Product Description

Midtown Madness 3 provides gamers with madcap, over-the-top racing and driving excitement in two of the world's most fascinating cities: Paris and Washington, D.C.

Midtown Madness 3, the latest in Microsoft Corp's popular Midtown Madnessfranchise, allows gamers to get behind the wheel of more than 30 vehicles while competing in exciting race modes such as Blitz, Checkpoint and Cruise. With a robust Career mode featuring 14 driving careers, Midtown Madness 3 delivers the rush and excitement of street racing while challenging gamers to put their driving skills to the ultimate test.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5014 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Microsoft
• Released on: 2003-06-27
• Platform: Xbox

Amazon.co.uk Review
There are two schools of thought surrounding modern video games. The first says movie-style presentation and 20-minute cut scenes will give the industry a certain glitzy sheen; the other says stuff the bells and whistles and just provide action, lots of action. Happily, Midtown Madness 3 for the Xbox has planted it's roots firmly in camp number two.

With single and multi-player modes, a huge number of unlockable vehicles and more laughs per square inch then a clown sucking helium through a straw, Midtown Madness is a joy to play. This is car racing at its lunatic, comic-book best. Based on the streets of Washington DC and Paris, MM3 offers a fairly standard selection of one-player modes including checkpoint racing, first to the finish line challenges and a leisurely cruise mode for Sunday drivers who can't be doing with speeds over 55 mph. For the third release in the MM series, Microsoft have added an undercover mode in an effort to give lone players a running goal to aim for--whether it's busting the mafia as an undercover investigator or playing bodyguard and minder for a famous racing driver. In reality the story modes are paper thin and the plotline (such as it is) is best ignored in favour of completing the missions themselves.

Where MM3 really shines is in it's online play modes where owners can take their favourite motors onto Xbox Live and tear up the tarmac against players from around the world. Anyone playing "Capture the Rabbit" will no doubt find themselves giggling with glee as they smash the bonnet from a really swish looking sportscar with a well-timed sideswipe--this is top stuff and comes close to ousting MotoGP 2 from its position as best racing game on the XBox.

It's not all good news though. Car physics really are cartoony and collisions can get very "interesting"--ever seen a Mini Cooper tip a bus over by slamming into the side of it? Also, the single-player mode can start to get repetitive after a while, so online play is a godsend.

All in all, if it's good old-fashioned racing fun you're after, with more than a dose of humour thrown in, Midtown Madness 3 is a must-have. --Chris Russell

Manufacturer's Description
Midtown Madness 3 provides gamers with madcap, over-the-top racing and driving excitement in two of the world's most fascinating cities: Paris and Washington, D.C. Midtown Madness 3, the latest in the popular Midtown Madness franchise, allows gamers to get behind the wheel of more than 30 vehicles and compete in exciting race modes such as Blitz, Checkpoint, and Cruise. With a robust Career mode, featuring 14 driving careers, Midtown Madness 3 delivers the rush and excitement of street racing, while challenging gamers to put their driving skills to the ultimate test.

Customer Reviews

Madness of a Midtown Variety... 3
Microsoft's game studios have come up with a couple of fine games in their time, which were for release on the PC. Now that the Xbox has come along, it shares these games. Midtown Madness 3 is one of these, and it will easily be one of the games of the year.

MM3 is the type of game, that us gamers can't wait to arrive. It has everything: online play/multiplayer, great graphics, a decent single player game, and it is just pure fun.

Playing by yourself can take a little time, I myself completed the single player/undercover mode in about a week, in both cities. Don't let this put you off, it is a challenge, but luckily I had a fair bit of free time on my hands when I bought this. Undercover Mode sees you working as an detective in Washington and as an undercover officer in Paris; these are basically missions, ie checkpoint races, chases, things like that. There are 54 of these in all, meaning 27 in each city. The other single player option is, the, well, Single Player mode. This is where you can either; Cruise (Just drive around the city, do what you like, look for hiding spots, collect Paint Jobs, ect), Blitz races (where you have to finish the checkpoint circuit before time runs out) and actual Checkpoint Races (this is where you are racing for checkpoints against opponants). Each one is extreamly well done, and there is a good variety in the races. With me, this lasted me just over a week, but, again, this could be different with you.

