Midtown Madness 3
Posted July 24, 2003
It was only a matter of time before Microsoft brought their successful "Midtown Madness" series to the XBox. Swedish developer Dice, the brilliant minds behind "RalliSport Challenge", was tapped to bring the franchise to the console, keeping the frantic action and sprawling cities of its PC counterparts intact. Along with an armful of automobile licenses and a healthy smattering of single-player missions, "Midtown Madness 3" boasts perhaps the most insanely addictive XBox Live gameplay to date.
Gameplay:
Continuing with the intercontinental pairing of cities in "Midtown Madness 2", this installment uses Paris and Washington DC as the backdrop for the high-octane hijinks. Two locations may not sound all that impressive, but words can't come close to doing the enormity of each city the justice they deserve. Unlike the similarly free-roaming "Grand Theft Auto" titles for the PS2, these areas are far too expansive to get acquainted with quickly. A small map is provided to help steer players on the right path, along with a game mode specifically geared towards gaining familiarity. Even when cruising around aimlessly, there's no shortage of things to do. A number of mammoth leaps are waiting to be discovered, and seemingly everything in sight can be crashed into and shattered into bite-sized chunks o' shrapnel. The design of the cities is also reportedly quite close to their real-life counterparts, including many of their more instantly recognizable landmarks.
"Midtown Madness 3" features a number of different gaming options, and 'Work Undercover' makes up the meat of the single player gameplay. Each city has seven sets of missions, with a total of 54 goals spread among them. In Paris, players wear the guises of a delivery guy, a taxi driver, a chauffeur, a security guard, a paramedic, a police officer, and a special agent. The progression in DC includes a pizza deliverer, a rental car driver, a limo driver, a car salesman, a police officer, and a private eye. A pair of loose connective threads hold it all together, delivering something kind of approximating a plot, but it's just an excuse for lots and lots of racing.
Eschewing any sort of running plot are the three types of single-player race modes. The first is 'Cruise', in which a player can careen around Paris or Washington DC in whatever cars have been unlocked, with the environment tailored to his or her exacting specifications. If you want to speed around in the dead of night with scores of folks lurking around, or if you feel the itch to cruise around bright and early with no one in sight, pretty much anything is possible. Both 'Blitz' and 'Checkpoint' offer ten different races in each city, which are unlocked in groups of three. As 3rd grade math suggests, the tenth and final race is saved for last. In 'Blitz', the challenge is to reach the finish line in the allotted time, which varies from car to car. 'Checkpoint' tosses a group of CPU-controlled opponents into the mix, and the first to pass through all of the checkpoints scattered across the city is crowned the winner. The game provides a single predetermined route to the goals, but players are allowed to diverge however they'd like.
Though the undercover missions stick you with a particular vehicle best geared towards that task, five of the game's thirty-two vehicles are available initially in the single-player races and split-screen multiplayer modes. Among them are a garbage truck, a taxi, an Opel Astra, a Renault 1985 R5, and a Volkswagen New Beetle RSi. As the single-player missions and races are tackled, more and more cars are unlocked, including licensed vehicles like a Hummer H2, a Cadillac Escalade, an Audi S4 Avant, a Lotus Esprit V8, a Dodge Viper SRT-10, and the grand prize, a Koenigsegg CC. A wide variety of generic vehicles -- buses, a fire truck, and a cement mixer, to name a few -- are also available. Each car has its own distinct feel, varying in mass, speed, acceleration, durability, and handling. Different cars excel at different tasks, and the key to winning many of the 'Blitz' and 'Checkpoint' missions is to get a feel for which car is best suited to each individual race.
'Cruise' and 'Checkpoint' carry over to the split-screen multiplayer mode, pitting one player against another. 'Cruise' remains the same, except instead of one player wreaking havoc, the destruction is split lengthwise across the screen. Options are limited to what's been unlocked in the single-player version, which includes the available cars and, in the case of 'Checkpoint', unlocked races. Pedestrian density, the season, and time of day can all be determined by one of the players.
