This review was not written when sober.
User Rating: 8.5 | Midnight Club: Los Angeles X360
After some 4 or 5 hits off my good ol' bubbler I decided to play a new racing game. And this was my choice because once I played this game at my friends house while flying pretty high and boy, was it intense. So I borrowed it from him and today I decided to do this, because I thought it was fun and interesting. But the biggest reason why it was intense was because I was playing this game from the Cockpit camera view and my first impression it was exaggerated but very intensely realistic. The movements of the car combined with the arm animations are top-notch and very fun to watch, and on my personal experience from playing the game on my own time, much more challenging but at the same time easier in some ways, except it's a lot more entertaining than other camera views. Moving on, the game looks absolutely gorgeous and detailed. The city is not as huge as, let's say Paradise or GTA 4 but I feel like it's the right size, not that this was going through my mind when playing the game. But when you're in the car and you're flying down the highways it' can get very intense since the highway feels long and crowded, added with the vibration and motion blur it really seems like you're going for a long time. Moving onto game play, with my state of mind, the game at first was very easy to grab onto and go, the cars feel have a nice and firm handling to them, especially the muscle cars with no hydraulics so it feels a bit heavier on their side. Racing usually consists of A-B courses and sometimes there's actually circuits. But when you're feeling like me with this game, you don't really want to race, you'll rather drive freely around the cities and follow the rules for some odd reason, it feels realistic, and you'll screw around with civilian cars and occasionally talking to the guy who's sitting next to you on a red light...and by talking I mean you're saying something like "Wanna Race? huh, punk? Wanna Race??" while revving your engine and doing burnouts. Regardless the guy next to you is just another brain dead "city car" who's job is to just look like it's going somewhere. (Keep in mind that I was in Cockpit view 95% of my playtime.) But if you do want to race and compete like this, you'll find yourself in a very intense situation, but personally however, somewhat easy in some ways. Anyway, the cars are nicely detailed and there's a poop load of things you can change, I liked it because it felt a lot like the system they used in NFS: UG2 because you could also customize your interior. I'm sure you can guess what other generic things you can alter in your car, and oh yeah! You can make your car go faster by buying stuff too. The sound of the cars are nicely done and sure do better then the sounds in Forza, not because it's unrealistic, just because their sounds are much more fun to hear and you'll really feel the "rawr." The dialogue is very annoying and exaggerated especially when THC is invading your brain. Sometimes you'll wish you could mute them. The ambient noise on the other hand is very pleasing and immersive. There's plenty of cars to unlock and bikes too. For the hour or two playing this game with Mary Jane you'll find enough to do and that enough to do is fun and will surely make you believe you're going 160mph down a highway and if you're really floating it's guaranteed to trip you out.
High Game Rank: 8.5 Good for High Thrills. 
