Midtown Madness
Chicago Goes Mental (More Than Usual!)
As the 90's came to
a close, the performance of PC desktop computers was growing at a
accelerated rate as graphics adapters were becoming ever more powerful.
Microsoft released the DirectX API's and libraries so that Windows
developers could write games that could take advantage of these graphics
accelerator using their technologies.
The first version of DirectX was released in 1996 for Windows 95. Doom95 was one of the first major titles to utilize the new gaming tech. It ran very well. Despite this though, it took a few years for Windows gaming to take off. Doom for DOS usually outperformed Doom95 because MS-DOS imposed virtually no overhead, leaving all the resources of the computer to Doom Guy's taking. This was not the case for Windows 95 as Windows itself already took a significant overhead, and as such, left less resources for Doom. Despite this though, the release of new GPU's and processors were making up for the resources that Windows took. By the late 90's, Windows had taken over PC gaming, and now the release of new GPU's made for much more expansive games.
With GTA and Driver quickly becoming the main-stream, it was only a matter of time before Microsoft got into the act. Angel Studios, working for the Redmond Giant, decided to develop what would become Midtown Madness. The game would make use of the capabilities of new PC by creating a open-world environment. The Windy City became digitized for this role. The game features a open-world version of Chicago for the mentally insane to rampage in. It was even noted in the Wikipedia article that Angel Studio allowed several Chicago residents to beta test the game to see how faithfully they digitized their city. Chicago was chosen because many chase scenes from various movies were filmed there.
Granted, Chicago was scaled down due to the hardware limitations of PC's at the time, and most of the detail focused on the Downtown section. There was an assortment of drivable vehicles as well, licensed from there respective makers. They included the 1999 Cadillac Eldorado ETC, Ford F-350, 1999 Ford Mustang Mrk IV, the recently update of the Volkswagen Beetle, along with a city bus. Midtown Madness features vehicle damage as well, along with four single player modes: Blitz, Circuit, Checkpoint, and Cruise; offering a variety of different races for drivers to compete in.
Microsoft asked Angel Studios to prevent the driver from hitting the presentations. This game was meant to have a family-friendly arcade feel for it, and not have it thrusted in the negative spotlight like GTA and Carmagedon. The game had simple player models that would immediately jump out of the way in a comic manner if you get to close to it. Pedestrians can be turned off. This was mainly due to performance reasons as the system resources drained with there were many peds on the screen at once. Midtown Madness was a very demanding game for it's time.
The car mechanics in Midtown Madness were greatly exaggerated to provide that silly arcade feel. One could perform outrageous and insane stunts and do things that one couldn't do in real life (unless defying the laws of physics itself or desperately seeking jail time) like flying in the air by using the draw bridge as a ramp or driving through a shopping center (Blue Brothers inspired). Several objects by the road are destructible, like traffic lights, street signs, newspaper dispensers, and trash cans. Midtown Madness was very well received due to its open-world depiction of Chicago along with the insane driving. Like most racing titles of the 90's, this one was fun, colorful, and carefree. Plenty of madness and insanity, but still had a innocence free of blood and profanity (except for the one using the mouse and keyboard!).
The first version of DirectX was released in 1996 for Windows 95. Doom95 was one of the first major titles to utilize the new gaming tech. It ran very well. Despite this though, it took a few years for Windows gaming to take off. Doom for DOS usually outperformed Doom95 because MS-DOS imposed virtually no overhead, leaving all the resources of the computer to Doom Guy's taking. This was not the case for Windows 95 as Windows itself already took a significant overhead, and as such, left less resources for Doom. Despite this though, the release of new GPU's and processors were making up for the resources that Windows took. By the late 90's, Windows had taken over PC gaming, and now the release of new GPU's made for much more expansive games.
With GTA and Driver quickly becoming the main-stream, it was only a matter of time before Microsoft got into the act. Angel Studios, working for the Redmond Giant, decided to develop what would become Midtown Madness. The game would make use of the capabilities of new PC by creating a open-world environment. The Windy City became digitized for this role. The game features a open-world version of Chicago for the mentally insane to rampage in. It was even noted in the Wikipedia article that Angel Studio allowed several Chicago residents to beta test the game to see how faithfully they digitized their city. Chicago was chosen because many chase scenes from various movies were filmed there.
Granted, Chicago was scaled down due to the hardware limitations of PC's at the time, and most of the detail focused on the Downtown section. There was an assortment of drivable vehicles as well, licensed from there respective makers. They included the 1999 Cadillac Eldorado ETC, Ford F-350, 1999 Ford Mustang Mrk IV, the recently update of the Volkswagen Beetle, along with a city bus. Midtown Madness features vehicle damage as well, along with four single player modes: Blitz, Circuit, Checkpoint, and Cruise; offering a variety of different races for drivers to compete in.
Microsoft asked Angel Studios to prevent the driver from hitting the presentations. This game was meant to have a family-friendly arcade feel for it, and not have it thrusted in the negative spotlight like GTA and Carmagedon. The game had simple player models that would immediately jump out of the way in a comic manner if you get to close to it. Pedestrians can be turned off. This was mainly due to performance reasons as the system resources drained with there were many peds on the screen at once. Midtown Madness was a very demanding game for it's time.
The car mechanics in Midtown Madness were greatly exaggerated to provide that silly arcade feel. One could perform outrageous and insane stunts and do things that one couldn't do in real life (unless defying the laws of physics itself or desperately seeking jail time) like flying in the air by using the draw bridge as a ramp or driving through a shopping center (Blue Brothers inspired). Several objects by the road are destructible, like traffic lights, street signs, newspaper dispensers, and trash cans. Midtown Madness was very well received due to its open-world depiction of Chicago along with the insane driving. Like most racing titles of the 90's, this one was fun, colorful, and carefree. Plenty of madness and insanity, but still had a innocence free of blood and profanity (except for the one using the mouse and keyboard!).