The single-player mode in "Midtown Madness 3" has been widely dismissed, and I'd agree that it's not the most compelling aspect of the game. The undercover missions generally involve speeding through checkpoints, shuttling people around the city, or picking stuff up and/or dropping it off. The variety in career types and personalities of the characters involved make it feel as if this portion of the game offers more diversity than it really does. I found that I greatly preferred the 'Blitz' and 'Checkpoint' races to working undercover. The first few goals of each are simple to reach, rarely requiring more than one or two attempts. The level of difficulty quickly spikes in these two modes, but never to the point of frustration, and there are generally enough tasks available that having a rough time finishing one doesn't mean you're hopelessly stuck until it's over. To help guide players towards the goals are arrows at the top of the screen that point towards each destination, including a separate graphic to indicate an impending sharp turn. These icons are extremely helpful 95% or so of the time, but in that remaning five percent, the arrow seemed to point towards my goal without offering much of an indication as to how to actually get there. An overreliance on those indicators without glancing at the provided map will probably cause some headaches along the way.
Despite all of the negative buzz I'd heard about the single-player mode, I thought it was a hopelessly addictive blast...for around ten hours or so. Once I took "Midtown Madness 3" online, my interest in solo play completely waned. The game's biggest selling point, as anyone skimming through this review ought to be fully aware, is its support for XBox Live. The game features six game types, beginning with the familiar 'Cruise' and 'Checkpoint'. 'Capture the Gold' is "Midtown Madness 3"'s take on 'Capture the Flag'. Players race towards a bag of gold, and the team whose player who snags the loot and successfully stashes it away at a drop point wins. Complicating things is the fact that opposing players can steal the gold by smashing into the car that currently has it. In 'Tag', one player is "It" and has a minute and a half to smash into someone else, passing the "It"-ness onto them. If a player doesn't tag someone in that allotted 90 seconds, he's out of the game. 'Hunter' is a partial retread of 'Tag' with cop cars. This time around, though, infected players remain policemen, and the winner is the last car to be captured. Finally, there's 'Stayaway', which is 'Tag' bathed in the light of the Bizarro Ray. Instead of steering clear of whoever is "It", the goal is to crash into him and snatch the 'rabbit'. Whoever has the rabbit the longest wins. All six modes are excellent, and despite the apparent surface similarities of half of them, these game types all feel different and unique. The cars available depends on the game type and host settings, but players aren't limited by what they've unlocked in single player mode.
"Midtown Madness 3" includes an excellent Live interface, beginning with some of the standards. The first option is 'Quick Match' for instant action, in which a user can specify either a particular game type or a random selection of whatever's available. Those looking for something more specific can use Optimatch to specify a skill level, game type, car class, or city. A player can also choose to host a game, selecting the total number of competitors (between 2 and 8 are allowed), whether the game is publicly accessible or private, the skill level of the players, the usual environment variables, and some settings specific to each game type. The 'Friends' menu pops up a list of your pals, and for a player intrigued with some of his past few opponents, the "Recent Players" feature makes it easy to add new friends to your list. Online status can be toggled for gamers who prefer to lurk ominously in the shadows. Once you sign onto XBox Live, your friends will see you online by default, even if you're playing through the single-player mode. Downloadable content rounds out the last of the online niceties, though as of this writing, there's no indication as to what kind of content will be available or when it'll be up for public consumption. It's also worth noting that "Midtown Madness 3" doesn't support multiple players on a single XBox over Live, just one person per console.
"Midtown Madness 3" also supports System Link, which I don't have the capability to comment on at the moment.
The Options menu allows players to configure their preferred unit system (MPH vs. KPH), map rotation, heads-up display, subtitles for the game's voiceovers, the score list, and the language. The unit system and language can't be altered in the middle of a game, though the remaining options can be set at any time. Similarly, the volume of the various aspects of the game's audio is always a couple of button presses away, though the clunky playlist feature can only be accessed through the primary Options menu.
"Midtown Madness 3" includes three sets of default, unconfigurable controls, including one specifically geared towards racing wheels. I've found my Mad Catz MC2 MicroCON to be invaluable with "RalliSport Challenge", and I was looking forward to giving it a spin (unfortunately, bad pun intended) with "Midtown Madness 3". The wheel plays reasonably well with the game, but I felt that I had a much better grasp on the controls with the thumbstick on the standard Duke controller. Perhaps it's because I'd spent ten hours or so with the Duke before popping in my MC2, developing some nasty habits along the way, or maybe it's just that I can flick my thumb more quickly than I can turn a wheel. I wish I could've mastered the racing wheel controls more quickly: after one marathon session with the Duke and mashing the accelerator button non-stop, my right index finger was numb for literally a couple of days. It's much easier to leave my foot resting on one of the racing wheel's floor pedals, which could've spared me that rather mild amount of pain and anguish. Too bad it's not possible to steer with a controller and accelerate with the floor pedals.
