Midnight Club 3 Dub Edition Remix

Arcade racing games fall in and out of popularity but at the height of some of their biggest competitive years, Rockstar Game’s Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition Remix was vying for the throne of top-dog. It’s competition—the much-loved primary adversary in Need for Speed: Most Wanted. However, with Midnight Club 3’s amazing handling control of the cars, encouraged racing wheel functionality, high-octane speeds through night city environments comparable to the Burnout series, and a plethora of vehicles and music to choose from—this game was chock-full of hours of enjoyment and quality racing.

Highlight of the Series

Midnight Club 3 takes its place as a midpoint of the series and also, looking back, the most beloved.

With a stunning mix of open-world clearly inspired by its publisher’s even more popular series of Grand Theft Auto—Midnight Club 3 blends high-octane races including all manner of souped-up cars, SUVs, and motorcycles; nearly infinite customization of all its vehicles; while also carrying you through four main playable fully-realized open world areas of Atlanta, Detroit, San Diego and, specific to the Remix version, Tokyo. All the places have their own feel and with an amazing soundtrack including over 120 songs—there is no shortage of content in this game.

Arcade vs. Realism

Midnight Club 3 was initially released earlier in the same year of Need for Speed: Most Wanted—which debuted on both the PS2 and Xbox and their next console generation with the Xbox 360 and PS3. That being said, Need for Speed was critical in a change of the genre that strayed from fully arcade racers, and instead blended the likes of realism and racing to separate itself. Admittedly, that series would toe the line of realism and arcade, but Midnight Club 3 was a predecessor, and more inspired by games of the time like the very popular Burnout series. That being said, as opposed to specified driving mechanics like something you might encounter in the Forza or Gran Turismo series, you find in this game the ability to crash into oncoming vehicles(knocking them out of the way), or even slowing down time to quickly maneuver a difficult situation (a special move further popularized by Franklin in GTA V). And, that being mentioned, the inspiration of this game that carried over to the GTA series in IV and V is exciting to see.

The Complete Package

It’s always exciting to play a game that shows all the best the series has to offer—and Midnight Club 3 DUB Edition Remix is clearly the high-point of this one. With its follow-up in Midnight Club: Los Angeles, nothing was diminished but it just didn’t seem to harness the lightning in the bottle that its predecessor did.

This game, much like Burnout 3: Takedown, Need for Speed: Most Wanted, or Forza Horizon 4 is a high-point of a great series by taking all the components that make it popular and turning them up to 11.

Pros

• Four amazing open worlds for racing
• Tons of cars, motorcycles and SUVs to customize
• Killer soundtrack
• Great multiplayer component and modes for replayability

Cons

• Some occasional drops in framerate
• Arcady feel can sometimes diminish immersion