Presentation is pretty good, though nothing to write home about. High resolutions provide some good-looking cars, though the lack of 32-bit support makes some color separations too obvious. London and San Francisco are brought to life in superb fashion. While neither is fully accurate, the "spirit" of each location is emphasized through unique topographical features like the Thames River in London and 'Frisco's well-known hills. Well-known landmarks such as the Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, the Coit Tower, and the Golden Gate Bridge are also right where they should be.

Deep-throated exhaust rumbling makes the audio portion of Midtown Madness 2 a real delight. My desk literally shakes when I rev up the '68 Mustang. Environmental sounds are partially missing in action, though. Even though you can hear the screams of pedestrians, honking horns, and so on, there never seems to be enough of these effects.

These highlights didn't prevent the game from quickly becoming a simple carnage simulation for me. Hopping behind the wheel of a double-decker bus in Cruise mode and wreaking havoc on the streets of London was just more alluring than the supposed "meat" of the game. Who wants to slip and slide in flimsy little cars when you can rumble around in the equivalent of a Sherman tank, mowing down trees, light posts, and parking meters at will? As much fun as this can be (though the entertainment factor is somewhat mitigated by the presence of acrobatic pedestrians that you can't run down), the thrill wears off rather quickly.

Midtown Madness 2 is the videogame equivalent for the 30-something suburbanite who thinks getting wild and crazy is staying up past 11 on a weeknight. The designers clearly wanted to craft a game that was off the wall and edgy, but they wound up with just another run-of-the-mill, sterile product. In short, don't change your opinion about Microsoft just yet.

Brett Todd
Contributing Editor