Midnight Club II

Midnight Club II is the first sequel to Midnight Club: Street Racing, published for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and Microsoft Windows. Players race through cities inspired by Los Angeles, Paris, and Tokyo. The game also features an online multiplayer component.

Cities
Dry, hilly suburbs and congested interstates can be found throughout Los Angeles, and just like Midnight Club: Street Racing, the city contains many landmarks, as well as numerous shortcuts and jumps. Paris is the home to cobblestone alleyways, monumental roundabouts, and the Paris Catacombs. Also featured are a lot of jumps taking you across the river of Paris and into an alleyway. Tokyo is a city of neon-glittering avenues and tight alleyways, and contains an equal array of tourist sights and attractions.

Gameplay
Races consist of a series of checkpoints, represented by columns of light. In some races, the order in which the checkpoints must be cleared is prescribed. In this case, a transparent, glowing arrow points to the next checkpoint. In other races the checkpoints may be cleared in any order. In that case, the arrow points to the nearest checkpoint. It is up to the player which route to take from one checkpoint to the next. There are no artificial barriers in the game's open world environment that force the player to stay on a specific course. Any area that is drivable or jumpable in the free-roaming cruise mode between races may be used to get to the next checkpoint.

Some areas can be driven upon that are not intended for such use outside of a computer game. Examples are escalators, roofs, railways and riverbeds and many ramps. However, many areas that would be drivable in reality, for example entrances and some stairs, are fenced off with invisible barriers. In some areas, the player can jump or drop down. Using this to the player's advantage can be necessary in order to win a race. If the car falls into deep water, the damage meter goes to its maximum stage and the car starts to overheat and the race is immediately lost.

The game features a damage model. The amount of damage inflicted upon a car is indicated by both an HUD indicator and visual damage to the car. The performance of a car does not degrade with damage. When the damage limit of a car is exceeded, the car explodes or stalls. After a delay of a few seconds, the player can continue with a new car.

Cars

 * Main article Vehicles in Midnight Club II

The vehicles in Midnight Club II all resemble real life vehicles but have subtle differences to their counterparts, such as different headlamps or taillights. Also, most of them have aesthetic modifications commonly found in the street racing and import scenes, e.g. spoilers and body kits.

In the car selection menu, descriptions and stats of each vehicle can be seen, along with the option to choose among four colors. Once a car is viewed a sound effect is played in the background, which is unique to each one of them.

The SLF450X is the only original vehicle in the game. Although no stats are seen of this vehicle, practical exercises show it has the highest performance capability of all of the vehicles. It is capable of reaching 249 mph (402 km/h) without nitrous.

Since the game is not capable of replicating AWD vehicles, they are only available with RWD or FWD setups. An example of this is the Knight (based on the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VII, with an AWD system in real-life), which only has the power driven to the front wheels. Moreover, the Stadt has a FWD setup instead of the MR layout of the real-life Renault Clio V6 that it is based on. The reason for this is that FWD cars usually offer a more stable driving in-game with few risks to spin out, and thus its description available in the menu states that it has formidable handling.

Most NPCs that drive a yellow car are more than likely to purposely hit you during a race.

Characters
Each character will cruise around the city waiting for a challenge. This excludes Moses, who begins the Career Mode, and the four champions who will seek the player out after all predecessors are beaten. They will talk to the player or 'think loudly' during pre-race cutscenes during which the player can discover their motives, learn statistics of their vehicle, and preview their theme song.

Soundtrack
See here.

Trivia

 * This second installment of the series brought controversy for using many derogatory racial stereotypes for the racers in the game. The same effect also happened to Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, another Rockstar Games title.
 * Cheat codes were also usable in multiplayer, hindering the fairness of gameplay.
 * Much like the first game, there is no customization, since the cars are already modified to battle against the bosses.
 * There is an ability to quickly change the online user name, thus being able to join in and sabotage a race, and not being able to ban the user for his or her activities.
 * The maximum speed in the game is 249 mph (401 km/h), even with nitrous.
 * This is the only game in the series to be released for Microsoft Windows.
 * Midnight Club II is the second installment of the series to first introduce a police helicopter (only to be seen chasing the player and other racers in certain races) in Career Mode.
 * The song "Tony Touch - G'z Up" is the only song not playable in Quick Race (Confirmed on PC port)
 * It was delisted from Steam to avoid copyright issues relating to the songs' licenses expiring.

Gallery

 * For the game's gallery, see Midnight Club II/Gallery