Having licenses from GM, Chrysler, BMW, Dodge, Volkswagen, Saab, and a few other companies, Midtown Madness incorporates some very slick looking cars with some not so very slick. You’ll be driving Dodge Vipers, Beetles, and the Audi TT. While other times you’ll be driving taxis, police cars, garbage trucks, and limos. Midtown Madness was always known for its diverse selection of vehicles and the third installment of the series does not disappoint.

The basic premise in MM3 is that you’re a private eye who needs to do a few undercover jobs to get closer to your target. Whether you’re in the cobble stone streets of Paris or driving around in the FBI building in Washington D.C. you’ll get plenty of different scenarios to discover.

There are a few different modes of gameplay you can choose from in MM3. You can decide to follow the story line and work undercover, or if you’d like you can race around Paris and D.C. against others through a series of checkpoints. If racing alone is your specialty then you can select the Blitz mode and race through the checkpoints within the allotted time. Each game mode will allow you to unlock cars, and paint jobs for them. I opted to start my fun as an undercover officer in Paris.

Before you even jump into the undercover mode you should drive around in the cruise mode. Cruising in either Paris or Washington will give you a nice eye opener. Both cities look extremely detailed and are huge. You might think that having only two cities wouldn’t be enough, but driving in both offers a lot of fun and enjoyment. Combine the cities with traffic, citizens, some very fast straight-aways, how can you not have fun?!

As I said before MM3 plays a lot like Crazy Taxi and once you spend a few moments playing the undercover mode you’ll agree. The undercover mode allows you to drive different cars in different situations. You’ll be driving as a taxi driver, delivery boy, chauffer, policeman, stunt driver, and much more. Regardless of what situation you’re in, MM3 always follows the same type of gameplay. Drive to one place to drop-off/pickup someone or something, and then drive to someplace else to drop-off/pickup someone or something. This is how your time is spent during the undercover part of the game and unfortunately didn’t really hold my interest for too long. Not to say that there weren’t any memorable times, such as being a stunt driver in Washington, or a Chauffer in Paris, but for the most part the undercover mode fell stale after awhile.

While the game also offers a Blitz and Checkpoint mode it again doesn’t hold enough to grab my attention for long periods of time. While they aren’t bad, they just didn’t give me enough to stay interested, and usually only offered a few moments of fun. It’s the same old type of gameplay and while unlocking more cars and driving a Dodge Viper can be fun there was only one thing that stood out as some of the most fun and enjoyable racing experience and that is playing on X-Box Live.

After I played through the single player modes I hopped onto X-Box Live and to be honest - I wasn’t expecting much. Maybe a few races here and there but after that I figured it would go stale and become boring. Thankfully I couldn’t have been more wrong! There are three addictive types of gameplay that I spent all last night playing: Tag, Hunter, and Stay-a-way. These three games will offer hours upon hours of enjoyment and are the number one reason to buy MM3 and X-box Live. My favorite game, Hunter, pins one person as the hunter and the rest (up to 8 people total) as the prey. As the hunter crashes into other cars they join him and become other hunters while the list of prey goes down. It’s extremely fun watching seven cop cars come after you and listening to the chatter going back and forth. The next game, Tag, pits players against each other and one person must remain tagged. Whoever is tagged loses time on their meter and once the meter runs out for him/her they are retired. In order to stop the meter from counting down you must tag another car. One by one players will fall and as it gets down to the last two cars. It can get extremely entertaining, not to mention play some tricks with your nerves. Finally there is Stay-a-way which is a type of King of the Hill game where each player fights for the white rabbit. The player with the white rabbit becomes slower and the players without the rabbit become a little quicker. Having the rabbit in your possession will increase your time and whoever has the most time at the end wins.

These are three simple and easy games that can amount to so much fun. MM3 is all about online play, or if you want, system link. As I said before the single player modes, while fun, didn’t last long. If it wasn’t for the addictive and pleasurable multiplayer games I wouldn’t recommend this game to anyone. That being said, if you don’t have X-Box Live I would go out and buy it immediately, it’s just too much fun to pass up. I can see myself playing MM3 online for a long time to come.

