Hidden Gems #6 Midnight Club: Los Angeles, The Warriors & Bully
Today we will look in the marvelous world of the brilliant minds of Rockstar Games, the ones who are responsible for the grand theft Auto series being wildly successful. There have been a few games that have been overlooked during this time and here are the three biggest of them all. First let me get my PS2 and get started.(Hooks up system and puts disc in)
The Licensed Attempt: Aww yes The Warriors based on the movie, as the game begins your greeted with a cool cutscene then afterwards the game has you select 1st player. You are pretty much learning the controls of the game in which they'll show what the gameplay would be from my point here is it doesn't look that bad, but anyways your in coney street with a gang called the Warriors Led by Cleon. Right away you realize this game is a beat em up. In which I already covered one that focuses on mainly one person fighting away to which this has accompanied by a 2nd man in the battle against random goons trying to take you down. Mainly your rivals Most of which were in the film as well throughout the whole game. You play as each of them, but only for a brief part as it switch to another member. Eventually you reach to the final rival the Rouges with leader Luther whom you duel then, after he is a sore loser he pulls his gun in which you will throw a knife near his arm in which the Riffs arrive as they now know the Rouges unmasked were cyrus's killers and reach by to your home turf as the game ends. Most license games aren't very accurate, but this right here is very close to it's film if not completely like this one. This game is very fun, compelling, & addicting give this game a shot if you like movie you'll love this game 8.5 out of 10.
GTA Like: Well with a underrated licensed comes an underrated 3rd person adventure game that is pretty much GTA only in a college setting (although in the game it's Bullworth academy which I guess is a high school, but feels more like a college if anything) in which this game is Bully which is Single player only like the previous game. You start with this guy named Jimmy Hopkins who's name reminds me of ''I smoked pot with johnny Hopkins'' That maybe irrelevant slightly, but anyways you start as a newcomer in the academy and your introduced to Gary Smith who ends betraying you near the end of chapter one and let the games begin. The entire game play consists of you doing favors for everyone in the Academy finally after The headmaster was manipulated to expel Jimmy, he needed help from a few friends who still trusted him. So after fighting Gangs, Nerds, and Rich kids it all leads to revenge against Gary in which the headmaster heard everything from the top of building how that's possible I don't know. You win and Gary is expelled from Bullworth and you are once more the most popular man in Bullworth. I will say this is similar to another series which is Leisure suit Larry, but I'd rather play this way more cause it's not the same formula over and over as the game play drags along. Another solid game that's worth a look 7.5 out of 10.
The competitor to Need for Speed: Lastly we have a racing game from Northstar that is not nearly as popular as Need For Speed and that is Midnight Club series. Ironically the last game in the series got me hooked, although they started in the ps2 era, but were mostly overshadowed by of course Need For Speed and Also Burnout. So Instead looking at the series as a whole we'll just look at the last one of the bunch. As the title implies you are in L.A racing throughout the whole game. You have a total of 43 Cars and 4 Bikes honestly I prefer Bikes the only cons is that if you fall off it will cost you the race resulting in many restarts cause this game is in no way easy. This game is very lengthy so I'm going to break it down in the short possible way. Protagonist Judas ''builts up enough of a reputation, gain the ability to become Champ of the City. champ. At a point in the game, Karol calls telling Judas about Booke being back as City Champ. Booke then tells the player to race regional opponents to see if they can race against him. After Judas beats them, Booke calls saying he is impressed, and to meet him at the Standard Hotel for a race which ends up being the City Champ race vs. Booke and one of the final races on Career mode. When the player wins, the player not only becomes City Champ, but other championship races open. Once Judas wins against the lesser opponents, the Champs of all five vehicle classes in the game challenge Judas. The characters are Oswaldo, Julian, Lester, Pete, Marcel. After the player become City Champ, Karol calls and has a proposition.'' This proposition would end of a cliffhanger as the credits roll not knowing what it was of what use. That's not all I haven't mentioned it's multiplayer which I must admit I had a cool time with back in the day when there was little who had played it. Online play has up to 16 players at once and a number of new modes will be introduced including Keep Away where the player must hold the flag as long as he can and Stockpile in which there are numerous flags to be captured. New online power-ups mentioned include Mirror (will reflect any power-up fired at the player back to the person who fired it), Agro (will act the same as the offline special ability, increasing the players vehicle weight and enabling them to crash through other vehicles without taking damage or slowing down), and Random (gives the player a random power-up). Rate My Ride was also introduced, where players can go online to view, rate, sell and buy user-modified vehicles. Finally they featured a Race Editor in which you can all kinds of stuff with. Overall this can was very enjoyable at the time 8.5 out of 10.
Comments
R* is one of my favorite developers. Good one. - Skullkid755