Midnight Club: Los Angeles is the fourth game in the open world street racing series from the masters of the sandbox genre, Rockstar Games. On the back of the record breaking success of GTA IV, Rockstar Games has once again proven itself as one of the industry's premier development houses while cementing its undeniable skill at developing and constructing a tangible sense of place within hugely detailed and lovingly crafted gaming worlds.

In contrast to Liberty City, which is loosely based on New York, Midnight Club's new playground is based upon Los Angeles - and I say 'based upon' because rather than an exact replica of the city, Rockstar has provided a close representation of the City of Angels that has been tweaked in a bid to create a version that's perfect for Midnight Club's trademark edge of your seat, lightning fast street racing without losing any of the city's essence or fundamental layout. Believe me, this is still very much Los Angeles and all the landmarks you would expect to see - the LA Convention Centre, the Santa Monica Pier, the iconic boulevards and freeways - are present and accounted for. What really brings the city to life though is Rockstar's attention to detail; real world stores are visible, billboards are filled with real life advertising (thankfully without overdoing it), pedestrians fill the streets and many motorists realistically go about their everyday business as you tear your way through the beautifully created streets - yes indeed, Midnight Club: Los Angeles is most certainly a looker. The day/night cycle and variable weather conditions also mean that you are never left to race in a city stuck that's in the perpetual glare of the sun or constant shadows of night, as is the case with many other titles in the open-world racing sub-genre [If Liam's not looking at you, Need for Speed, then I am! Ed.].

While the city is unquestionably gorgeous, it wouldn't be much use if there was nothing to do in it. Fortunately, Midnight Club LA provides an exhaustive if slightly predictable set of events to complete throughout the varied locations. Like previous games in the series, along with pretty much every other open world racer on the shelves, you find yourself in a new city with no respect, no money and a handful of cocksure contacts who are happy to show you the road to success while fitting in the usual array of cliché-ridden one-liners about your 'ride' and apparent lack of discernable 'skillz'. In fairness, Rockstar has actually presented a set of characters that fit the game's bare bones story and street racing aesthetic without falling too far into parody and humourless excess, ala the Need for Speed franchise [There we go! Ed]. You're not going to care about these characters; they simply do their job, providing just enough narrative structure to keep the game moving forward in a manner that makes sense - about as much as you could hope for from a street racing series then.

As you go from race to race, either via mission-based events that you are informed of via your handy mobile phone - the fully licensed T-Mobile Sidekick no less - or by simply completing any of the multitude of colour coded races and events, you slowly begin to gain respect and cash. It's the usual tried and tested formula and this is testament to Rockstar Games' aim of refining the franchise rather than evolving it. While there is nothing especially new about Midnight Club LA's structure, there is certainly a wealth of content to keep you busy for weeks on end. There is a vast collection of races, ranging from the standard point-to-point races, time trials, series events and pink slip challenges to the more unusual events like the payback missions that task you with damaging rival cars and delivery missions that ask you to bolt across the city at full pelt without taking a hit, which serve up a bit of variation amongst the genre standards. There are also Red Light races, similar in nature to those of Burnout Paradise, where you are simply given a start point and a finish line and the route you take is entirely up to you. None of these events are especially life changing on their own, but when taken as a complete package, they do serve up a varied enough experience to keep the game fresh for the duration of the single player campaign.

Regardless of your views on the variety of race types in Midnight Club LA, the maddening difficulty and very obvious balancing issues will prove a turn off for many players. While the city is all the better for its bustling, busy streets, it can become hugely annoying when a poorly placed checkpoint sends you down the wrong street or the slightest contact spins you into a wall or a row of parked cars. There's no chance of ploughing your way through oncoming cars here; either you weave perfectly between them or you find yourself quite annoyingly facing east when you should be going west. This usually wouldn't be a problem, and I really am all for a good challenge in this era of hand holding gameplay, it's just that when you combine these minor infringements with the AI's near faultless driving skills, you're often left you empty handed come results time.

