Midtown Madness Video Review

Gaming Pastime reviews Midtown Madness for PC.

Developed by Angel Studios and published by Microsoft, Midtown Madness was released for PC in May, 1999. Midtown Madness is a fun racing game set in a recreation of Chicago, allowing for an amount of freedom that was impressive for its time.

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Check out our written review:

[NimbleSnek]

I played this when I was as young as four on the win98 family PC, probably my first racing game along with nfs3. There are a bunch of cheat codes as well; I distinctly remember one of them allowing you to shoot mailboxes from your car when honking. Thanks for the look back to a childhood favorite!

[ValScrimbly]

MM2 Extreme might just be the most dedicated mod site I've ever seen. Been using it since the early 2000s and people have never stopped uploading. In MM2's case, people even started making cars to match the game's older visual style over the past few years. As opposed to the usual high quality rips from mobile games that clashed with the game's old visuals.

[TyCal_]

One thing that has aged really well with the Midtown Madness series is the traffic density. I miss when open world racing games had properly bustling cities where weaving through traffic was a big part of the challenge

[Yungbeck]

Played this like crazy in 99-00. Had no idea about the eventual Rockstar connection to Midnight Club. Cool. GG. Great content brotherman

[CZpersi]

What a lovely sandbox racer. I loved to just take a bus and roam around the downtown.

[itsPanoz]

What an amazing video on a game that means so much to so many of us!

2:22 We could get you into some Cops and Robbers along with other multiplayer events! We have a community called Madness Crew where all we do is make Midtown Madness great again! ❤

[Audiojack_]

Actually what I used in this game back in the day was mouse steering, which worked great.

[axa]

We need more games like Midtown Madness. Pure and insane fun fun fun

[SoloDoloSpaceman]

MM3 was the first game I ever played on the original Xbox when I was 11. I was blown away.

[Mzee]

I had the second one growing up, and loved it. Great game!

[ensnButtn]

I played this game so much as a kid and I can understand your criticisms from a todays stand point. But crashing through mailboxes and seeing paper flying out was mind boggling in 99. this game gave us a sandbox long before we even knew what that meant. Also the cheats were hilarious

[gamingwitharka]

This is my first racing game ever, this game brings back all the memories for me

[Tuikkal]

Funny thing, I replayerd this last month after 30 years when I last played this as a kid. I mostly goofed around in freeplay mode causing chaos around the city back then. The phonky physics and less than stellar car handling definitely hamper the experience but what is a real annoyance is how every car feels like they're made out of paper. It's a flawed game but the open city to drive around in 1999 was a huge upgrade compared to Streets of SimCity.

[alewis]

Yep, the original open world game, back when this genre didn't even existed. Not many cars, not many races, pretty small map (pretty sure you can clock abour 2-minute lap around the motorway that circles the entire map) - but hey, it was a fun game.

Traffic density was wild for 1999. If this (and ped density) was at maximum it felt like driving in a busy city. Driving at 120 mph in that traffic is pretty mad. You can absolutely cause a massive traffic jam by making a ruckus on the 4-lane motorway.

Also, the cheats were pretty unusual. You could make the game low-grav. Or make your horn shoot postal boxes (wtf xDDD) Or speed up the traffic 10 times. Yes, they can ram you at 600 mph and send your wrecked car flying to Sears Tower (yes it's Sears Tower forever, sod off with that Willis Tower name)

[dading]

5:18 so about that, im part of madness crew community and bunch of guys including me made a racepacks with custom races, some focusing on singleplayer and some only on multiplayer and custom maps not only chicago, also we can show you Cops & Robbers game mode :D

[imaca]

I was 20 back when I played this in 99, it was amazing, real next level stuff at the time

[thelastminuteman]

OMG!!! this takes me back. You know what's funny, I always suspect the same devs behind Midtown Madness were the same devs behind Midnight Club but I never bothered to look into it. Makes sense though being a fan of both feanchises in my teens I could tell.

[granvillecupido]

I like how you always mention the developer and publisher behind the game just so awesome to hear that your videos is amazing i will always watch yiur videos watching from south africa, can u please review the suffering 1 and tge suffering ties that bind if you have time👍👍 thank you

[doogerw]

omg this game. I have so much nostalgia tied to this one. My cousin burned a copy for me when I was like 7 or 8. Loved just driving around in the open mode and ramping off the draw bridges

[tropixx_xlr]

Cool, another racing game! Very cool review but I've always been a Midtown 2 guy, that game is one of the best driving games I've ever played in my life and I'm very sure that you will enjoy it a lot. Midtown 1 is cool, but bare bones when it comes to the single player replay value.