#oneaday Day 908: City centre chaos

Been playing Midtown Madness 3 a bit today; watched a couple of LGR videos on the first two and was intrigued by the third one on Xbox, even knowing it was developed by someone different to the first two. (It was actually developed by DICE, who are now, to my knowledge, known for Battlefield and nothing but Battlefield, if you were curious.)

I've been enjoying it a great deal and once again I've found myself struck by how very much this feels like a game of its time — something that we probably wouldn't see today.

There are numerous reasons for this; firstly, a lot of open-world racing sims these days tend to take themselves a bit too seriously, whereas Midtown Madness 3 is pure, gleefully unrealistic chaos. Pretty much every roadside object can be bashed out of the way, meaning you can improvise your own shortcuts in all sorts of places.

Secondly, it's full of "foreign" accents you probably wouldn't get away with today. The entire Paris section of the game sounds like it's an audition for the next Inspector Clouseau film and, you know what, I frigging love it.

I'm probably not supposed to say that I love that sort of thing these days, but sod it — it's funny because it's ridiculous, not because of any sort of maliciousness. The voice actors involved (one of whom sounds quite a bit like Jennifer Hale, but I don't think it's her) are clearly having an absolute blast going over the top with their silly voices, and it really adds to the comedic feel of the game.

More than anything, it's just a really fun game with an irreverent sense of humour that knows what it is, has a clear vision of what it wanted to achieve — and it achieves it. It feels like a complete, self-contained package; it doesn't feel like anything is missing or going to be patched in later or added through DLC. It's just a good game, and it's easy to forget how nice that is sometimes.

Wish I'd listened to my friend and picked this up back in the day now! Oh well. At least I can enjoy it now!