The default controls, as partially suggested above, use the shoulder buttons to accelerate and reverse/brake. The only other button I used regularly was the emergency brake, which is triggered by pressing A. The other buttons were used sparsely, not finding much need to toggle headlights, manually switch gears, or honk my horn. The left thumbstick steers, and the right can be used to peek through the car's windows. Clicking the right thumbstick expands the small map into a larger, translucent one, encompassing most of the screen and offering a much more detailed glance of the city. The simple but effective controls are quick to pickup, just like popping a quarter in an arcade cabinet.
Multiple profiles can be established to store these individual settings as well as the progress made in the single-player modes. The remaining features on the Options menu aren't really options at all, including a list of track records, game credits, and a brilliant bonus movie detailing the craft of motion capture on the set of "Midtown Madness 3".
Graphics:
The scope of the two cities featured in "Midtown Madness 3" is enormous. Its environments are large, teeming with a small army of pedestrians and dozens upon dozens of cars scuttling around. Innumerable background details and a respectable draw distance give the impression that these are actual cities, not just a series of 0s and 1s strung together on a shiny 5" platter. There's always quite a bit happening on-screen, but even at its most hectic, the frame rate doesn't stutter once.
The car models were not surprisingly lavished with attention, looking wonderful both out of the gate and particularly after enduring extensive abuse throughout the course of the game. Damage is lovingly rendered as it's inflicted, from smashed bumpers to shattered windows to scraped doors. The game's weather and lighting effects are similarly impressive.
"Midtown Madness 3" may lack the overall graphical polish of "RalliSport Challenge", which didn't have to focus on such exceptionally huge environments or an extensive amount of background activity. The trade-off is more than worth it, and the arcade-style graphics greatly complement the feel of the gameplay and the overall tone of the game.
Collision detection may seem inconsistent at an initial glance. Cars frequently plow clear through the handful of pedestrians unlucky enough to miss leaping out of the way, and, for drivers going quickly enough, the same goes for the small trees that litter the roadside. The non-corporeal pedestrians are understandable; Microsoft and Dice set out to create a manic racer, not a half-hearted "Grand Theft Auto" knockoff. Perhaps the trees followed suit so that they'd still offer the expected window dressing without slowing down the pace of the game. It's like the old cliché goes -- it's not a bug...it's a feature! Even if the largely insubstantial trees were unintended, it's a welcome oversight.
As is the standard for the XBox, "Midtown Madness 3" includes support for 480p-capable displays, and unlike "RalliSport Challenge", a widescreen mode is not available.
Audio:
The Dolby Digital 5.1 audio is decent enough. Each car has a distinctive array of sounds to accompany its unique feel, and the large city backdrops offer extensive ambiance throughout. Pans from the front speakers to the surrounds give the impression of careening through a city at laughably high speeds. The rears capture details such as muttering pedestrians and debris spiraling across the street. The center channel is used sparingly and isn't an essential component of gameplay, and the lower frequencies are surprisingly light.
The voice acting, the cartoonishly overacted Frawnch accents in particular, is amusing at first. As I found myself repeating the same few single-player races incessantly, the chatter quickly grew tiresome. If I'd had to hear "Ze ink won't even be draaaah..." one more time and I had something other than a breakaway controller cable within arm's reach, I'd be hanging lifelessly from my ceiling right now. Thankfully, an option to tone down or outright disable the volume of the voiceovers is easily accessible at any time.
The music provided is of the standard sorta-techno variety that fades into the background and is easily forgotten. Like most every racing game on the market, "Midtown Madness 3" takes advantage of the XBox's hefty hard drive with its custom soundtrack option. However, an apparent design flaw has the game playing the same songs interminably, and hopefully a fix will accompany the first batch of downloadable content.
Conclusion:
The single player mode on "Midtown Madness 3" alone warrants a rental, but what makes the game well-worth shelling out fifty bucks is its Live capability. The networked multiplayer modes are infectiously fun, so much so that "Midtown Madness 3" not only gets the nod as my favorite of the current Live releases, but it ranks terrifyingly close to the top of the best XBox games to date, period. The online gameplay is strong enough that even if this is the only game you give a spin over Live, a year's subscription to the service is more than worth it. For the broadband-deficient, give it a rental, but for players with access to XBox Live or even for those mulling over taking their console online, "Midtown Madness 3" is exceptionally highly recommended.
