Tomorrow’s Thursday and you know what that means. For starters, we’re one step closer to ending this hellish facade that is the work week. Also, your favorite auto blogging pals will be live on Twitch at twitch.tv/jalopnikdotcom at 4 p.m. Eastern playing a video game with cars in it. This week, Steve DaSilva and I will immerse ourselves in another classic: Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition Remix.
Oh, this game is so good — you don’t even know. Released in 2005, MC3 is considered by many to be the apex of Rockstar’s beloved street racing franchise, before the company realized it could make a hell of a lot more money relegating Midnight Club to practically a mode in GTA Online. On the surface there’s little to separate it from the cavalcade of early-to-mid aughts titles of a similar ilk, but the difference is that MC3 was way bigger than its contemporaries — credit to the Mannie Fresh theme — and way less concerned with the rules.
It was Midnight Club where the idea of a waypoint-based street race — events where competitors can forge their own paths to each checkpoint — was really minted. I struggle to think of another game before it that worked similarly. There were also the unordered races where you could clear the checkpoints in non-linear fashion, and those truly rewarded strategic driving and knowledge of the game’s open-world cities. They were also really hard.
Steve and I will be enjoying the Remix edition of MC3 — a patch on the original game that coincided with the game’s Greatest Hits (that’s Platinum Hits if you had an Xbox) reissue. It added 24 new cars and a whole new city and campaign, bringing Tokyo back from Midnight Club II.
If you like the idea of revisiting one of the finest racers of the generation with a couple of your Jalopnik friends, you know where you can find us tomorrow. We’ll also chat about headlines from across the autoverse, like Justin Lin’s departure from Fast X, and I’ll definitely pelt Steve with questions about his experience in the new Subaru Solterra. There will be something for everyone, so why not stop by?