I want to make something very clear about Midtown Madness 3 on Xbox: it was designed for Xbox Live. If you're not connected then it's questionable whether this is worth a purchase but those of you who are online would be doing yourselves a disservice not to have a look.

I had high hopes for this game and they were initially quite damaged by what I first saw. A very cheesy sequence of a pink Cadillac racing around the streets greeted me and it wasn't particularly impressive. The menu layout looks great and my wife and I quickly headed for the multiplayer split screen mode. Boy, were we in for a disappointment. The first of only two modes, Cruise, is an entirely pointless and goalless drive around a city with (get this) no cars whilst Checkpoint is almost as mundane, a simple race against each other through a series of checkpoints and still no traffic.

Abandoning all hope of having an enjoyable split screen experience, we decided to take it in turns in the single player games and start working on unlocking the 32 vehicles available, with only a handful available from the start. The Work Undercover mode is a "story-based" mode where you work for a private investigator and take on a series of jobs such as delivery driver, chauffeur, taxi driver and so on. In Washington D.C. you're up against the Mob whilst in France you're watching over a world-famous racing driver during his visit to pick up a prestigious award. The stories for both of these modes are really lame and their execution unimaginative, with poor cut scenes and abysmal, cliché ridden dialogue. What is worse, is the appalling French impersonation for the Paris levels, the guy is so incredibly annoying. I'm sure this is an American conspiracy to try and make everyone hate the French and I'm surprised they'd risk alienating some of their European market with their insulting stereotypes. It's not just the French either; several other countries are "parodied" to equal effect. Whilst Whacked! has a highly amusing and quite black sense of humour, this is lame and brainless in the extreme, hardly worthy of being described as humour.

But it gets worse. You go up against a female driver in each job and both the Washington and Paris opponents are insulting and very irritating, to the point that you get quite angry when you lose. The booing and stupid music every time you fail to complete a job and the sarcasm of the voiceover guys (the French one being particularly unbearable as I've already mentioned) are really annoying and quite unnecessary. Insulting the player who paid money for a game is not the smartest thing to do, in my humble opinion. These annoying voiceovers and the terrible dialogue of some of your passengers when being a taxi or limousine driver are even more tedious and it really sucks the fun out of the experience. My advice is to kill the voice volume before it does the same to you.

Having played a few games I was also quite astonished at the poor quality of the graphics. Sure, everything moves smoothly enough but the whole thing has those polygon jagged edges that are so prominent in some PlayStation 2 games. In fact, Burnout 2 on PS2 looks better than this. For a Microsoft release this is both unusual and surprising. Games like Halo, Dead Or Alive 3, Oddworld: Munch's Oddyssey, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Splinter Cell, Quantum Redshift, Project Gotham Racing and many more have shown us the stunning graphics and sound capabilities of the Xbox and Midtown Madness 3 looks shoddy in comparison to any of these titles. The car models aren't very detailed, the reflection effects are minimal, the weather effects are mediocre, the snowy levels look like the exact same graphics but without any colour, the backdrops in the distance would put an N64 game to shame and so it goes on. The pedestrians' animations are stilted and unnatural and the scenery detail is not particularly amazing either. One of the things that is done well are the many objects you can smash into and send flying, such as poles and road markers, parking meters, hydrants, benches, café tables and many more objects scattered around the streets. They bounce all around and cause a great looking scene of chaos, especially when you've sent a couple of cars flying as well.

The sound isn't much better than the graphics unfortunately; the engine noises, horns, sirens and crashing noises are all fine but unspectacular, the voiceovers are terrible and the music is a strange mixture of some good and not so good tunes. You'll need to get a couple of soundtracks ripped onto your Xbox for this one. The load times also seem quite excessive for an Xbox game and having to reload each time you restart the same race is ridiculous; it might only be a few seconds for the reload but surely it could have been stored on the hard drive for an almost instant restart? Indeed, the presentation of this game smacks of laziness and is far below Microsoft's usually impeccably high standards.