Gameplay:
Continuing with the intercontinental pairing of cities in "Midtown Madness 2", this installment uses Paris and Washington DC as the backdrop for the high-octane hijinks. Two locations may not sound all that impressive, but words can't come close to doing the enormity of each city the justice they deserve. Unlike the similarly free-roaming "Grand Theft Auto" titles for the PS2, these areas are far too expansive to get acquainted with quickly. A small map is provided to help steer players on the right path, along with a game mode specifically geared towards gaining familiarity. Even when cruising around aimlessly, there's no shortage of things to do. A number of mammoth leaps are waiting to be discovered, and seemingly everything in sight can be crashed into and shattered into bite-sized chunks o' shrapnel. The design of the cities is also reportedly quite close to their real-life counterparts, including many of their more instantly recognizable landmarks.
"Midtown Madness 3" features a number of different gaming options, and 'Work Undercover' makes up the meat of the single player gameplay. Each city has seven sets of missions, with a total of 54 goals spread among them. In Paris, players wear the guises of a delivery guy, a taxi driver, a chauffeur, a security guard, a paramedic, a police officer, and a special agent. The progression in DC includes a pizza deliverer, a rental car driver, a limo driver, a car salesman, a police officer, and a private eye. A pair of loose connective threads hold it all together, delivering something kind of approximating a plot, but it's just an excuse for lots and lots of racing.
Eschewing any sort of running plot are the three types of single-player race modes. The first is 'Cruise', in which a player can careen around Paris or Washington DC in whatever cars have been unlocked, with the environment tailored to his or her exacting specifications. If you want to speed around in the dead of night with scores of folks lurking around, or if you feel the itch to cruise around bright and early with no one in sight, pretty much anything is possible. Both 'Blitz' and 'Checkpoint' offer ten different races in each city, which are unlocked in groups of three. As 3rd grade math suggests, the tenth and final race is saved for last. In 'Blitz', the challenge is to reach the finish line in the allotted time, which varies from car to car. 'Checkpoint' tosses a group of CPU-controlled opponents into the mix, and the first to pass through all of the checkpoints scattered across the city is crowned the winner. The game provides a single predetermined route to the goals, but players are allowed to diverge however they'd like.
Though the undercover missions stick you with a particular vehicle best geared towards that task, five of the game's thirty-two vehicles are available initially in the single-player races and split-screen multiplayer modes. Among them are a garbage truck, a taxi, an Opel Astra, a Renault 1985 R5, and a Volkswagen New Beetle RSi. As the single-player missions and races are tackled, more and more cars are unlocked, including licensed vehicles like a Hummer H2, a Cadillac Escalade, an Audi S4 Avant, a Lotus Esprit V8, a Dodge Viper SRT-10, and the grand prize, a Koenigsegg CC. A wide variety of generic vehicles -- buses, a fire truck, and a cement mixer, to name a few -- are also available. Each car has its own distinct feel, varying in mass, speed, acceleration, durability, and handling. Different cars excel at different tasks, and the key to winning many of the 'Blitz' and 'Checkpoint' missions is to get a feel for which car is best suited to each individual race.
'Cruise' and 'Checkpoint' carry over to the split-screen multiplayer mode, pitting one player against another. 'Cruise' remains the same, except instead of one player wreaking havoc, the destruction is split lengthwise across the screen. Options are limited to what's been unlocked in the single-player version, which includes the available cars and, in the case of 'Checkpoint', unlocked races. Pedestrian density, the season, and time of day can all be determined by one of the players.
The single-player mode in "Midtown Madness 3" has been widely dismissed, and I'd agree that it's not the most compelling aspect of the game. The undercover missions generally involve speeding through checkpoints, shuttling people around the city, or picking stuff up and/or dropping it off. The variety in career types and personalities of the characters involved make it feel as if this portion of the game offers more diversity than it really does. I found that I greatly preferred the 'Blitz' and 'Checkpoint' races to working undercover. The first few goals of each are simple to reach, rarely requiring more than one or two attempts. The level of difficulty quickly spikes in these two modes, but never to the point of frustration, and there are generally enough tasks available that having a rough time finishing one doesn't mean you're hopelessly stuck until it's over. To help guide players towards the goals are arrows at the top of the screen that point towards each destination, including a separate graphic to indicate an impending sharp turn. These icons are extremely helpful 95% or so of the time, but in that remaning five percent, the arrow seemed to point towards my goal without offering much of an indication as to how to actually get there. An overreliance on those indicators without glancing at the provided map will probably cause some headaches along the way.
