Erica

@erica

talk account

she/her
cohost.org/aurahack

freelance illustrator, designer, and idk buncha stuff

@kuraine's wife

avatar by karu

ascari

ART COHOST

cohost.org/aurahack

NSFW COHOST

cohost.org/aurahack18

Erica @erica

3/27/2024, 3:01 AM

waiting for a show to start so digging into my ask inbox

@Emijx asked:

I've been having my yearly "I've gotta play a good street racer game" itch striking me in my soul, and I've been looking at trying out Midnight Club: Los Angeles to have a break from playing Need For Speed after playing through Unbound last year.

Have any thoughts about Midnight Club as a series, and would you recommend it over the other options in it's wheelhouse? If not, what's your go to nowadays?

i love midnight club but i'm firmly a "it peaked at midnight club 2" gal. i know most folks wax most nostalgic for 3 because of the soundtrack but licensed cars was not what i went to the series for.

MC:LA on the other hand is a really fascinating game. It really tried to modernize the Midtown Madness/MC open world stuff that Angel Studios mastered and while the difficulty is kinda brutal it's really fun in what had become a world full of way more locked-down open world racers. It really forces you to find the best routes yourself.

Otherwise I don't really know what's the go-to these days. Unbound is the only good proper cars arcade racer since like... NFS Rivals basically. The Hot Wheels Unleashed games are good fun but I also think the first one is vastly better than the second unfortunately.

#ask erica

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in reply to @erica's post:

A Jeb With No Name @namelessWrench3/27/2024, 3:34 AM

The world is crying out for a Test Drive revival

Emi @Emijx3/27/2024, 11:02 PM

Happy you saw this and talked about it! I played Unbound on your recommendation actually, and while it was really really fun it also bit me hard with the tried and true NFS problems: Once you get good enough car parts races become a breeze, and once you get used to the same race layouts again and again races become kind of boring. Same stuff that the games I used to play as a kid had, just looking prettier. I will say A$AP Rocky randomly showing up and being the host of one of the race types was thoroughly entertaining the first time after not expecting it to just be him.

Still haven't picked up MC:LA to try yet, my procrastination and aggressive ADHD's talent to drop into a new hyperfixation on a whim are being my banes yet again, but I'll have to take a look at MC2 now too. Can't hurt, just means more games to throw myself into.