Although I have been very critical so far, there is plenty that's good to be said about Midtown Madness 3. The single player games are a lot of fun, as here you get to race against four or five other opponents for some of the time. You can explore at leisure in the Cruise mode or head straight into the modes that earn you cars. Checkpoint is again a race through a series of checkpoints to the finish line but against five ruthless and intelligent computer opponents and because of this it is quite a challenge and a lot more exciting. In Blitz mode it's just you against the clock as you speed through a number of checkpoints on your own. Again, this is highly enjoyable and becomes quite addictive, especially with the prospect of new vehicles to unlock.

The range of vehicles is very good, including favourites like the new Beetle, Mini Cooper S, Lotus Esprit and many more slow, fast and mid-range cars plus buses, trucks, police cars, ambulances and fire engines. Each handles differently and has its own strengths and weaknesses with regards to top speed acceleration, handling, durability and so on. The handling is actually very good on all the vehicles and after a couple of hours of play you begin to learn how to take corners at high speed with just a dab on the handbrake and go speeding around with great style. The emphasis is firmly on arcade racing and crashing into cars at high-speed knock them flying whilst you carry on, slowed only a little.

Lampposts and bollards go flying too, but sadly the trees and certain poles are not so well handled. The game is plagued by "Superpole" Syndrome, where most poles can be driven through but certain ones are impassable and stop you dead. Equally, you can normally drive through the trees but some stop you in your tracks. This is really, really annoying and although you learn to pick out things you can drive through from things you can't, it is such a big oversight on the part of the play testers. There are also lots of really low walls that you can hit without even realising they're there in the heat of the moment and they often stop you completely or send you off flying. Then there are steps sticking out of some buildings, so whilst you can scrape along some walls others will stop you in your tracks. This is a significant and annoying flaw in the gameplay but one that you can at least adjust your playing style to minimise.

It wasn't until I ventured onto Xbox Live that I fell in love with this game. The fact that I played for seven hours straight through the night should give a good indication of just how addictive I found it. There are six excellent game modes on Live, with up to 8 players in a game. You can talk whilst you race and there is a very clear on screen display that clearly shows the status of the game and can be turned on and off with the right analogue stick. This also serves as a view changer, with the left, right and down directions switching to a view from the left, right or rear of the car, allowing you to see what's going on around you very easily. There are two outside and two inside views to choose from as well, catering to everyone's preferences.

Anyway, back to the modes. There are Checkpoint races, which are just straight races against your opponents. Capture the Gold is a little different; gold appears nearby and you must grab it and stash it at the hideout - trouble is, you don't know where the hideout will be until you've picked up the gold and if another player rams you they steal the gold. This mode is so much fun and the on screen map, which is very clear and essential for play, shows the colour coded positions of the other seven drivers, indicating where the gold is or who has it and where the hideout is. You can then chase around after the driver with the gold, attempt to anticipate his route and head him off or wait near the hideout for an attempt at a last moment steal. This mode can also be played as a team game, as can Tag and Stayaway.

Tag is a last man standing type game, where one person begins with a tag. A timer ticks down to zero and the driver must ram another player to tag them and pass it on. Each driver has a timer that is activated when they're tagged and when your timer reaches zero you're out and must watch for the rest of the game. The last driver left wins the game. Stayaway is the opposite of this - one driver begins with a rabbit and a timer increases while they hold it. Ramming the driver with the rabbit steals it off them and the first player to reach a set amount of time wins. Lastly, in Hunter one driver begins as the hunter in a police car and the rest must stay away from him or her. When a hunter rams a prey, they are transformed into a police car and must join the hunt until all prey are changed. Whilst you're prey, you accumulate time and this can be carried over any number of games to produce an overall winner. Each of these modes is so much fun and so addictive when you get a good bunch of players together that it will provide hours and hours of gaming pleasure.

If I were to score Midtown Madness 3 on first impressions alone, it would be lucky to get half marks. However, beneath the scrappy graphics, average sound and music and shallow single player gameplay lies an absolute gem of a multiplayer with masses of depth. If you don't believe me, then go online and see how much better than you many of the players are. Online, against real people, a lot of skill, reactions and strategy come into play and it's just so much fun. There's a lovely range of matches with plenty of options and up to 8 players per session, making for a truly addictive and entertaining experience. If you're hooked up to Xbox Live then at the very least rent this, if you're not then this is one more good reason to get connected.

Reviewed by Geoff Holland for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).