Despite all of the negative buzz I'd heard about the single-player mode, I thought it was a hopelessly addictive blast...for around ten hours or so. Once I took "Midtown Madness 3" online, my interest in solo play completely waned. The game's biggest selling point, as anyone skimming through this review ought to be fully aware, is its support for XBox Live. The game features six game types, beginning with the familiar 'Cruise' and 'Checkpoint'. 'Capture the Gold' is "Midtown Madness 3"'s take on 'Capture the Flag'. Players race towards a bag of gold, and the team whose player who snags the loot and successfully stashes it away at a drop point wins. Complicating things is the fact that opposing players can steal the gold by smashing into the car that currently has it. In 'Tag', one player is "It" and has a minute and a half to smash into someone else, passing the "It"-ness onto them. If a player doesn't tag someone in that allotted 90 seconds, he's out of the game. 'Hunter' is a partial retread of 'Tag' with cop cars. This time around, though, infected players remain policemen, and the winner is the last car to be captured. Finally, there's 'Stayaway', which is 'Tag' bathed in the light of the Bizarro Ray. Instead of steering clear of whoever is "It", the goal is to crash into him and snatch the 'rabbit'. Whoever has the rabbit the longest wins. All six modes are excellent, and despite the apparent surface similarities of half of them, these game types all feel different and unique. The cars available depends on the game type and host settings, but players aren't limited by what they've unlocked in single player mode.
"Midtown Madness 3" includes an excellent Live interface, beginning with some of the standards. The first option is 'Quick Match' for instant action, in which a user can specify either a particular game type or a random selection of whatever's available. Those looking for something more specific can use Optimatch to specify a skill level, game type, car class, or city. A player can also choose to host a game, selecting the total number of competitors (between 2 and 8 are allowed), whether the game is publicly accessible or private, the skill level of the players, the usual environment variables, and some settings specific to each game type. The 'Friends' menu pops up a list of your pals, and for a player intrigued with some of his past few opponents, the "Recent Players" feature makes it easy to add new friends to your list. Online status can be toggled for gamers who prefer to lurk ominously in the shadows. Once you sign onto XBox Live, your friends will see you online by default, even if you're playing through the single-player mode. Downloadable content rounds out the last of the online niceties, though as of this writing, there's no indication as to what kind of content will be available or when it'll be up for public consumption. It's also worth noting that "Midtown Madness 3" doesn't support multiple players on a single XBox over Live, just one person per console.
"Midtown Madness 3" also supports System Link, which I don't have the capability to comment on at the moment.
The Options menu allows players to configure their preferred unit system (MPH vs. KPH), map rotation, heads-up display, subtitles for the game's voiceovers, the score list, and the language. The unit system and language can't be altered in the middle of a game, though the remaining options can be set at any time. Similarly, the volume of the various aspects of the game's audio is always a couple of button presses away, though the clunky playlist feature can only be accessed through the primary Options menu.
"Midtown Madness 3" includes three sets of default, unconfigurable controls, including one specifically geared towards racing wheels. I've found my Mad Catz MC2 MicroCON to be invaluable with "RalliSport Challenge", and I was looking forward to giving it a spin (unfortunately, bad pun intended) with "Midtown Madness 3". The wheel plays reasonably well with the game, but I felt that I had a much better grasp on the controls with the thumbstick on the standard Duke controller. Perhaps it's because I'd spent ten hours or so with the Duke before popping in my MC2, developing some nasty habits along the way, or maybe it's just that I can flick my thumb more quickly than I can turn a wheel. I wish I could've mastered the racing wheel controls more quickly: after one marathon session with the Duke and mashing the accelerator button non-stop, my right index finger was numb for literally a couple of days. It's much easier to leave my foot resting on one of the racing wheel's floor pedals, which could've spared me that rather mild amount of pain and anguish. Too bad it's not possible to steer with a controller and accelerate with the floor pedals.
