[typing]
You know, one of my favorite video game genres is the racing game.
And one of my favorite things to happen to the genre is the addition of the open world.
So today I'd like to take a look at one of the earliest games that I remember
to add those two things together.
Microsoft Midtown Madness: Chicago Edition,
developed by Angel Studios and published by Microsoft
in 1999 for Windows PCs.
Of course, this wasn't the first open world racing game by any means.
You had games like Spectrum HoloByte's Vette!
doing similar things back in 1989, for instance.
But this was the first game of its type I'd seen at the time
and it was nothing short of mind-blowing to me.
"Say Goodbye To Gridlock."
"Run every stop sign,"
"drive the wrong way."
"Now that's racin' Chicago style!"
And having actually driven around Chicagoland on several occasions,
I can say that's not just racing Chicago style,
but driving Chicago style, in general.
Inside the box, you get the game
on a very blue CD-ROM,
and a jewel case booklet,
which contains some basic information about the game,
though the meat of the info is included on-disc as a help file.
It also has a small map of the city in the center of the booklet,
but the in-game map is far more useful,
so if you're referring to this during gameplay, you're doing it wrong.
Typically, I'd start off by showing the game's startup sequence at this point.
But I've just gotta mention the installation here, because it's awesome.
Instead of a typical status bar,
you get to see a Panoz Roadster being painted
while other vehicles of the game drive by in the foreground.
Seriously, whatever happened to creative installers?
I could do a whole video on these.
Maybe I will, but for now,
Midtown Madness begins with some logos and a splash screen.
followed by the main menu,
and one of several awesome and funky tunes in the game.
[funk music]
From here, you can choose from three modes:
Quick Race, Single Player and Multiplayer,
as well as change the options and view any saved race records.
The options are pretty standard,
but I like going back and looking at the graphics options
and remember how much of a bragging right it used to be
to be able to turn up everything to the max
and still have this game run well.
Mmm... AGP textures, reflections
and clip distance sliders.
Oh, yeaaahhh...
Choosing Quick Race does what you'd expect.
It drops you into a race as quickly as possible,
only letting you select a car and its settings.
But if you want to get the full experience,
go to Single Player straightaway.
Here you create a driver profile and choose your difficulty,
then select from four different race types:
Cruise, Blitz Race, Checkpoint Race and Circuit Race.
It's a good idea to start off with Cruise to get your bearings first,
and all modes take place on the same map of Chicago.
Though with the game being subtitled "Chicago Edition,"
and there being a button for race locales,
you'd think there would be more places to drive,
like through an expansion or something.
But unfortunately there were no such packs
or downloads officially released for the game that added any.
Anyway, you still have Chicago
and you have the option to change five parameters in races that support it:
time of day, weather, and the densities of traffic vehicles, pedestrians and cops.
On the next page, you're given the option to choose from the game's ten vehicles,
and these vary from city buses to muscle cars
to the Panoz GTR-1 racecar
and then-new Volkswagen Beetle.
Each of them have their expected strengths and weaknesses,
as shown by their status bars,
and only a handful of them are unlocked at first.
You gotta play more races to get more stuff.
You can even look at showcases for each car,
just in case you want more information on things that don't matter
as far as gameplay goes.
And you can also adjust the physics realism,
which is insanely useful, as you'll see shortly.
NARRATOR: Get ready to take a cruise t'rough da Windy City!
See all the sights o' da beautiful city o' Chicago...
LGR: Ah, yes, the game has a narrator
that chimes in every so often
voiced by Marty Lennartz,
a DJ for Chicago's 93.1 WXRT rock radio station.
But for the most part, it's just you, the car and the Chicago Loop.
And, yes, the game takes place primarily in the city's central business district,
as well as a few surrounding areas on both sides of the Chicago River.
From a basic approximation of I-90/I-94 to the west,
to a basic approximation of Lake Shore Drive to the east.
You've got several notable landmarks to explore,
like Navy Pier,
the Field Museum,
Wrigley Field,
Soldier Field,
[LGR, distant] Daaaa Bears...
the Sears Tower, and on and on.
If you're pretty familiar with the city, though,
you'll note that the map isn't exactly to scale
and is missing quite a few streets.
Another thing is that the Loop looks a lot brighter and...
well, less cluttered than the real deal,
though that's just to be expected due to late-'90s hardware restrictions.
And finally, some things are just changed around completely.
For example, the Picasso sculpture is nowhere to be found in Daley Plaza
on West Washington Street.
Instead, you have Calder's Flamingo there,
which in real life is found a few blocks south on West Adams.
So it takes some creative liberties with the layout of the Loop,
presumably for the purposes of gameplay, performance optimization and artistic license.
And being from 1999, you have some timepieces to explore,
like the lack of Millennium Park within Grant Park,
and the existence of the now-demolished Meigs Field Airport south of Adler Planetarium.
That's the aesthetics and whatnot. As for the gameplay itself?
Well, let's just say having the word "madness" in the title was no accident.
