First Encounter

Rockstar Games and their development house Rockstar San Diego have got some hardcore reputations to maintain, and the new urban street racer Midnight Club™ 3: DUB® Edition should keep their legacy safe and sound. To maintain the most authentic street racing experience possible, Rockstar leaned on the folks at DUB® Magazine, who made sure everything in the game matched up with the real world of customized cars. Along with the automotive realism is a more arcade-friendly style of racing through the city streets at more than 200 miles an hour—but don't expect any mercy when you take your custom ride onto Xbox Live™ to take on up to seven other racers for the ultimate prize: bragging rights. And you do it all in the flashiest automobiles and fastest racing seen on the system since Burnout® 3: Takedown™.

Everyone knows that flames = speed.

Rockstar San Diego specifically chose three cities where the unofficial sport of "import tuning" (a.k.a. ride-pimping) is a burgeoning underground culture in real life, too. San Diego is a natural, as that's were the company is based; Atlanta is home to some of the most creative and smooth designs on the planet; and Detroit is the Motor City, after all. If you playedMidnight Club II, some immediate differences are going to jump out—first, the unlicensed cars are gone (taking some of those goofy "extreme" characters with them), replaced with unlockable real deals. Even from the beginning, you have access to some pretty sweet, if low-priced, options, like a brand-new Jetta or a classic '64 Chevy Impala. You'll have just enough cash left to start tricking your car out, probably with a slick paint job, and then it's time to hit the streets. As soon as you start earning money, upgrades, and new rides, you'll find the game very difficult to put down. And, best of all, every single car, part, paint job, and rim has been approved for authenticity by the import-tuner-obsessed editors of DUB Magazine. If you're already a car-modding junkie, the added DUB seal of approval will really shine through; if you're new to the scene, MC3 will make a believer out of you.

Well-defined musculature.

Races are broken down into four types according to who you race and how. Street Races are a lot like the kinds of match-ups you'd find on Midnight Club II. A driving challenger appears on your map (press the back button to make the map appear), and if you can catch him or her, you enter a unique race with unique challenges and rewards. City Races aren't separated by auto class at all; here you find SUVs going head to head with lightweight imports and muscle cars—but the rewards are great. ClubRaces are sorted by class and let you win the most bang for your burning rubber. Finally, you can enter tournaments, rare events that offer the greatest number of rewards.

Now with licensed, painstakingly-detailed cars!

All the authentic cars, genuine accoutrements, and realisticDUB style doesn't mean a thing if the tracks and cities don't shine with equal style and flash. Fortunately, the cities of San Diego, Atlanta, and Detroit have been lovingly recreated, then modified to make them that much more racing-friendly. Streets have been widened ever so slightly, shortcuts and side routes riddle every course, and unpredictable hazards like ramps, pedestrian, and road construction abound.

Fortunately, MC3 doesn't require you to buy gas.

What will ultimately win Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition a whole new team of converts is the absolutely insane speed that these cars reach on the packed urban streets. The graphic effects are only part of the story, even though they look just as sharp (if not better) than those seen in Burnout 3. The game's version of turbo, "slipstream," ups the blurred speed effects to an even faster level that still plays smooth as silk—assuming you've chosen the right car. It's even crazier on Xbox Live, where you and up to seven other racers can meet in high-speed, high-stakes challenges in a no-(or at least few)-holds-barred match-up.

There are a lot of games that claim to be the ultimate street racer, but Midnight Club 3, with its DUB seal of approval, is making everyone else play catch-up.

By Ben Barker