Midnight Club II - sequel to the Playstation 2 launch title - arrives on the PC after flirting with the PS2 and Xbox, and while its menus are a little clunky and it doesn't cater to those without a steering wheel peripheral, it's still a great, interesting game that doesn't really feel like any other game out there.  There's a whole group of people tearing up the streets after dark, and your goal is to be the best of them.  You'll progress through the game by getting first place in each race, and ultimately earning the respect of all the other drivers.  But it's not going to be easy!

There are a number of modes available, and there's bound to be one that strikes your fancy.  There's an Arcade Mode with a number of options.  You can simply cruise around any of the unlocked cities, take part in pre-set races, or play some multiplayer games with your buddy.  The main mode of play is of course the Career Mode, where you cruise around the city in the darkest hours of the day until you find a fellow racer of the aptly named 'Midnight Club'.  With a quick blink of your high-beams, you signal that you're up for a race.  Then you need to follow him as he weaves through traffic and tricky streets until he deems you good enough to race.  This is where five or six other guys join in and the race begins.

The races themselves are made up entirely of checkpoints.  The cities are absolutely gigantic, and filled with tons of shortcuts and alternative routes to any one destination.  While the majority of races you'll see make you go from checkpoint-to-checkpoint, until you reach the last one, there are also some that allow you to go through the city and pass through all of the checkpoints in any order you please.  Either way, there's a lot of thinking involved because sometimes a little shortcut or a different path is all you'll need to pull ahead of the pack.  The onscreen map is a gigantic help.  It's a circle in the lower-left-hand of the screen that rotates according to your direction.  It shows major routes, the positions of other racers, and most importantly, where the next checkpoint is.

It should be known that this game is hard.  Really, really hard.  It's only a couple of races in before you'll be working that Retry button over and over.  This game is for the dedicated, not for those with a lack of patience.  You must come in first place to win - second place means jack in this game.  And the enemy AI - while reasonably good - is at times noticeably rubber-band.  This means that the race is very competitive, and usually ends with very close results.  When enemies are in front of you, they'll slow down so you can keep up with them.  When you're in front of them - even if you do extremely good throughout the race - they'll always be right on your tail.  While this can be a good thing, making for exciting races, it has some annoying points.  For one, it means that practically everyone rides in a pack throughout the whole race and you'll rarely see other cars taking many different routes.  But the really bad part is that even if you drive extremely well throughout the whole race, avoiding collisions and taking the best paths, one slight mess-up near towards the end of the race will send the entire pack screaming past you.  And since it's either first-place or nothin', there's no point in continuing once one person has finished...yes, you'll definitely be using that retry option a lot.

The control is fairly sharp, for the most part.  The game certainly has an arcadey feel, and doesn't try to be too realistic.  Sometimes it seems as if your car is super-light and gets shoved around far too easily, but for the most part, the physics are okay.  There are also a number of neat little moves you can pull off.  You have your standard nitrous boost - each car can only carry so many - but you can also gain some gnarly (I couldn't help myself) speed by taking advantage of Slip-Stream-Turbo.  When you get right behind another car, a small meter will fill up on the side of the screen.  When it's full, you can gain a quick spurt of speed and blast ahead.  Sure, you'd never see it happen in real life, but it is a lot of fun to do.  You can also perform a burnout by simply holding in your handbrake and accelerating - handy when you need a quick spurt of speed from a neutral position.  Another nifty ability is what the game calls Weight Transfer - when holding in the key and moving your car in any given direction, you can influence the car (or motorcycle) to lean that way.  It's especially handy when you need to even yourself out from coming off a big jump, or making sharp turns on a bike.  You can even tilt your car so it drives on two wheels for a distance, enabling you to fit in very narrow places or glide between cars.  The only real problem is that using a keyboard and mouse to play can make the game even more difficult than it already is; a steering wheel, or at least a gamepad of some kind, is recommended.