These difficulty issues wouldn't be so painful if the game had a clear and well defined learning curve, or even an option to amend the difficulty level, but sadly it has neither. It may have a simple, colour coded system to show the difficulty of each race at a glance, with races ranging from green to red on the difficulty spectrum, but these rarely prove accurate, with many green races proving just as difficult as their red counterparts. The obvious rubber-banding doesn't help either; the amount of times you complete a near faultless race only to come a cropper at the last bend will leave the majority of gamers red faced with the kind of uncontrollable rage that only certain videogames can provoke. This proves especially annoying in series events; there is nothing quite like a three-race event going tits up on the last corner of the last race - I literally had to tie the controller to my hand for fear of throwing it out of the window in a moment of mindless fury. While this rubber-banding can, and will, cause bouts of severe anger, it does work both ways, meaning that crashes earlier on in a race can be saved via some skilful driving. Although this does contribute towards the game's major flaws, it also provides many of the defining moments too; thanks to the combination of subtle rubber-banding and a simple but very effective drafting mechanic that sees you speeding up behind your rivals and filling your nitro gauge in the process, the majority of races tend to end in closely fought, nail biting finales that often leave you breathless.

Whilst this leads to some very hard fought, extremely exciting and often enormously rewarding victories, it will just as often leave you spinning your wheels at the finish line and in a world where respect points are extremely hard to come by, it's the end result that matters the most. Due to the surprisingly small assortment of cars and bikes (forty-four in all), unlocking new vehicles and customisable parts in the garage has been slowed down to a snail's pace; while you will often find yourself with cash to burn, you will frequently find yourself with nothing worthwhile to spend your hard earned cash on, and with victories often proving far from a formality, the option to grind via some of the easier racers becomes an all too tempting prospect.

In an attempt to level the playing field, and subsequently increase your chances of earning those all important respect points, you are given access to a collection of useful, if slightly strange, special abilities to combat the impeccable opposition AI. Whereas the ability to slow down time is both useful and commonplace in the street racing genre, some of the other abilities prove a little more leftfield for a game of this kind, such as sending opposing cars veering off course with an EMP blast and forcing all traffic to scramble out of your way through the use of a powerful sound wave. These abilities may be useful and in many cases prove fun (especially the sound wave), but they're a little bit too Mario Kart for my tastes and don't really fit with the game world that Rockstar has created.

Special abilities aside, the lack of balance becomes especially annoying when you take into account just how great Midnight Club LA is when all the pieces fall into place and the AI drivers aren't being borderline unfairly proficient; when it gets it right, this really is one of the best racers around. The handling of each vehicle class is unique, successfully walking the tightrope between realism and arcade thrills; the races are often intense, white-knuckle affairs that keep your eyes glued to the screen; and the extensive customisation for your cars' performance and look is both exhaustive and very user-friendly. Then there is the matter of the game map, which isn't usually an aspect you'd expect to list amongst a game's key highlights but is certainly worthy of special praise on this occasion.

The Google Earth style map that you will find yourself popping in and out of on a regular basis has to be one of the most technically impressive pieces of coding for quite some time. Whereas its basic use of finding mission races, garages or any of the many colour coded race events around the city is handled in a very similar vein to that of other racers of its type, it's the way that the camera zooms away from your car until a full map of the city appears. From here, you pick your race and set down a waypoint marker for your GPS before the camera seamlessly zooms back down to your car and immediately back into the action. It's seamless, flawlessly integrated and provides the game with a far greater sense of immersion. In the same vein as to the holographic real time menus and map in Dead Space, it seems that many developers are trying new ways to integrate maps and menus into their videogames without the need to cut players away from the immersion that the gameplay provides - and Rockstar has certainly gone a long way towards achieving that goal here.

Much like Need for Speed: Most Wanted, Midnight Club LA also has a strong police presence; during your time both racing and roaming the city you will inevitably fall prey of the 'popo'. From here you have the option of pulling over and accepting the fine or doing a runner and taking the chance of being busted and subsequently fined a great deal more. Of course, pulling over just isn't a respectable option for many, but if you do decide to try it out then you'll be treated to a cut away shot from an onboard police camera; you can still choose to sit law abidingly at the wheel at this point, happy to accept the fine coming your way, or you can take the infinitely more fun option of putting your foot on the gas and watching as your car spins away and the hapless police officer scrambles back to his car to begin the pursuit. This is a welcome addition to the overall package but the actual chases aren't quite as exciting as those in Most Wanted, with the cops proving far easier to evade and generally less brutal in their attempts to take you off the road.