It's Time To Trash Chicago, VM style!
As someone who
likes to put emulators and virtual machines to the test, it was only a
given that this game would be given the same treatment. However, this
task would be much harder for the fact that this game generally hates
emulators and VM's. Since Windows 98 was the shipping version of the
Redmond OS when this game was released, I gave Midtown Madness a go on
my Win98 VM's.
The game runs on Windows 98 on both VirtualBox and VMware Player. However, because Windows 98 guest don't have access to 3D accelerated graphics, that meant running the game in software mode. This restricted Midtown Madness into running at the screen resolution of 640 by 480. When I played this game back in 1999/2000, I was so happy for software rendering. 3D acceleration wasn't a everyday thing yet, so why miss what you didn't know! In 2019, that's a different story where GPU acceleration is taken for granted now. Midtown Madness looks HIDEOUS in software mode. Everything just looks "flat", with many models having no or very simple textures with no reflections or other environmental effects. I want 3D acceleration!
I tried this game using both the Windows XP and 7 operating systems on VirtualBox, which has access to 3D acceleration for those guest. The games complained about not detected a suitable graphics card. On the XP guest, I would get the blue screen of death. On my Windows XP guest OS on VMware Player, which also has access to 3D acceleration, Midtown Madness complained about not finding a suitable accelerator for 3D acceleration. I tired to get around this by testing various DirectX wrappers on my various virtual machines. I also tried the Wine DirectX gaming libraries, which were originally developed for Linux, but ported to Windows as replacements for the official Microsoft libraries. The performance was abysmal, and there were various graphical glitches in the game that rendered it unplayable. Other wrappers just caused the game to crash altogether. Again, all the wrapper testing was done within the VM. I would know how this would be on the native host.
The game runs on Windows 98 on both VirtualBox and VMware Player. However, because Windows 98 guest don't have access to 3D accelerated graphics, that meant running the game in software mode. This restricted Midtown Madness into running at the screen resolution of 640 by 480. When I played this game back in 1999/2000, I was so happy for software rendering. 3D acceleration wasn't a everyday thing yet, so why miss what you didn't know! In 2019, that's a different story where GPU acceleration is taken for granted now. Midtown Madness looks HIDEOUS in software mode. Everything just looks "flat", with many models having no or very simple textures with no reflections or other environmental effects. I want 3D acceleration!
I tried this game using both the Windows XP and 7 operating systems on VirtualBox, which has access to 3D acceleration for those guest. The games complained about not detected a suitable graphics card. On the XP guest, I would get the blue screen of death. On my Windows XP guest OS on VMware Player, which also has access to 3D acceleration, Midtown Madness complained about not finding a suitable accelerator for 3D acceleration. I tired to get around this by testing various DirectX wrappers on my various virtual machines. I also tried the Wine DirectX gaming libraries, which were originally developed for Linux, but ported to Windows as replacements for the official Microsoft libraries. The performance was abysmal, and there were various graphical glitches in the game that rendered it unplayable. Other wrappers just caused the game to crash altogether. Again, all the wrapper testing was done within the VM. I would know how this would be on the native host.
I
did find a working setup though. I ran across a video on the FirstPlay
HD Youtube Channel showing Midtown Madness running under VMware
Workstation 12 with Windows 7. As a result, I created a setup using
VMware Player running Windows 7 32-bit with 3D acceleration provided a
working experience, along with those awesome effects. No third-party
DirectX wrappers were used. The performance was very acceptable. That's
not too surprising though as this game was originally released in 1999,
when PCs equipped with the Pentium 1 and 2's or the AMD K6-2 processors
were the norm and desktop computers running with the Pentium 3
processors operating at 700MHz were considered cutting edge. On a
machine equipped with a Quad-Core AMD FX CPU running at 3.8GHz,
performance of this retro classic isn't a issue.
Retrospective
In many cases, when
I make the reference if a game ages well, it's usually to the effect if
I often remember the game off the top of my head. I had loads of fun
playing Midtown Madness. At the same time, this game isn't a involving
game. It's perfect for those 15-30 minutes burst of fun, but nothing
beyond that. The game's arcade nature prevents it from having that
involving experience.
For the longest time, I forgot that this game existed. It was only reminded when I would see the game at a thrift store or mentioned in a article covering open-world games that I would be reminded, only to forget soon enough. I can't say though that this game has or haven't aged well. It's a arcade game essentially. There's not much to it. You play until your bored of playing it. It's awesome by those standards, It's still a fun game, and if you haven't played it though, it's worth visiting. It might need to be patched to run on it a modern Windows 7 or 10 setup because it is a older title.
For the longest time, I forgot that this game existed. It was only reminded when I would see the game at a thrift store or mentioned in a article covering open-world games that I would be reminded, only to forget soon enough. I can't say though that this game has or haven't aged well. It's a arcade game essentially. There's not much to it. You play until your bored of playing it. It's awesome by those standards, It's still a fun game, and if you haven't played it though, it's worth visiting. It might need to be patched to run on it a modern Windows 7 or 10 setup because it is a older title.
Midtown Madness
WIKIPEDIA
WWW.WIKIPEDIA.ORG
Midtown Madness, Racing, 1999
Internet Game Cars Database
WWW.IGCD.COM
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