Midnight Club: Los Angeles is a racing video game released in 2008. It was created by Rockstar San Diego and published by Rockstar Games. This game is the fourth in the Midnight Club series, which was later stopped in January 2010. The game includes 43 cars (58 with downloadable content) and 3 motorcycles (plus one additional with downloadable content). The large open world map of Los Angeles is as big as the maps from all three cities in Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition combined. After several delays, the game was finally released in October 2008.
Gameplay
Midnight Club: Los Angeles takes place in the city of Los Angeles, allowing players to explore freely in an open world environment larger than the combined areas of the three cities from the previous game, Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition. New features include a 24-hour day-to-night cycle, weather effects, and traffic with licensed vehicles, which make the game feel more realistic. The dynamic weather system can affect gameplay, such as making vehicles slide on wet or slippery roads. If a vehicle is damaged during races, players do not need to return to a garage for full repairs. Instead, they can use the "Quick Fix" option, which adds used parts to the car. To restore the car’s original appearance, players must visit a garage or gas station. This means a vehicle can only be totaled during a single race or event. The game uses the RAGE system, which changes traffic levels throughout the day: light traffic at night, heavy traffic in the morning and afternoon, and the heaviest traffic in the evenings. Motorcycles like the Ducati 999 R and Kawasaki Ninja ZX-14 are included. New additions also include customizable interiors, in-game photo mode, and customizable exotic cars. Developers focused on removing load screens, allowing players to switch from career mode to online races in under ten seconds.
Los Angeles is the longest Midnight Club game, featuring over ten types of races, such as series races, tournaments, pink slip races, and freeway races. Most races require players to race an opponent to the start line to earn rep (a skill-leveling system) before the race begins, though this step can be skipped. Races have four difficulty levels: easiest (green), medium (yellow), hard (orange), and hardest (red). Higher difficulty races offer greater rewards.
Special abilities return from the previous game. These include an EMP, which disables nearby vehicles; Agro, which makes the player’s car indestructible; Roar, which clears traffic with a sound wave; and Zone, which slows time for better handling. Unlike the previous game, all vehicles can use these abilities, and players can change them at garages.
Police return but are no longer tied to specific races. They notice infractions like speeding, running red lights, or damaging cars. If caught, players can pull over (triggering a cutscene) or flee, starting a pursuit. If a pursuit lasts too long or the player damages a police car, they may be arrested. The longer players evade capture, the higher the fine if caught. If a vehicle is totaled during a chase, the player is arrested.
There are sixty collectibles hidden in Los Angeles, marked by yellow oil barrels with Rockstar’s logo. Every ten collectibles unlock one of six modifiers (called "cheat codes"), while finding half or all unlocks achievements. However, using these modifiers (except one) prevents earning money, rep, or progressing in the career.
Online play supports sixteen players. New modes include "Keep Away," where players hold a flag as long as possible, and "Stockpile," where players capture multiple flags. New power-ups include Mirror (reflects attacks), Agro (increases vehicle weight for crashes), and Random (gives a random power-up). A feature called "Rate My Ride" allows players to view, rate, buy, or sell user-modified vehicles online. PlayStation Network trophies are included, with 46 total.
Many online features were removed after GameSpy closed in 2014.
The game includes a Race Editor, letting players create tracks for online play. A benefit is free-roaming the map without traffic, police, or damage.
Midnight Club: Los Angeles is part of Rockstar’s Social Club, which tracks driving stats and rewards players with items like hydraulics, TIS rims, and the Audi R8. Players earn these by achieving C-License, B-License, and A-License. The Social Club also lets players view vehicle ratings, compare stats, check leaderboards, and share photos. It hosts online tournaments with prizes for winners.
Plot
A man from the East Coast moves to Los Angeles. The character, called "Player" (Matthew Metzger), plays a major role in the game. At the start of the game, the Player is on the phone with the L.A. City Champ, Booke (Martin Luther McCoy), and is told to meet him at the fast-food restaurant Carney's Express Limited. The Player is given a choice of three cars to begin the game: a 1998 Nissan 240SX, a 1983 Volkswagen Golf GTI, or a 1988 Volkswagen Scirocco.
Once the Player builds enough reputation, they can become the City Champ and champions for each type of car. The first challenge is to become City Champ. At one point, Karol (Saul Stein) calls to inform the Player that Booke has returned as City Champ. Booke then asks the Player to race regional opponents to prove they are ready to race against him. After the Player wins these races, Booke calls to say he is impressed and invites the Player to race him at the Standard Hotel. This race is the City Champ race and one of the final races in the Career mode. If the Player wins, they become City Champ, and new championship races become available. After winning 35 races with each vehicle type after unlocking Group 4 vehicles, the Champs of all five car classes in the game challenge the Player. These characters include Oswaldo (Motorcycle), Julian (Tuner), Lester (Luxury), Pete (Exotic), and Marcel (Muscle).
After becoming City Champ, Karol calls with an offer. He asks the Player to earn $1 million to help co-own his two garages for his business. In return, Karol allows the Player to take anything from the garages for free. This offer also affects Doc's South Central garage, though the game does not explain how.