Multiplayer. This game is more than capable to become a deffination of this word. The multiplayer is fantastic. You first have the option to play on Xbox Live, Split Screen or on a System Link. On split screen, you only have the option to choose a checkpoint race or to cruise. This is quite fun, but once you have done them all, well, you have done them all. Xbox Live is where this title really comes in to it's own. There are a lot more game options then you can have with split screen, along with the ones you can get. Hunter is where there are a group of you driving in normal cars of your choise, and someone is in a police car. This person will need to touch one of the others for them to become a hunter. Once you have been touched, you have to do the same for everyone else, and in the end, there are a load of hunters/police trying to catch one other person. Capture the Gold, this is where you/your team, will need to get to the gold (spawned randomly on the map) by driving through it, and driving back to base to score a point. Tag, this works as normal tag, there is a time limit, and if you are tagged, and can't touch anyone else before time runs out, then you are out of the game. Stayaway, this is just reverse tag, you get the "rabbit" when you touch the person with the rabbit, then you have to try and not get touched, untill the timer runs out, then you have won. This can also be done in teamplay. I cannot stress enough how much fun this game is on multiplayer, you can honestly play it for hours on end. There are a good selection of voice masks too, if you are in to that kind of thing...

The gameplay is very comfortable. The two triggers are accelerate and brake, with the left analogue used for steering. The remaining buttons and analogue is used for lights, the horn, looking to your side ect.

The cars look stunning on this game, the graphics are exceptionally well done. The vast spans of each city are vividally detailed, as are the cars. Lighting effects, everything, it is all far better then most games of this type.

Midtown Madness 3 is an action-packed, fun-filled game, that'll be playable till the next game comes out. If you buy this, I seriously recommend you get Xbox Live (if you haven't already) because it is simply the best game available to play on Live now, so buckle up.

Midtown Madness 3
On first impressions you could be forgiven for thinking this is just another ordinary racing game. Believe me, it is certainly not that. You will be put behind the wheel of a whole host of vehicles ranging from a mini to a lotus, racing around two vast cities, Washington D.C and Paris. Single player mode finds you thrashing round the streets against other cars in a race against time, performing certain tasks along the way. However, single player mode can soon run out of excitement. This is when Xbox Live comes into play. Playing against 7 other players online makes this game varied and full of fun. With game modes ranging from Cruise where the players can motor round at their own leasure to Catch the Gold where the race is on to locate the stash and take it back to your base. The gameplay is fast and furious and never lets up. The handling of the cars is smooth although there are a few niggles when driving into obsticles. Do not let this put you off. It is a superb racer with an enormous life span. A must if you have Xbox Live.

Excellent
For those of you who haven't played any of the midtown madness series before: buy this game! The single player gives you enough variety and levels to keep you driving for ages, whether you like the undercover missions(admittedly with very flimsy plots, but who cares?), the thrill of the races or just cruising around the two beatiful cities, Washington DC and Paris, sightseeing(all the major buildings are included). The game is easy to learn to play, hard to master.

The play is very much based on the title, at times it can feel like pinball, as you smash your near invulnerable car through traffic, streetlamps and anything else that gets in your way.

And then there is the multiplayer, be it on a splitscreen, a system link or on xbox live, this is the best way to enjoy the cities. If you think it's insane on single player, just wait until you have humans to compete with.

I have two main problems new version though. Firstly, it has lost the ability to alter the physics realism, and left it set on the most unrealistic, leading to unlikely collisions. The second is that to get new colours for your cars you need to collect powerups around the cities. This does give some meaning to the cruise mode but you must collect the correct powerups for the car you are driving from amidst all the others, which means for those of us without a taxi drivers memory you need to explore the entire cities with each new car you get. Boring.

An extra random point for previous users, all the windows are now breakable, so colliding into buildings generally brings the pleasant sound of glass shattering.

Overall, it's an extremely good addition to any xbox games collection and well worth the money for the countless hours spent in driving mayhem.