Midnight Club: Los Angeles

When overpopulated genres start to get exhausted with more and more entries — yup, we’re looking at you, World War II, retro Live Arcade ports, and street racing — it’s hard to get super-firedup about the next damn one. But the Midnight Club series has always had undentable cred, and Rockstar earned it by wisely putting out a new one roughly three years after the last. Just enough time to get your appetite back.

If that sounds familiar, you’re probably just about ready to roam the streets of L.A. in the series’ fourth game. While Rockstar is keeping lots under wraps, the biggest tidbit they’ve let loose so far is that Midnight Club: L.A. will let you race at various times of day, ranging from dusk to rush hour. When we first heard that, we thought “So the $%@! what?” too, but seeing the game in action changed our minds. For a franchise that’s always been about racing at, y’know, midnight, depicting a vastly detailed Los Angeles on a hot sunny day actually lets these sexy graphics strut their stuff. Along with the expected breakneck sense of speed, the camerawork is also really compelling, sliding to the side of your car or behind it as you screech through a turn, hit the nitro, and so on.

As the name suggests, you’re stuck in L.A. the whole time, but that’s hardly a prison sentence, as this L.A. is the size of all three cities in the last game combined — and you can drive anywhere with no load times. It’s not a geographically accurate replica because Rockstar’s made tuning it for race-ability a priority, but you’ll recognize landmarks as you roam from Sunset Boulevard to the valley and back to downtown and Santa Monica.

As always, you’re free to point your vehicle (motorcycles, SUVs, exotics, tuners, and muscle cars are all back) in any direction you choose as long as you cross the checkpoints in order. New cars and events now unlock on the basis of how many reputation points you earn, so you can skip or fail at the stuff you suck at. Keeping you out of menus and in those races is one of Rockstar’s big goals, so you’ll even be able to drive into a gas station for quick repairs — you won’t get your original parts, but temporary Bondo ones that’ll work until you get back to your garage. We already know we’re destined to use way too many of those…