Of all the Microsoft games to carry the Madness suffix,
this is easily the most deserving due to the sheer chaos you can cause.
Smash into cars, run from the cops,
destroy all sorts of public property,
jump the drawbridges while they're up,
play chicken with airplanes on the runway,
crash through glass windows,
and try your best to run over pedestrians,
even though you can't and that always annoyed me.
Some other maniacal aspects of the game
are the physics and car handling,
and, yeah, these aren't exactly positive.
Remember that Physics Realism slider from earlier?
In theory, it represents the range of physics from arcade to simulation,
but that's just not the case.
In cruise mode, it's not such a big deal,
but in the actual races where you're trying to unlock new cars,
it's a real pain sometimes.
Each of the vehicles have their own physics models,
so the slider affects them differently
and it's not always good.
I mean, seriously, what the heck is this?
Other times it affects them TOO much
and you end up with either mad oversteer
or mad understeer.
It's made especially worse by playing with a keyboard,
since the game simulates turning the wheel all the way around
the longer you hold a direction.
Maybe that's why the game actually defaults to the mouse or a joystick,
since you NEED an analog controller to get the most from it,
preferably a racing wheel.
That's not to say it sucks, though,
since I certainly got used to it back in the day
and still have a lot of fun with it now.
And although I spend most of my time in Cruise mode,
the other race types provide all sorts of challenges
for when that inevitably gets boring.
Blitz Race is a straight-up point-to-point dash across town
with several checkpoints along the way
and a very stingy time limit.
Checkpoint Races are interesting in that you don't have any set route to take.
You're given a number of checkpoints to pass through
and a bunch of opponents to race against,
but it's a total free-for-all, as far as reaching them,
and whoever gets them all first wins.
And Circuit Races are your straightforward races around a pre-determined circuit,
laid out in various places around Chicago
with barriers blocking off the track.
One thing to keep in mind throughout all this
is that there's a damage model which varies for each car,
so it's entirely possible to damage out of a race
and either lose by default or get hit with a time penalty.
Combine that with the silliness of the physics
and the chaotic nature of the AI,
and you've got a racing game that is just as UNpredictable
as the Cubs' World Series potential IS predictable.
This extended to the multiplayer as well,
and you can play via all the main connection options of the day.
The big draw here was that you could also play Cops & Robbers mode,
in addition to the regular race types.
Play as either a cop or a robber with a car filled with gold
and try to get away while the other tries to take you down.
And while I thought all of this was great in 1999,
I must admit it hasn't aged very well in many ways.
Unlike some genres,
racing games have come a long way in their replayability and their options,
and this feels pretty simplistic in comparison.
That said, it was insanely special to me back in the day,
not only because of the gameplay and the open world aspect,
but because Chicago.
There's just something about the place, and there always has been for me.
being able to explore it virtually before visiting it in real life was just awesome.
I spent countless hours memorizing the streets and landmarks in this game
just because I was enthralled with the city.
And, yes, also because I could tear through it in a sports car at 150 miles an hour,
but largely because it was just a special place to me.
And finally, I'd be remiss not to mention
some of the other things that made the game special,
like cheat codes.
'Cause, man, I just miss silly cheat codes
and Midtown Madness has plenty.
Nothing like going around in a utility van or an airliner
with low gravity, almost no friction, giant pedestrians,
shooting mailboxes at everything and UFOs flying through the air.
And as if the game wasn't ridiculously filled with ridiculousness enough,
you could also mod the game.
Very easily.
There were countless mods for it,
allowing you to add new vehicles, new features,
and even new locations to the game
by simply dropping a few files into the base installation directory.
You could go as realistic or as fantastical as you could dream up,
with things as inappropriate as a monster truck roaming throughout the city,
to something as fictional yet appropriate
as the Blues Brothers' Dodge Monaco.
Oh, yeah, a game where you can crash through the mall in that thing
is only the best thing ever, as far as I'm concerned.
ELWOOD [on megaphone]: "The fabulous... Blues Brothers!"
"Rhythm and blues revue!"
And that's pretty much it for Midtown Madness.
It was a gorgeous game back in 1999,
it played pretty well,
it had a huge map for the time,
it had a great modding community,
and due to its real-world setting, it stood out from the crowd.
While it may not hold a candle to open world racing games of today,
for its time it was an absolute blast to play.
It was quite the success as well,
earning two sequels,
and also allowing Angel Studios to go on
and develop the Midnight Club racing game series,
eventually leading to them becoming Rockstar San Diego.
There's a good reason this game is fondly remembered
by many PC gamers nowadays,
and good reason why I still go back to play it every so often.
It's just freakin' fun.
And with the exception of a few other games like Driver,
it really existed in a league of its own.
It's a shame it's so difficult to get running properly on modern hardware,
especially if you want to use 3D acceleration.
But I'd still highly recommend grabbing a copy if you run across it,
as it's worth a look, even if it's kind of a pain to get working.
Now, if you'll excuse me,
[Chicago accent] there's some fantastic Polish sausages with my name on 'em.
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