Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition

We received our review copy of Midnight Club 3 DUB Edition from Rockstar Games the other day and I must say I’m quite impressed.

First and foremost I only have one major negative issue with this title - the tremendously slow load time. To get a race started you'll easily be waiting at least 60 seconds for it to begin, and lets not fail to mention all the cut-scenes you must watch or skip through - this is definitely not a game for public transit. But aside from that, let's examine all the finer aspects of this excellent release.

The game play is definitely wonderful. Midnight Club 3 offers a variety of dissimilar play/race modes, including the ability to free roam (arcade mode) the 3 gigantic city maps, quick race which instantly starts a random race with random vehicles, and of course career mode which will provide many different racing challenges and tournaments in various environments. The player is also given the ability to customize their vehicle in every which way possible. I'm talking hundreds of customizable features which are broken down into categories, sub-categories and so forth. The option to "auto upgrade" your vehicle's performance depending on your current cash flow is available. This will save some time when browsing through the slow-moving garage menus.

Graphics are stunning - it really shows off what the PSP is capable of. The city maps are enormous and look so remarkable on the beautiful LCD screen. Textures, vehicles, and especially the cut-scenes look extra fresh. I'd safely assume all this beautiful artwork is responsible for the slow load time and sometimes the sluggish frame-rate, primarily when browsing the menus.

The soundtrack includes over 100 tunes from various artists covering a wide genre of music. The in-game audio option allows you to select a specific type of music or all types - suitable for the most diverse music lovers. Also by default, the left button on the d-pad allows you to quickly switch between tracks - a very handy hot-key!

Rockstar has packed a serious amount of goodies onto this tiny UMD, so if you can tolerate slow load times you should definitely pick this game up as it'll result in several hours of enjoyment. And best of all, it only requires 1.50! No firmware updates necessary (unless you're a 1.0 user).