Vehicle congestion may be a problem for you, but the opponent A.I. never flinches. Rarely will you witness the other racers getting into accidents. They also exhibit an astounding knowledge of the tracks. Part of this goes to the plot – you're the new kid in town and they're established, so they know the lay of the land – but it results in constant restarts because you simply didn't know that a particular side street cut shaved several seconds off your time. The A.I. isn't brutally hard. In fact, during the beginning of the game, it will often exhibit rubber band behavior, useful for helping you learn the controls and layout of the city.

What is hard to put up with is making sure you have a car up to snuff for the later races and, unfortunately, this relies on the game's leveling system. Sure, there are tons of cosmetic things you can do to your car like changing the paint, license plate, and slapping on custom rims (usually done at no cost), but those don't help win races. You want engine upgrades, a nitrous system, and a better transmission. If you're not a car nut, the game has an auto-upgrade feature that will allocate your cash to the best parts; but that's just it, better means faster and you have to continually race to get more cash for upgrades. Instead of this system delivering the best bit of RPGs, all you get is a system that represents the worst of that genre – you're constantly grinding. By making you race and race to get better parts, it's the same as a mediocre RPG saying you're not a high enough level to do a particular quest.

Strip out the career mode and grind-based leveling system and you've got LA Remix's best feature: its large assortment of arcade modes (in both single-player and online multiplayer varieties). There are standard types of races like Circuit, Red Light, and Time Trial, but the other modes really deliver. Frenzy has you racing around from point-to-point, hitting plumes of colored smoke before a timer runs out; hit a point in time and the timer gets extended. Payback pits you against an opponent as you chase him around the city trying to wreck his ride, and Capture The Flag brings over a first-person staple in a surprisingly functional manner – racing from pre-established bases while trying to swipe the flag from others is a lot of fun. Modes like Delivery – where you simply deliver a package before time runs out – and Cruise, which allows you to drive around a somewhat empty city, could have been cut. The one thing all these modes share in common? You can turn off traffic – a much appreciated option.

Midnight Club: LA Remix delivers an extremely proficient racing experience. However, potential boons for the game – like the open world and RPG-like leveling system for your car – are its biggest problems. Los Angeles feels bland and barren and instead of the Rep mechanic encouraging you, it forms a gaming mountain that you must continually climb up.

By Jason Lauritzen
CCC Freelance Contributor