Midnight Club Street Racing only has two tracks, but what tracks they are! New York City and London, to be exact. I haven't been to London, but I can tell you that most of NYC is reproduced down to the finest detail. It's strange, but if you've spent time in either city, you'll be able to pick out landmarks in your neighborhood and drive down streets you recognize. Much like Rockstar Games' other racer for launch, Smuggler's Run, I found myself just cruising around the cities gawking at all the cool stuff without any thought of racing. All the cars in Midnight Club can be detailed down to the hue and saturation of whatever RGB color-mix you decide to go with. There's shine off wet pavement, and lights flicker over the cars' paint. It's so very pretty. Because this is a character game, each driver has a brief bio, and the voice samples during the game are hilarious. Other sounds include all the vehicular mayhem you raise by crashing into scenery, traffic and even pedestrians. People scream at you in the streets, other drivers taunt you and everybody starts crying for an ambulance when you get all 'Christine' on 'em.

IMHO, Rockstar gets the gold crown for racing games at launch. In Midnight Run it's not about fast tracks or placing in heats and practice runs. This is no-holds-barred cafe racing, with only your pride and pink-slip on the line if you mess up. Between Arcade and Career mode, you'll find punks in the street determined to show you up, driving everything from torqued taxis to hi-performance pickup trucks. Arcade Mode includes several types of play, but all are single races against a particular adversary in one of the two cities. You get a chance to pick your car, choose weather conditions and unlock hidden cars or opponents. Cruise, Head 2 Head, Waypoint and Capture the Flag are all under Arcade Mode. Cruise is just a free-ride, and you can check out all the shortcuts and alleys you'll need to know for the events to come. Head 2 Head is you and another character, racing for the finish line. Waypoint throws you into a pit of challengers, all trying to steer through waypoints in the city and be first at the finish line. Capture the Flag is just like it sounds, requiring you to grab flags for drop-off down the road.

Career Mode doesn't have sub-categories, but you won't miss 'em. The idea here is that you start with a generic car and work your way up through the ranks by winning races and grabbing your opponents' pink-slip. It's like a mix of Head 2 Head and Waypoint Mode, but with a neat twist. After you win the race against an opponent, you can cruise around the city looking for the next challenger. Stay on the trail long enough, and you'll be challenged to a race. Win the race, win the car, etc. You can use a cell-phone to track down characters you've raced before, but Career Mode actually goes through stages. At first, you're just a punk in NYC, but you'll eventually end up in London through hard work, racing on the wrong side of the road. Split-screen two-player is available only in Arcade Mode; you can adjust how many AI opponents race against you or what the weather and traffic look like before you take off.

There's no denying Midnight Club can be really hard in spots. Until I learned to fight dirty (or drive dirty) I was constantly being stomped all the way to finish line. Rockstar didn't skimp on the secrets and shortcuts, and the best AI drivers will often lead you into cool areas you didn't know were there. The hardest time is when you're coming up in Career Mode and don't have a decent car. As you beat other drivers and earn their cars, things get much easier.

Thank you Mr. Newton! Without physics, Rockstar wouldn't be the racing studs they are! There's nothing on a simulation level here, but each of the car types have very different handling qualitites. You do take damage in Midnight Club when hitting buildings, battleships or other drivers, but wearing down the damage meter just means you lose time on the clock. Some parts of the driving experience are wacky, like flying through the air or grinding on the median like your Civic was a skateboard, but Midnight Club has enough realism to make most racing fans happy. Analog control with steering in one stick and acceleration in another is my favorite configuration, but Rockstar makes it easy to customize for personal preference. Just about everything in the races can be changed, and load times are short between levels. Navigating through the menus is easy, and Midnight Club saves for you after each level anyway.

Scoring is simple - you either win the race or lose your car. When in Waypoint Mode, there's no real structure to track how you're doing, except for a little blue arrow that points to a suggested target. But, it's all free, and if you feel like blowing off the competition and chasing ducks in The Thymes, go nuts! Instead of a point system, you either complete the objective or fail. This may not appeal to everyone, but I appreciated the freedom to improvise.

Midnight Club is like Gran Turismo with Solid Snake behind the wheel... :^) Some of the buzz I saw seemed misleading after I played the game, because even though you're spending all your time in a car racing through the city, you have to keep that killer attitude and treat the whole thing like strategic conquest if you hope to be first at the finish. No amount of mastery in racing will change your opponents' willingness to crash through windows and drive right over you. Midnight Club is all about staying on your feet (or wheels?), and I couldn't imagine a more escapist pleasure than free-wheeling down Avenue of the Americas, headed for the East Village to call some punk out and try to score a new car.