After completing 100% of the Los Angeles content in the PSP Remix version, an unknown man calls the Player using his cell phone number. The man says he wants to meet at Los Angeles International Airport for "his flight to Tokyo," which causes the Player to ask, "You talking about the Mid Night Club?" After the call, the Tokyo career and map become available in Midnight Club: L.A. Remix.
Development and marketing
Midnight Club: Los Angeles was created using the RAGE engine, which was developed by Rockstar San Diego's RAGE Technology Group. This engine was used for Rockstar's games on seventh-generation consoles. Rockstar San Diego producer Jay Panek said the team chose Los Angeles as the game's setting because the city is closely connected to street racing culture. The team also licensed real-life locations in Los Angeles to make the city feel more realistic.
The game faced several delays during development. It was originally planned for release in early 2008 but was delayed until September. In July 2008, Rockstar Games announced another delay, moving the release date to early October. However, the game was pushed back again and finally released in late October.
After its release, the game received multiple updates and downloadable content. The first update, released on December 9, 2008, included improved AI adjustments to match player skill levels, better police behavior, and additional leaderboard support for tournaments on Rockstar Social Club for the Xbox 360. The update also introduced a new online game mode called "Modes," allowing players to choose from various race and flag modes instead of just one, aside from cruise mode.
The most recent update, called the "South Central Upgrade And Content Pack," added a new area of the map, South Central Los Angeles, which was about one-third the size of the existing map. Players could download the pack for free or purchase it as a complete package with new character competitions, races, music, and cars. New vehicles included SUVs, which were not previously available in the game. The content was originally scheduled to release on March 12 but was delayed to March 19. Further delays occurred when the update had technical issues on Xbox Live. Rockstar later announced additional vehicle packs would be released in the future.
On January 14, 2009, the content pack was accidentally released on Xbox Live during testing and was quickly removed. Players who downloaded it were asked to delete it to avoid problems with achievements and save data. On March 23, an event for the South Central Expansion was scheduled for March 29 but was later canceled. Rockstar then announced the event would take place on April 4. Both the South Central Expansion and Premium Pack were released on April 4. On April 23, a second vehicle pack was released on Xbox Live and PSN, including four new vehicles: the 2008 Cadillac XLR V, the 2008 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X, the 2007 Aston Martin DB9, and the 2008 Ducati 1098 R. A special message appeared if all cars, including downloadable ones, were collected, stating, "More high-performance cars coming soon." This message could be viewed by entering and exiting any garage repeatedly.
On October 10, Rockstar released a free "police car pack" on Xbox Live. This added five police vehicles from Chevrolet and Dodge, with paint schemes from the Los Angeles Police Department, California Highway Patrol, and U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. Players could use these vehicles for racing or cruising, and police would chase them if they were caught street racing. However, if players activated the siren during a race, police would not pursue them, likely believing they were fellow officers. The police car pack was later released on PlayStation Network on October 22.
Midnight Club: L.A. Remix is a portable version of Midnight Club: Los Angeles for PlayStation Portable. It was developed by Rockstar London and released on October 21, 2008, in North America and October 24 in the PAL region. The game uses a modified version of the Los Angeles map from Midnight Club II and includes a playable city, Tokyo, using the same map from Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition Remix. Unlike the console version, police do not chase players in "Cruise" mode. Police chases occur only during one scripted event, and police cars appear as passive props in some races. The game does not include cutscenes, and cars are split between Los Angeles and Tokyo, with all bikes available in both cities.
Rockstar Games released Midnight Club: Los Angeles – Complete Edition as a PlayStation 3 Greatest Hits / Platinum Range title and an Xbox 360 Platinum Hit / Classics title on October 12, 2009. The Complete Edition includes the original game's map, vehicles, and music, along with all previously available downloadable content on a single disc. It also fixes bugs and unbalanced difficulty from the original version, allowing players to continue their progress without starting over.
Soundtrack
The original release includes 97 tracks with music from artists like Kid Cudi, Deadmau5, Nine Inch Nails, Nas, The Chemical Brothers, Beck, Snoop Dogg, Evil Nine, Wolfgang Gartner, Shinedown, G-Unit, Eagles of Death Metal, MGMT, Kavinsky, Bloc Party, The Game, SebastiAn, Disturbed, and Ice Cube. The South Central DLC added nine more tracks, including new music from Kid Cudi. This brought the total number of tracks to 106.
Reception
Midnight Club: Los Angeles received good reviews when it was released. Review sites like GameRankings and Metacritic gave it scores of 81.66% and 82 out of 100 for the PlayStation 3 version; 80.64% and 81 out of 100 for the Xbox 360 version; and 78.96% and 79 out of 100 for the PSP version.
Most reviews highlighted the game's realistic portrayal of Los Angeles, many features to explore, smooth gameplay, stylish visuals, and a variety of music. Some areas that were criticized included overused character types, slow loading of game graphics when starting the game, and difficulty levels that were not fair.