Midnight Club: Street Racing

The PS2 underground street racer Midnight Club received an adaptation for the Game Boy Advance that takes the general gameplay concept, simplifies it and moves it to an overhead 2D view.

The game's main Career Mode puts the player in a taxi onto the streets of New York City (and in the second part of the game, London), with the goal of entering the street racing scene and becoming the best of the best. This is done by challenging other racers - winning against them unlocks their car for playing. All in all, there are 42 cars in the game, differing in top speed, acceleration, handling, durability as well as the number of nitros available. Most are won in races, others can be unlocked in ways that are less obvious.

There are two types of race: waypoint races are entered by spotting a so called "hook man" on the streets and following them around until a symbol on their head turns from red to yellow to green. The waypoint race itself is against the hook man and several of his gang, and consists of a number of waypoints that must be hit in order to finish. A green arrow displays the nearest waypoint, which is not neccesarily the next in line, though. The second type of race is head-to-head. These are triggered by calling the opponent on their cell phone, challenging them to a one-on-one. Progress in career mode is saved via passwords awarded after a won race.

Arcade mode allows players to replay content unlocked in Career mode. The two cities can be freely explored in Joyride mode (with amount of traffic adjustable), and all Career waypoint and head-to-head races can be relived as well.