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Midnight Club: Street Racing for PlayStation 2
Midnight Club: Street Racing for PlayStation 2 lets you race through New York and London without barriers closing off every turn. In this arcade racing game, you find your own fast route between checkpoints. A wide main road gives you room to build speed, while a narrow passage can help you recover lost ground. Traffic, pedestrians and police make that choice less predictable. You have to read the next turn while watching what is happening right in front of your car.
Your career starts with a modest taxi. By finding, challenging and beating other street racers, you win their cars and unlock new races. One race pits you directly against a rival; other challenges scatter several checkpoints across the city. The map and direction arrow help you get your bearings, but do not decide which street you take. Missing a turn therefore often calls for a quick new decision rather than simply turning around.
Outside the career, you can enter individual races or explore the city to learn its corners and passages. With two standard controllers, you can also compete simultaneously on one console using a split screen. Capture the Flag changes the objective to picking up a flag and taking it to your own destination. This gives the same street map a different purpose: you are trying not just to be faster, but also to anticipate the other driver's route.
Region and language
Our PlayStation 2 games are PAL editions and come with a Dutch or English box, unless stated otherwise. By default, you receive the version for the European market. We note it in the product details if the region is different or the box is in another language. In almost all cases, the game is playable at least in English, and often in the other five common European languages too.
Manual
Midnight Club: Street Racing for PlayStation 2 includes the manual unless the product title states otherwise. If the booklet is missing, the title says “No Manual”. This lets you see before ordering whether the game comes with a manual.
The manuals included with our games usually contain at least English and often around six European languages. The exact languages vary by edition, so Dutch is not always included. The booklet explains the controls and the main rules. You can use it to check how to control the game, which actions are available and how its different features work.
The history of Midnight Club: Street Racing
Angel Studios developed Midnight Club: Street Racing and Rockstar Games published it for PlayStation 2 in 2000. It was part of the console's North American launch in October; the European PAL release followed later that year. Angel had previously made Midtown Madness for PC. Its experience with driving through a populated city took a different form here: nighttime street races, rivals putting their cars on the line and a career taking you from New York to London.
At the time, Rockstar was also working with Angel on Smuggler's Run. Both games let you cross a large area, but gave that terrain a different purpose. Smuggler's Run was about delivering cargo across unpaved ground; Midnight Club used junctions, traffic and pursuits as parts of a race. The city was therefore more than a backdrop. The available side streets determined which risks you could take and how much knowledge of the surroundings could contribute to a win.
Take-Two acquired Angel Studios in November 2002 and renamed it Rockstar San Diego. The team was already working on Midnight Club II, which continued the series in 2003 with different cities and motorcycles alongside cars. The first game preserves the original, smaller setup with two cities and a manageable roster of rivals. The standard release and Platinum version are the same PS2 game; later sequels add their own vehicles and gameplay rules.
Similar games for PlayStation 2
Midnight Club II retains the free routes between checkpoints, but swaps New York and London for Los Angeles, Paris and Tokyo. Motorcycles and additional driving techniques also change how you get through small gaps and fast corners. The first game focuses on cars and two cities. Both reward knowledge of side streets, but the sequel more often asks you to switch your attention between route choices, vehicle balance and available speed boosts during a race.
Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition expands street racing with recognizable car brands and many more ways to change your vehicle's appearance and performance. In Street Racing, you mainly earn other cars by beating rivals. The similarities lie in the open city routes and busy roads. You notice the difference between races: DUB Edition gives you more work in the garage, while the first game gets you back to the next opponent sooner.
Smuggler's Run also comes from Angel Studios and gives you room to choose your own route while pursuers try to stop you. However, you transport contraband across hills and open terrain rather than passing checkpoints in city streets. In Midnight Club, you read junctions and traffic; in Smuggler's Run, you judge how a slope or jump affects your course. Both make knowledge of the terrain more important than following one fixed racing line.
Need for Speed: Underground 2 combines nighttime street racing with a freely explorable city and extensive car customization. You look for events and shops and spend plenty of time on parts and appearance. Midnight Club: Street Racing ties progress more directly to beating rivals and winning their vehicles. Their shared appeal is driving through a city on your own terms; Underground 2 places greater emphasis on putting together a personalized tuner car.
Burnout 3: Takedown also uses traffic and high speed to make every overtaking move tense, but places you on defined routes. It also rewards you for taking out other racers through collisions. Midnight Club gives you more freedom to take another street and avoid a duel. In Burnout, a good decision often concerns position and contact; here, a detour out of your opponent's sight may be what decides the race.
