Midtown Madness

About Midtown Madness

Midtown Madness (1999) is Angel Studios' open-world street racer set in a recreation of Chicago, offering "an unprecedented degree of freedom to drive around in a virtual city".

Midtown Madness in Depth

Instead of confining players to a track, it offers an open-world recreation of Chicago, where they win street races to earn new cars. Four single-player modes are available. Blitz requires passing three checkpoints and reaching the finish within a time limit; Circuit closes off most of the city to form race tracks against other cars; Checkpoint combines the two, racing rivals to a destination through traffic, police and pedestrians; and Cruise lets players explore at their own pace. Every mode except Cruise is split into missions, each unlocking the next.

Players set the weather, sunny, rainy, cloudy or snowy, the time of day from sunrise to night, and the density of pedestrians, traffic and police. The HUD shows race information and a detailed map, and can be switched off. Five vehicles are available at the start and five more can be unlocked by meeting goals such as top-three finishes, ranging from a Volkswagen New Beetle and a Ford F-350 to a city bus and a Freightliner Century truck. Races can also be played over a local network or the internet. IGN said it "doesn't rely heavily on driving authenticity; this game's all about fun".

Making Midtown Madness

Angel Studios developed it as one of its first PC games, and Microsoft published it for Windows in 1999 after a demo in August. It received favourable reviews according to GameRankings, and Angel Studios went on to make another open-world city racer, Midnight Club: Street Racing.