MM3 boasts two extremely detailed and gorgeous cities, Paris and Washington D.C. Both cities look absolutely lovely and I couldn’t be happier with the finished product. Driving through each city you’ll notice real life landscapes, streets, and some very detailed buildings. Looking at the cobblestone pathways in Paris while raining creates a nice glossy look, and is a nice little detail.

MM3 keeps a steady frame rate and that’s with all the chaos ensuing around it. People will dive (never getting hit) out of the way of your car and loads of traffic will bear down on you from a one way street. DICE and Microsoft Game Studios have created two living breathing cities and it’s one of the pinnacles of MM3.

The cars are also done well and true to life. Car enthusiasts will be able to tell an Audi TT from a Dodge Viper and a Lotus Esprit Turbo from a Garbage Truck (god I love that thing). Each car looks great and what surprised me even more was the traffic surrounding you. Even though it’s not as pumped up as your own car, it’s very worthy of being noticed. What makes the traffic even more noticeable is when you ram each car and windows shatter, bumpers get dent, and glass cracks. There are some very cool looking damage effects put onto the cars. I found it pretty funny when you’re racing with some friends and you pull up in your Beetle all smashed up and dented. Prepare to get ribbed at for your lack of driving skills.

Overall MM3 shows off some very nice graphics and people will be happy with the finished product. The cities look brilliant, the cars look gorgeous, and breaking stuff couldn’t be more fun. Combine that with some nice lighting effects and the cool day and night shots, everyone should be happy.

Probably the worse category for MM3, the sound and music just seem to be out of place. The voice acting, while at times (not many) were funny, end up being nauseating, repetitive, and annoying. Maybe it’s the French accent that I just can’t stand, but most of the voices sounded like they were reading from the script. I know some of it is supposed to come off comical, as MM3 is one of those games you’re supposed to laugh at while playing, but it just seemed that for the most part I wasn’t laughing.

The music isn’t anything to smile at either. While it wasn’t bad, it wasn’t truly good. It’s the same old stuff you listen to during a racing game and when I saw that you could use your own custom soundtrack I thought at least we’re given a choice. But as I said earlier, that hope fell short and your left with what MM3 has to offer. It won’t make your ears bleed, but it won’t make them tingle with happiness either.

I got excited when I saw the custom soundtrack option checked off on the back of the MM3 box. Now I could listen to my own music while racing with my buddies online right? Wrong! Unfortunately there appears to be some sort of glitch and the same song is played at the beginning of every new race. I don’t want to hear the same song over and over again 1000 times. It’s nice to have the option for your own soundtrack but if it’s buggy why use it? As I noted earlier you have LIVE compatibility and expect more vehicles to download in the later months.

The MM3 interface is just as we’ve come to expect from racing games. You have your speedometer and damage meter on the bottom right, and your map a'la Midnight Club II on the bottom left. During some parts of the game, and for all multiplayer modes, you’ll have a score list on the top left that will show you the name of opposing players, and their racing times and if applicable how many check points they’ve cleared. Overall a good presentation but I’m still a little peeved about that custom soundtrack problem.

I said it once and I’ll say it again, if it wasn’t for the online brigade that MM3 offers, I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. I actually believe that they should have just released the online portion for 20 bucks and maybe get a lot more sales that way. Regardless the single player acts more like a quick tutorial than an actual game. Beating the full single player mode in around 10 hours you can’t expect me to say much more about it.

The multiplayer action is where the fun is at. In fact after writing this review I’m hopping online and intend to stay there for a few hours. If you’re unlucky and are one of those poor bastards who don’t have X-box Live yet, I’d start screaming for it. If you can’t get it I would persuade a friend to buy it, because without being able to play online, there isn’t much there. I would probably give this title a 6 or 7 but with the online joy I’ve been experiencing it gets an 8. This is one of those reasons X-box Live exist.