November 21, 2007 - Glance through the IGN database, and you'll come up with five different titles -- 12 physical games -- spanning seven years that feature the phrase "Midnight Club."
That's a racing legacy that's hard to dismiss.
The cars of Club have screamed down streets, been tricked out by obsessed players and turned into flaming piles of wreckage more times than a drag race superfan could comprehend -- but each time a title comes out, the fans just want more.
Now -- fully entrenched in the era of HD -- we're nearing the release of Midnight Club: Los Angeles and all the fancy bells and whistles the title will bring to the series. How has the past helped the series get to this point and what can you expect from your latest go 'round in the Club? Well, IGN recently had the chance to speak with Jay Panek, a producer at Rockstar San Diego, and he wasn't afraid to take us under the hood of the game.
Get your motor running.
Get your motor running.
IGN: The Midnight Club franchise has been known for its innovations (motorcycles vs. cars, open world trackless racing), what were the motivations for introducing these elements?
Jay: Our main motivation since the birth of the franchise has always been to give the player freedom, and to combine that freedom with an incredible sense of speed. To choose their own path, the vehicles they want to drive, and the races they want to participate in; we wanted to give the player options and choices beyond what was previously offered in racers. This thinking naturally led to including motorcycles, race editors, and vehicle customization; while later influencing the way we laid out the career modes, online play and just about every other decision that has gone into the games. For us, the goal has been to create the perfect racing game - based partly in reality with real world locations, and partially in fantasy, as the game allows you to drive incredibly recklessly.
IGN: What was the original inspiration behind Midnight Club? How did that game come about, and what was it you set out to achieve in that game?
Jay: The inspiration came from a core group of guys that really loved racing games but wanted something more than just racing on tracks. All the racing games out there were boring, with no vibe and generally lacking any imaginative quality. With Midnight Club we wanted to make a game that truly fulfilled the fantasy of driving at incredible speeds, through real 3-D cities. Building in all the fantastical elements of amazing vehicles, intense opponent AI, real life locales and cops, we set out on our mission with Midnight Club Street Racing.
A little voice inside says,
A little voice inside says, "Don't look back. You can never look back."
IGN: Is Midnight Club: Los Angeles the game that you'd always intended to create from day one?
Jay: The new consoles are certainly allowing us to create an experience that we couldn't before, but if we were still making the game we envisioned 8 years ago, we'd be doing something wrong. The game is always evolving and you have to be open to that. With every new game you have to challenge the ideas that you've come to hold as truths. Something about Midnight Club: Los Angeles that we are really happy with is that you never leave the world. Going from career to arcade to the race editor to online is all done seamlessly. No backing out to a main menu and suffering through a collection of load screens. We've stuck to the original principles - freedom and speed, and used them to make a game for the high definition era.
IGN: What lessons from work on the previous titles have you applied to the game? In other words, what things have you avoided and what have you worked to highlight?
Jay: This is a great question, because this is exactly how we've progressed through all of the iterations. With each successive game, we're very critical of the previous one. Since the original Midnight Club we've really improved our city design with each new game; not only in terms of graphically, but also to make them feel better for racing. We've placed a lot of effort into the vehicles, how they look and how they handle. A good example of that is when we introduced bikes in Midnight Club 2; we were the first racing game to race bikes versus cars and the reason is simple: it's very tricky to pull off! We've obviously learned a lot since then, and are glad to be able to keep bringing them back and keep improving. Obviously I'm always reluctant to discuss the specifics of how we're doing these things, because there are so many other games trying to do what we do.
IGN: The game looks to exist somewhere between being an arcade racer and a simulation. What sort of experience are you working towards?
Jay: We always aim to make a fun game first and foremost. We've always liked the arcade feeling based in real world environments, but the cars must be great to handle and the driving very responsive. We give you real vehicles in real places, but we let you do some wild stuff. Call us crazy, but this is fun to us. So many racers are stuck in simulation, going 0-60 in 6.2 seconds. Big deal. YOU can do that driving home. Why would I want to do that in a video game too? We give you vehicles and a city that you can have a connection with, something in reality, then we let you do things you just can't do in the real world. Take a jump off a parking garage at 150MPH, land and weave through traffic to the finish line? These are the things we find fun and try to incorporate into our games. The game is meant to be a driving fantasy.
Oh, flying police cars of the original Midnight Club Street Racing, we miss you.
Oh, flying police cars of the original Midnight Club Street Racing, we miss you.
IGN: What we've seen of the game looks to have done away with most of the menus and screens that usually pop up in racing titles. Can you explain how this works to our readers, and how the team has ensured that the player will still always know what they've accomplished and what they're working towards?
Jay: This is all part of the experience we've been trying to achieve since the franchise's conception. We get you into LA as fast as we can. Once you're in the city, you're free to drive around and race what you want. There are other racers cruising the strips in LA, hanging out in parking lots or just driving on the freeway. To start a race you just match the speed of another racer and flash your headlights. No menu. No load screens. I don't know about you, but the loads on a lot of games are out of control. Of course, there are menus in order to access other modes, options, etc, but we try to keep these to a minimum so the player spends as much time in the world as possible and not in menus. Even when you change modes, you're not going to get annoying load screens. For example, let's say you're cruising around in career and decide that you want to race some arcade races. You don't have to quit out to the main menu and navigate through a bunch of menus selecting your race, then your car, then load back into a race. You just pause the game and select your race from the arcade option. Then without a load screen; I don't mean after a short load screen, I mean NO LOAD SCREEN, you're put at the start of the race. The length of time it takes to go from playing career to racing in an arcade race is less than 10 seconds. This is less time than a lot of games spend just loading the front end so you can then go navigate half a dozen menus which lead to another annoying and lengthy load.