While the single player campaign veers between brilliantly exciting and frustratingly difficult, the absence of the AI balance issues in the online mode means that this is where Midnight Club LA really does come into its own. With generally lag-free action for up to sixteen players and an array of excellent online options that really make the most out of the challengingly intense gameplay mechanics, this is the place to come for the ultimate Midnight Club experience. Challenging other racers online is a simple endeavour, with options for standard races and point-to-point events available as you would expect. These basic modes offer up more than enough excitement and when combined with some of Midnight Club LA's unique online game modes, the end result is a very diverse and extremely satisfying online experience. Beyond the basics, there are Capture the Flag Races, Team Capture the Flag, Stockpile races, where the player who returns the most flags to their base wins and Keepaway events that task players with obtaining the flag and keeping it away from the other drivers for as long as possible [Finally, the return of the unparalleled Stayaway mode from Midtown Madness 3 - I'm sold! Ed]. Each of these events are terrific fun in their own right and come together to deliver a package that will keep gamers busy long after they have either finished the single player campaign or gone crazy dealing with the Jedi-like AI, or indeed both.

If all that wasn't enough, you can even create your own races, complete with customisable weather effects, route and pedestrian and traffic levels to take online and share with your friends, thus providing near infinite replayability and variety for those who want to stick with the game for the long haul. While showing off and racing on your own tracks is certainly fun, it doesn't compare with the potential addictiveness of taking your customised car online to have it ranked by friends and possibly even put up for sale via online auctions. The customisation may not be in the same league as Forza Motorsport (what else is on Xbox 360?) but there are still more than enough options available to create some very unique vehicle designs.

Although there are only forty-four vehicles available, made up of muscle cars, tuners, luxury vehicles, exotics and bikes, each one has been lovingly crafted; it's clear that some careful thought has gone into each vehicle's handling capabilities. It's no Gran Turismo but you can certainly feel the difference in each car's handling, while performance upgrades also provide just enough improvement to keep you interested in upgrading beyond the basics of simply making it go faster. A word to the wise though: don't put to much faith in your ownership of bikes as your primary vehicle - they may be fun, and indeed blisteringly fast, but with the challenge already extremely high, taking on the game with a bike can push the difficulty over the edge.

Midnight Club: Los Angeles is a game that certainly benefits from sky high production values and the use of the GTA IV game engine. While the city may be the star of the show, Rockstar has certainly treated nearly every other aspect of the visuals with a great deal of consideration; from the sharply rendered cars to the detailed environments and NPC characters, this is a game that drips with style and panache at every turn. The races run smoothly both online and off, the ridiculously high speeds are never affected by the huge amount of NPCs on the bustling LA streets and the dynamic camera angles for tight turns and nitro boosts are both fantastic to look at and extremely practical, the zoomed in nitro cam proving especially useful for squeezing through tight gaps at top speeds. The audio follows suit, proving to be a triumph that greatly enhances the already first class presentation. The cars sound great, the voice acting is solid (if a little clichéd) and the ambient noises on the street help to bring the game world to life. The soundtrack also proves both eclectic and mostly enjoyable, with acts as varied as Bloc Party, Beck and The Chemical Brothers making up the sixty-seven song soundtrack. And before anyone gets too worried, 50 cent, Ice Cube and many others are on board to put the 'street' into 'street racing' with their infectious takes on the Gangsta Rap genre.

With the exception of the unbalanced AI, occasionally infuriating difficulty and arguable lack of series progression, Midnight Club: Los Angeles is a triumph in every respect. The city of Los Angeles has been beautifully recreated, with just the right amount of liberties taken in its design to subtly and positively enhance the gameplay. The modest collection of cars and bikes is lovingly rendered, with a handling model that fits perfectly into the street racing sub genre and the racing is rarely anything other than exciting, stepping up another notch when played online against human opponents. Midnight Club: Los Angeles serves up the finest open world street racer to date and has raised the bar for future competition in the process; at times you may want to pull out your hair and curse Rockstar's name, but the fact of the matter is, you will always want to come back to this superbly crafted take on the City of Angels.

Reviewed by Liam Pritchard for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).