The default controls, as partially suggested above, use the shoulder buttons to accelerate and reverse/brake. The only other button I used regularly was the emergency brake, which is triggered by pressing A. The other buttons were used sparsely, not finding much need to toggle headlights, manually switch gears, or honk my horn. The left thumbstick steers, and the right can be used to peek through the car's windows. Clicking the right thumbstick expands the small map into a larger, translucent one, encompassing most of the screen and offering a much more detailed glance of the city. The simple but effective controls are quick to pickup, just like popping a quarter in an arcade cabinet.
Multiple profiles can be established to store these individual settings as well as the progress made in the single-player modes. The remaining features on the Options menu aren't really options at all, including a list of track records, game credits, and a brilliant bonus movie detailing the craft of motion capture on the set of "Midtown Madness 3".
Graphics:
The scope of the two cities featured in "Midtown Madness 3" is enormous. Its environments are large, teeming with a small army of pedestrians and dozens upon dozens of cars scuttling around. Innumerable background details and a respectable draw distance give the impression that these are actual cities, not just a series of 0s and 1s strung together on a shiny 5" platter. There's always quite a bit happening on-screen, but even at its most hectic, the frame rate doesn't stutter once.
The car models were not surprisingly lavished with attention, looking wonderful both out of the gate and particularly after enduring extensive abuse throughout the course of the game. Damage is lovingly rendered as it's inflicted, from smashed bumpers to shattered windows to scraped doors. The game's weather and lighting effects are similarly impressive.
"Midtown Madness 3" may lack the overall graphical polish of "RalliSport Challenge", which didn't have to focus on such exceptionally huge environments or an extensive amount of background activity. The trade-off is more than worth it, and the arcade-style graphics greatly complement the feel of the gameplay and the overall tone of the game.
Collision detection may seem inconsistent at an initial glance. Cars frequently plow clear through the handful of pedestrians unlucky enough to miss leaping out of the way, and, for drivers going quickly enough, the same goes for the small trees that litter the roadside. The non-corporeal pedestrians are understandable; Microsoft and Dice set out to create a manic racer, not a half-hearted "Grand Theft Auto" knockoff. Perhaps the trees followed suit so that they'd still offer the expected window dressing without slowing down the pace of the game. It's like the old cliché goes -- it's not a bug...it's a feature! Even if the largely insubstantial trees were unintended, it's a welcome oversight.
As is the standard for the XBox, "Midtown Madness 3" includes support for 480p-capable displays, and unlike "RalliSport Challenge", a widescreen mode is not available.
Audio:
The Dolby Digital 5.1 audio is decent enough. Each car has a distinctive array of sounds to accompany its unique feel, and the large city backdrops offer extensive ambiance throughout. Pans from the front speakers to the surrounds give the impression of careening through a city at laughably high speeds. The rears capture details such as muttering pedestrians and debris spiraling across the street. The center channel is used sparingly and isn't an essential component of gameplay, and the lower frequencies are surprisingly light.
The voice acting, the cartoonishly overacted Frawnch accents in particular, is amusing at first. As I found myself repeating the same few single-player races incessantly, the chatter quickly grew tiresome. If I'd had to hear "Ze ink won't even be draaaah..." one more time and I had something other than a breakaway controller cable within arm's reach, I'd be hanging lifelessly from my ceiling right now. Thankfully, an option to tone down or outright disable the volume of the voiceovers is easily accessible at any time.
The music provided is of the standard sorta-techno variety that fades into the background and is easily forgotten. Like most every racing game on the market, "Midtown Madness 3" takes advantage of the XBox's hefty hard drive with its custom soundtrack option. However, an apparent design flaw has the game playing the same songs interminably, and hopefully a fix will accompany the first batch of downloadable content.
Conclusion:
The single player mode on "Midtown Madness 3" alone warrants a rental, but what makes the game well-worth shelling out fifty bucks is its Live capability. The networked multiplayer modes are infectiously fun, so much so that "Midtown Madness 3" not only gets the nod as my favorite of the current Live releases, but it ranks terrifyingly close to the top of the best XBox games to date, period. The online gameplay is strong enough that even if this is the only game you give a spin over Live, a year's subscription to the service is more than worth it. For the broadband-deficient, give it a rental, but for players with access to XBox Live or even for those mulling over taking their console online, "Midtown Madness 3" is exceptionally highly recommended.