There is a lot going on in the city and always plenty for the player to do, so to keep it clear, the player has a mission log that tracks the progress on all missions. For us, doing our utmost to keep you in the game world as long as possible is an important part of the experience.
IGN: The dynamic weather elements look really cool. How much of an effect does weather have on game play?
Jay: Roads are a little slicker when wet, but not enough to be frustrating. For the first time in the history of the franchise there is a 24-hour day/night cycle. Everything from weather to traffic patterns in Midnight Club: Los Angeles change during a 24-hour day. We did discover one way the time of day and weather affected game play that we weren't expecting. The city looks totally different at night than it does in the day. This may seem obvious, but it actually makes a race you've done at night seem brand new, because the visual clues you use at night to hit a shortcut are different. That, with the weather and traffic changing throughout the day, will keep the player on the edge of their seat for a long time.
Wait. Did we want 101 west? Where's the GPS?!
Wait. Did we want 101 west? Where's the GPS?!
IGN: In the demo that we were shown, after flashing your headlights at a car to initiate a race, you then raced the car to the starting line, thereby making a single race actually a sequence of two races. Why is this, and how does it work?
Jay: In earlier versions of Midnight Club, we used to have to follow a cruising racer to every race. As I said earlier, we take a critical look at the previous games and try to evolve them for the next iteration; this is one of those things we talked about before that we weren't entirely happy with. After a while, it felt like more of a chore than game play. In Midnight Club 3, we introduced the concept of racing the other racer to the start of the race. This meant the player didn't have to hold back if the other racer hit traffic or something. The player could take any path he wanted. We're back to that freedom thing. With Midnight Club: Los Angeles, we've taken it a step farther. You still race to the starting line, but at any time during that drive, you can flash your lights at the competitor to immediately begin the race. The player isn't tied into these races to the starting line if he doesn't want to do them, but if the player does want to race to the starting line, he is rewarded for his efforts.
IGN: The game's progression now relies on Reputation Points. Can you explain how this setup works?
Jay: With Midnight Club: Los Angeles, we really wanted to make every race count for something. So every race you complete, whether it is in career, arcade or online mode, rewards the player with points. These points drive your progression and unlock things like vehicles, as well as performance and visual customizations. The amount of rep points you earn is entirely up to you. Racers in the city are represented with colored icons on your GPS. These colors represent their difficulty. The more difficult the opponent, the more reputation you earn.
IGN: Why did you choose to base the game in Los Angeles? Why not create a fictional city?
Jay: Los Angeles is an iconic city with a strong street racing culture. It's a great choice for the game. A fictional city would be a lot easier to make, but in the end, it's a fake place that players have no connection to. With Midnight Club: Los Angeles we licensed real places in LA which gives the city even more authenticity. You can spend hours just driving around LA looking at iconic landmarks and finding back alleys to use as shortcuts in races. If you look at the past games, you can see we achieved something similar with Paris, Tokyo, Detroit, and San Diego to name a few, but never with the level of detail and scale that we're able to achieve with Los Angeles.
Rims are in.
Rims are in.
IGN: Since traffic is dependent upon the time of day, can you skip time to take on harder races in the middle of the night when there will be less traffic?
Jay: It doesn't exactly work that way. The time in the game is always running. In Midnight Club: Los Angeles, you'll be racing at all times of day. Now, anyone familiar with Los Angeles knows there are certain times of the day that really aren't conducive to driving, let alone racing. In fact, most of them, but we don't try to simulate this because rush hour isn't fun. Traffic does get heavier at certain times in the day, but never so heavy that it isn't fun to race through.
IGN: Can you spill any of the beans with regards to online play yet?
Jay: The Midnight Club franchise has been a genre-leader in terms of online play since the second game in the series, Midnight Club: Los Angeles looks to continue, and expand upon that tradition. In addition to all the career races being available for online play, we also have Capture the Flag and other battle modes. Like I mentioned earlier, playing online earns you rep points which progresses the player and unlocks more vehicles and parts. Something we noticed with previous Midnight Club titles were the number of people who were just cruising online. They were just getting 8 people in a cruise and messing around. They would call out a race to a landmark somewhere in the city and go. With Midnight Club: Los Angeles, we've expanded on the cruise mode. Now, while in an online cruise session, players can access races, battle modes and the race editor and create races for the group. Everyone in the session can elect to either participate or keep cruising. Those who choose to race are taken to the race start but are still in the same session with those still cruising. This way, you can stay with your friends in a session and you can still do whatever you want. I mentioned the Race Editor. While people are doing whatever they want in cruise, a player can go into the Race Editor, while still in the cruise session with his friends, and make a new race. When he's done, he can post the race to everyone in the cruise session. After a race, everyone is back in cruise and free to do whatever they want.
Already loved the DUB Edition, and now they inlcluded some day racing. Sweet.
