Midtown Madness
| Midtown Madness | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | Microsoft Game Studios and Angel Studios (Now Rockstar San Diego) |
| Publisher(s) | Microsoft |
| Platform(s) | Windows |
| Release | April 30, 1999 |
| Genre(s) | Racing |
| Mode(s) | Single player, Multiplayer |
Midtown Madness is a free roam racing/arcade game, first in the Midtown Madness series, developed by Microsoft Game Studios and Angel Studios (now Rockstar San Diego). The game features a range of vehicles which can be driven around Chicago.
Race modes
The game features Blitz, Checkpoint, Circuit and Cruise modes. Winning Blitz, Checkpoint and Circuit races allows you to unlock new vehicles. The Cruise mode lets you roam freely around Chicago.
Players can change variables which affect the vehicle's performance and visual appearance of the game before starting a race, such as the weather and time of day. Additionally, police vehicle frequency can be modified, as with the amount of traffic and pedestrians.
Available cities
Chicago is available as a free roaming, yet dimensionally limited, city locale in the game. It represents the innermost areas of the real life city, although is significantly less detailed than in real life.
Available vehicles
There are a wide variety of famous vehicles to choose from, such as the Ford Mustang, and the Panoz AIV Roadster. Many fans of the game have created their own vehicles, based on other popular real life vehicles. Each vehicle includes a number of unique paint jobs. Vehicles are available for selection via a screen detailing each vehicle's specifications, and allowing for mild manipulation of physics attributes.
Initially unlocked vehicles
Initially locked vehicles
The following vehicles are available upon completion of certain races.
- City Bus
- Ford Mustang GT Police Cruiser
- Ford Mustang Fastback
- Freightliner Century
- Panoz GTR-1
Multiplayer options
Support for multiplayer gaming via IP address, serial cable, and analog modem is built-in. Additionally, the game's multiplayer menu includes a link to the MSN Gaming Zone, which offered Midtown Madness lobbies until 19th June, 2006. Similar online gaming sites still support multiplayer gaming, such as GameSpy and SlideGamers, and also through instant messenger clients, such as XFire. Multiplayer clients use Midtown Madness's built-in DirectPlay support to launch and manage multiplayer sessions.
Modifications
Many areas of the game are open to modification.
- New vehicles can be added to the game. These are generally formed by fans producing models from scratch, with real life textures applied. The game's vehicle AI (such as traffic and police vehicles) can also be redesigned. Angel Studios released an incomplete development kit, which helped begin the initial wave of vehicle modifications.
- New locales (cities) can also be added to the game, however Chicago cannot be modified.
Trivia
*Some areas of the game seem to resemble areas from Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories