Midnight Club Los
Angeles
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Game
Reviewed: Midnight Club: Los Angeles
Publisher: Rockstar
Games
Developer: Rockstar San Diego
Reviewer: Matthew
Scott
Platform: PS3 (Also on Xbox 360 and PSP)
Category: Racing
ERSB Rating: T
Game
Summary:
Midnight Club: Los
Angeles is the first installment of the popular Midnight Club racing
franchise
to release for the PS3 and Xbox 360 game systems.
Unlike past installments of the Midnight Club
games where there was more than one city to race at, this Midnight Club
game
(as you can tell from the title) takes place entirely in the city of
Los
Angeles. And I have
to say that Rockstar
San Diego did a fantastic job of bringing the city of Los Angeles to
life. Cars and
people are bustling everywhere,
famous landmarks are in place and even stores carry real names such as
Best
Buy, 7-Eleven and Gamestop. In
addition,
unlike past Midnight Club games where you raced only at night, this
city of LA
runs on a day/night cycle so you can race both during the day and night.
The story is quite
typical of most street racing games, but the story merely plays as the
backdrop
to what the game is really about and that is street racing. In fact,
there is
so much racing available that as of this writing, I have still not
gotten all
the way through the actual story.
But as
I said, the story is pretty typical, you play as the new guy to LA who
has only
enough money to buy an old car, but through street racing you will
start to
earn more money and rep to buy better cars and to become a high-end
sought
after street racer.
What Parents Need to
Know
Violence:
There
is some mild violence in the game in that cars can
crash. If you are
riding a motorcycle
and you crash your body will be thrown from the bike, but there is no
blood,
gore or death.
The
streets are also alive with people, but everyone in this
LA has lightning quick reflexes as everyone will jump out of the way
before you
have a chance to run them over.
Language:
In
the portion of the story I have encountered so far, I
have only heard one swear word and that was the word ass. The drivers will also
often insult each other
with trash talk during the races making fun of the way someone drives
or poking
fun at each other in other ways. For
example, I think I heard one guy say “Why don’t you save your breath
for your
inflatable girlfriend.”
The
ESRB also notes on the game case that Midnight Club LA
is rated T for “Strong Lyrics”. This
would be pertaining to the music in the game.
I checked out some of the song lyrics from the game on the
internet and
although I believe that the songs have been edited for the game, it is
not too
hard to fill in the blanks.
There
is an option, however, to create your own playlist so
if there is a song where you find the lyrics to be offensive or too
inappropriate for your family you can keep that song from your playlist.
Sexual Content:
So
far in the story mode, I have come across one woman who
was sporting some cleavage.
There
are also some sexual references in some of the music
(see more under the language section.)
Spiritual
Content:
There
is no spiritual content in Midnight Club LA.
Misc:
Street
racing is illegal and there will be times when you will
be chased by the cops and have to lose them.
Reviewer’s
Thoughts:
Midnight
Club: LA is a lot of fun and the way that the game developers
made the city of Los Angeles come alive is top notch, but this game is
also
very challenging in that there is very little room for error in these
races. Also, as a
parent I am concerned
about some of the lyrical content from the games soundtrack as well as
from
some of the trash talk that takes place. With that in mind, I would not
recommend Midnight Club LA for young kids.
