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Caught in the Crossfire
Date of Review: Aug 25, 2000
The Bottom Line: Amid the tectonic plates of Gran Turismo and Sega Rally, Microsoft';s Midtown Madness erupts, managing to up the ante with a unique spin on realism.
FROM THE SPACIOUS CITYSCAPE OF CHICAGO to the raspy rumble of a ?67 Mustang Fastback, Microsoft?s Midtown Madness erupts, managing to up the ante with a unique spin on realism...
As I sit at an intersection along Lake Shore Dr., I am taken aback by the awesome sense of grandeur. Commercial aircraft occasionally dot summer?s sapphire skyline, while below, seemingly thousands of motorists and pedestrians scurry about.
?Get off the road!? shouts an angry driver, shattering my placid moment.
The traffic signal had changed from red to green... and back to red again. And while other drivers had managed to avoid hitting me, she did not.
Rear-ended, my adorable New Beetle drifted into the intersection where it bounced around like a pinball in cross traffic. A multi-car pileup ensued, stalling rush hour traffic at nearby intersections. Thereafter, the whole horrid affair began to threaten gridlock, a traffic jam in which entire blocks stagnate.
Startled, I fled the scene and hobbled down the nearest boulevard. A rash of wrinkled metal had broken out like Chicken Pox along its banana-yellow exterior. The radiator fumed clouds of grayish steam. And the front tires wobbled comically, robbing my Rice Rocket of control and acceleration.
?Chicago Style?
Whether you?re cruising around aimlessly or driving ferociously in one of 50-plus checkpoint races, Midtown Madness puts you in the midst of a living and breathing metropolis. The city is a spectacular model of Chicago that squeezes more than 50 landmarks (such as Buckingham Fountain, Michigan Avenue and Sears Tower) within an area bounded by I-90 and Lake Michigan.
Like its real-life counterpart, the virtual Chicago is a collage of eclectic enclaves each adjoined to the other by a cluster of winding streets. Downtown, where a densely packed cosmopolitan has been thrown skyward, six-lane roads cower in the shadow of skyscrapers. On its southern fringe, a matrix of roadway suddenly gives way to quaint boulevards and an Oriental-styled decor. Unless you?ve been here before, Chinatown can be reclusive.
The Industrial District looms to the west, across Chicago River. It oozes manual labor with rows of austere warehouses lining sparsely intersected streets. Grant Park meanders along the shoreline of Lake Michigan (to the east) and harbors a potpourri of interest that ranges from Chicago Art Institute to Adler Planetarium to Soldier Field. The park attracts motorists in droves, making it one of few places where you?re likely to dodge chartered busses, compact cars and stretched limousines like Walter Payton.
Welcome to reality
Unlike other games (where the player is the protagonist), you are not the main attraction in Chicago. During sultry summer days the Windy City is a bustling metropolis. But on bone-chilling winter nights it can be astonishingly quiescent. Population density will fluctuate throughout the day as people trickle from one area to another. Rush hour and traffic accidents are the exceptions, clogging thoroughfares with anxious commuters.
The spectacle can be humbling from the cramped cockpit of Panoz GTR-1, one of 10 vehicles that range from a plush Cadillac Eldorado to an ascetic city bus. In Panoz, you will (literally) look up to diminutive cars. An extremely low center of gravity gives the Le Mans racer cat-like agility, but in a metropolis where bulky delivery trucks and unruly cab drivers are as natural as the undulating terrain, perspective is everything.
Defensive Driving
Like the real world, you?ll need to keep a watchful eye on traffic patterns (to determine the safest or fastest routes) as well as your rivals, who are liable to bully you along the way. Most races are unordered, meaning that drivers (human and CPU) determine their own paths, passing checkpoints in an order that suits them. Yet, despite the sprawling cityscape, routes invariably clash. It?s not uncommon to round a lonely corner and collide head-on with two or three eager competitors. For this reason, races rarely begin without incident?or end without accident.
Desperate to shave a few seconds from their race times, ornery characters (especially those in massive F-350 Super Duty pickups) won?t hesitate to bolt into oncoming traffic and leave a string of accidents in their wake. Oddly, causing havoc can be more of a strategic move than a sign of poor driving since it forces nearby motorists (among whom are your competitors) to take alternate paths or risk crippling injury.
In a Nutshell
Microsoft?s Midtown Madness is a living portrait with an ethereal sense of perspective and scale. More than just a stellar driving simulator, it is a surprisingly articulate statement of virtual reality, where stunning physics and the glaring rendition of Chicago pales to a sublime sociology.