There are a ton of cars.  It should be said that none of them are officially licensed cars, but it's not hard to see that many of the cars in the game were modeled after popular real-life cars.  There are also some motorcycles that you can ride, and while they are certainly not as plentiful as the cars, they're still a lot of fun to drive around.  The cities themselves are awesome.  There are only three locations - Los Angeles, Paris, and Tokyo - but each is gigantic, and filled with tons of unique buildings (some of which you can drive through), cool scenery (how about driving through a pleasant little park?), tons of hidden routes (Paris has a gigantic underground system), and lots of traffic, of course.  I'm tempted to say that this is some of the best level design I've seen since the classic Beetle Adventure Racing, and best of all, you can drive through it in an entirely non-linear fashion.

The graphics are pretty good, throughout.  Each of the buildings has their own look to them, and one street is certainly recognizable from another - just because the cities are huge doesn't mean they have to look boring.  The night sky is complemented nicely with lots of bright street-lights and such... many of which, of course, are breakable.  And while they're not much real-time damage compared to other games (Pro Race Driver, anyone?) it isn't entirely missing; you'll notice some scrapes and dents, and if you're banging your car up a lot, some smoke hissing from the front.  Pedestrians are fun to hit, but they are graphically the worst part of the game: each is animated fairly badly, and always disappears a second after they're knocked over.  A little disappointing, having played games like GTA, for sure, but overall it's a tiny dent in a graphically strong game.

The sound is, to me, one of the most disappointing aspects.  It's either a generic techno or an utterly boring rap song, and I'm not just saying that because I don't like either of those genres - I don't mind either, in fact, but this stuff is just pretty bad.  I'll admit that a few of the techno tracks had me interested, but that's all the merit I'm giving this soundtrack.  At least the engines are done rather nicely, so it's not all bad.  The voice acting is also fairly good.  Some of the people you'll meet in the game are incredibly annoying, but if you stop and think about it, Rockstar probably meant for them to be that way - and they succeeded.  There are some nice, pleasant folk, too, that will be glad to help you out - a good touch.

Overall, Midnight Club II is a pretty darn good game.  I can't deny that the races are extremely fun at times, and I love the gigantic levels.  The control is okay - though you're probably going to want to use a steering wheel or gamepad of some kind.  Admittedly, the music is pretty cruddy, but the graphics are good, and the voice-acting helps make up for the weak tunes.  Overall, the only real thing Midnight Club II has to bother people with, aside from it's lack of PC optimization, is it's difficulty level - it certainly isn't entirely fair, and even then, you're going to have to plan your routes as best as possible and drive just as well.  But for anyone looking for a challenge - or just a fun racing title - this is definitely worth checking out.  Midnight Club II is an original, refreshing title that probably shouldn't be missed. 

Gameplay: 8.8

For the most part, Midnight Club II plays wonderfully.  Though it's very difficult, you'll really feel satisfied when you come in first place in a race that you've been working on for a while.  Each city is rendered beautifully and filled with shortcuts and alternate routes, making every race potentially different, and giving the game a very unique feel.

Graphics: 8.5

Except for the choppy pedestrian animation, everything in this game shines nicely.  Every street, building, lamp-post, and car is modeled well and feature strong textures.  It all looks pretty slick.

Sound: 6.5

I'm a little disappointed with this game's soundtrack - it's mostly boring techno or rap.  It's not that I don't like those genres; it's just that, for the most part, the actual songs themselves aren't very good.  Engine sounds and voice-overs do help, though, as they're pretty good.

Difficulty: Hard

Concept: 9.0

This title isn't really like anything else out there.  Sure, there's a lot of rally racers, street racing titles, motorcycle races... but this isn't like any of those.  You should be pleasantly surprised with this game's originality.

Multiplayer: 8.0

Two can play in the game's Arcade mode or a limited number of races, but it can be fun if you both know what you're doing.  You can also hop online and participate in a match, and although there's no ranking system or anything, you will probably have a good time.

Overall: 8.4

Midnight Club II is an interesting, refreshing title that's like nothing else out there.  The cities are great, the gameplay is great, and the graphics are nice.  The sound's not so hot, and it could have a better interface for the PC, but if you're even slightly interested in this title, by all means, check it out.  It is quite difficult though, so if you like your racing easy, you'd best look elsewhere - or better yet, find a cheat code.