PIMP your ride and race through glamorous Hollywood at breakneck speed.
True to the spirit of street racing, Midnight Club: Los Angeles (MCLA) places you in an environment with complete freedom to take on races or cruise around while terrorising pedestrians and evading the police.
You play an unnamed racer starting his career in LA, earning street credibility and cash by racing.
As you progress, you meet racers who constantly challenge you to tournaments and even risky wager and pinkslip races where you can stand to earn or lose money and vehicles. Other characters will hire you for car delivery missions or to seek and destroy a marked vehicle.
Races early in your career can prove challenging when you lack funds to tune your car or buy better ones.
Do not be surprised if you spend hours trying to win a race as unpredictable and dynamic factors such as traffic, police intervention and sneaky opponents trip you up.
Be warned: The police are persistent and difficult to outrun - if arrested, you will be fined.
Racing in the streets without barricades can easily lead to wrong turns. Although the mini map can guide you back on track, the mistake is costly on expressways where there are limited exits.
Be warned that playing MCLA requires intense concentration as you must focus both on the map and the road.
MCLA features various categories of cars for racing including tuner, muscle, luxury and even motorcycles. The beauty of motorcycles is their agility in navigating narrow ramps or sharp turns.
As you progress, you can install one of four special abilities in your vehicles. Aggro makes your vehicle temporarily invulnerable and Zone slows time giving you precise control.
There is EMP, which disables your rivals' vehicles and Roar, which pushes them away from you.
Modding vehicles is a no brainer - you simply buy standard upgrade kits for components like engine, brakes and nitrous. MCLA also offers plenty of customisations to pretty up your ride - from decals to paints to body kits topped off with options for multiple layers, colours and even resizing. Clearly, MCLA flaunts aesthetics over physics.
If you get tired of racing, cruise around and explore the game's realistic rendition of LA. You will be rewarded with the discovery of shortcuts and hidden packages.
Cruising also lets you enjoy the scenery which you barely notice during races - transitions of light in the day and night cycle, dramatic weather changes and even glistening roads after the rain.
MCLA's online multiplayer mode offers adrenaline-filled fun. Apart from ad hoc races, there are various 'capture the flag' games played either one-on-one or team against team.
Sweaty palms are guaranteed in the thrilling 'Stockpile' game in which you pass a hidden bomb to someone else before it detonates.
All said, MCLA's challenging races early in the game might scare off novices though its elementary vehicle modding system might put off hardcore racers.
Although it does not add anything new to the racing genre, its entertaining online mode and accurate depiction of the actual LA locale offers plenty of bang for your buck.
Cheatsheet
Find it tough to shake off the competition and win races?
These tips will give you that extra edge in Midnight Club: Los Angeles.
Ride on your rivals' tail to soak up their slipstream. This will fill your slipstream turbo meter which can be activated for a short burst of speed.
Learn to use this at opportune times: The boost will be gone if you fail to keep consistently close to your rivals' slipstream but avoid using it around bends as your vehicle will be harder to control.
If you see wispy trails behind your car, someone is filling up their meter on your slipstream.
Shake them off by pitching your car to the side and driving on two wheels by holding the B button and pushing the left thumbstick left or right.
Note that your meter fills only for slipstreams behind cars and not motorcycles, so do not bother tailing the motorcyclists.
Between races, take some time to explore the city and familiarise yourself with shortcuts.
Taking shortcuts can be a boon or a bane depending on the type of race you are in. A wrong shortcut can cost you your lead if you end up in a location away from the checkpoints but can save you precious milliseconds if all you need to do is get to the end point in the fastest time. Choose the right vehicles for the races - if there are plenty of narrow and twisted paths or ramps to jump off, go for the motorcycle.
If you expect a lot of obstacles, go for your strong muscle cars. Otherwise, stick to your maxed out tuner cars for the fastest speed.
Make full use of your vehicle's special abilities - Agro, Zone, Roar and EMP.
These are charged by clean driving - you must not hit anything, so stay alert.
Yap Hui Bin is a freelance writer who drives better with her thumbs.
This story was first published in The Straits Times Digital Life on 24 December 2008.
