Midnight Club Los Angeles

Midnight Club: Los Angeles is a video game in the Midnight Club series of racing video games. It was officially announced for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on January 11, 2008 by Rockstar Games. The game was developed by Rockstar San Diego. The game features 43 cars and 4 motorcycles.^[2] The open world map of Los Angeles is confirmed to be the size of all three cities from the previous installment combined.^[3][4] It has also been confirmed by several sources that each car has a polygon count of roughly 100,000.^[5] After several delays, Midnight Club: Los Angeles was released on October 20, 2008 in North America and on October 24, 2008 in the PAL region.

Gameplay

The main character in a Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder.

The game is set in the city of Los Angeles, again providing the option to completely free-roam (in an open world environment larger than all the three cities combined from the previous game, Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition). New additions are a 24-hour day-to-night cycle, weather effects and traffic with licensed vehicles, adding a realistic aspect to the game. The new dynamic weather system has been reported to alter the gameplay experience, making the vehicle more prone to sliding in the rain. After races, if any damage is inflicted upon the vehicle, the player doesn't necessarily have to drive back to the garage for a full repair, but instead can choose the "Quick Fix" option through which old, junkyard-esque parts will be added to the car. To get the nice look back, the player must actually drive back to repair their vehicle at a garage or at a gas station, so totaling the car is only possible within a single race or event. With the RAGE system being used for this game, traffic levels fluctuate throughout the day, with light traffic at night, heavy traffic in the morning and afternoon, and heaviest traffic in the evening. Motorcycles are again part of the game, including the Ducati 999R and the Kawasaki Ninja ZX-14. Convertible cars, customizable interiors, in-game photo mode, and customizable exotics are all new additions. Developers placed great emphasis on the elimination of load screens, stating that the player can literally jump from career mode to an online race in under ten seconds.
Los Angeles is said to be the longest of the four Midnight Club games, with more than ten different types of races including series races, tournaments, pink slip races, and freeway races. For most races, the player must race against an opponent to the start line to earn extra rep (a leveling system used to determine the player's skill in the game) before the actual race, although this can be skipped. The races also have four different difficulties: easiest, medium, hard, and hardest. The difficulties are color-coded with green being easy, yellow being medium, orange being hard, and red being hardest. Each successive difficulty race has greater rewards than the former.
There is a number of special abilities have also been brought into the game (a returning feature from the previous installment), which include EMP, which disables the electronics of every vehicle around the player; Agro, which makes the player's vehicle indestructible giving him the ability to plow through traffic without slowing the car down; Roar, which sends out a sound wave moving traffic out of the player's way for a clear and straight path through the streets; and Zone, which slows down time and allows the player to gain a temporary boost in handling. The previous installment had restricted special abilities to certain cars, but all cars in this game can now use any one of the special abilities as chosen by the player. The abilities can also be changed in a garage at any time.
Police return but are no longer scripted to a specific race; they take notice to simple infractions in the game (running red lights, speeding, burning out, hitting their cars or nearby cars, and driving offroad). If caught, the player has the choice to pull over (which will initiate a special cutscene when the police car approaches) or lead the police into a pursuit. The game goes into "pursuit mode" after a period of time or if the police lose sight of the player; this will also happen if the player pulls off during the "pull over" cutscene. Infractions that cause it to go directly to pursuit mode include speeding and excessively damaging a police car. They will chase the player no matter where the player is and the longer the player runs from them, the higher the fine will be if the player is arrested. The player will be arrested instantly if he totals (damages out) his vehicle.^[6]

Additionally, there are sixty collectibles hidden throughout Los Angeles that the player can find. They appear as yellow oil barrels with Rockstar's logo printed on them. Every ten collectibles that are found will unlock one of six game modifiers (mentioned in-game as "cheat codes"), while finding half and all of the collectibles will unlock achievements. However, enabling any of these special modifiers (with the exception of a modifier that unlocks an overhead view camera) will prevent the player from earning money, rep, and further career progression.