Midtown Madness (PC)

Amazon.com Review Midown Madness lets players live out their road-rage fantasies by turning downtown Chicago into a racetrack. And we do mean downtown Chicago--the game's developers modeled the city. It's not street-for-street accurate, but anyone who's visited Chicago will recognize landmarks and general street layout, if not individual buildings. Apparently nobody told the hapless citizens of the Windy City that you'd be racing through their streets, since steady streams of traffic crisscross in front of your car and hamper your progress. Expect to be blind-sided if you run a red light, and driving the wrong way on the freeway is not for the faint of heart. Let the cops catch wind of your escapades, and you'll re-create the last chase scene from Blues Brothers as they chase you down. Most racing games have shortcuts, but few are as fun as those in Midtown Madness. Will the drawbridge be down when you need to cross it? Should you go the wrong way down a one-way street, hoping traffic isn't too thick? Who knew that real-world considerations would make for a tenser racing game than the contrivances of games that use a fixed track? This more realistic approach to the racing environment also lets players indulge in things they would only dream of doing in the real world, like blowing by Wrigley Field at 100-plus miles per hour or pushing that annoying Sunday driver in front of you into oncoming traffic. Midtown Madness relieves stress like no other racing game we've played. --T. Byrl Baker