take note of; as minor as it might be, it’s a nice reward for players.

Considering that racing titles are likely one, if not the, most popular genres in console gaming, to have a title stand out from the crowed, especially at the launch of a new console, shows the creative talent that lies at Angel Studios. Midnight Club is a nice breakaway from the norm of arcade racing games, and is definitely worth a look for its impressive visuals and addictive (but sometimes a little on the frustrating side) gameplay.