History VideoGame / MidtownMadness

Developed for Windows, the first title was released in April 1999 (while its demo was in May of the same year), followed by a sequel, released in September 2000; these two were developed by Angel Studios and published by Microsoft. ''Midtown Madness 3'' arrived in June 2003 as an UsefulNotes/{{Xbox}} exclusive.

->''"Forget everything you learned in Driver’s Ed. Run every stop sign, drive the wrong way, or gun-it to jump a drawbridge. No-rules racing means doing whatever it takes to win."''

Across the games the goal is run through various races to obtain new vehicles.

* BusesAreForFreaks: Drive at Chicago in a city bus or visit the major landmarks of London in a Double Decker in the way you wish!
* BusFullOfInnocents: On the first two games crashing any bus could lead to randomly listen frightened people from them! [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential Speaking of safety driving]]...
* CaptureTheFlag: Multiplayer Cop & Robbers mode. Take the gold and head it up to your or team hideout.

* CollisionDamage: The first sequel has 2 crash courses in special, either you drive in London or San Francisco and you only have to remember one single little thing... DON'T. SCRATCH. THE. CAR. '''GOT IT?!''', thank you.

* DestinationDefenestration: If you thought streets were the only place to go think again, some buildings are accessible too to drive thru, you only need to create some shattered glass to open the door.

* DontTryThisAtHome: Wise advice from one of the announcers from Midtown Madness 2.

** Midtown Madness 2: Crash Course takes the player to be a cab driver at London and a stunt driver at San Francisco, after you get fired from your former career.
** Midtown Madness 3: Undercover missions at Washington D.C. and Paris.
* FollowThatCar: From the crash courses: Don't let the other cab escape from your sight at London! Also, you must follow and the destroy a truck before your time is up, at San Francisco!

* HaveANiceDeath: By driving or falling into the river (or the ocean) in Midtown Madness 1, it will appear at the screen the message: "Sleep with the fishes!". Also it does in the sequel, only in San Francisco; While in London it shows to the player: "More tea, vicar?".
* HippieVan: In Midtown Madness 2 some unlockable paintjobs show lots of bright colors; special mention to the hippie themed ''Light Tactical Vehicle''.

* ImpersonatingAnOfficer: Using the Mustang cruiser in Midtown Madness 1 allows the player to pass inadvertently from the cops, [[DressingAsTheEnemy as if you were part of their force]] letting you going much more freely through the race or the exploration mode. This is no longer a exploitable feature in the sequel.

* InvulnerableCivilians: The pedestrians have incredible dodging skills, though in the first game, you could turn the weather to snowy and drive down the sidewalks of Lakeshore Drive to force them to dive into Lake Michigan. They would welcome death after that.
* InVehicleInvulnerability: It's averted in certain race modes, like Blitz and Checkpoint, where when the vehicle is totaled it is game over. Although, vehicles in game will show signs of damage (smoke of different shades or bumping tires) as the player go around, in other game modes, however, while you can ruin your vehicle as well, it will lead you to a "5 second damage penalty" to get your car repair, good as new.

*** To complete the reference, in Midtown Madness 2, the new crash course mode, has the San Francisco course with the player involved as a movie stunt driver, driving a green Mustang Fastback.
* SoundEffectBleep: Angelina from Midtown Madness 3 has some attitude.
* SpiritualSuccessor: Videogame/MidnightClub, developed by Angel Studios as well, which became Rockstar's San Diego division starting before Midnight Club II came out. Furthermore, the engine for the first Midnight Club was a heavily improved version of the Midtown Madness 2 engine, which later became the framework for the later Rockstar's RAGE engine.
* TrialAndErrorGameplay: Good luck trying to figure out the winning route; with all the checkpoints scattered, your opponents taking different ways and a direction arrow that only indicates where is the nearest checkpoint regardless of the actual layout of the streets. It doesn’t help when the [[GoddamnedBats traffic is in a jam]], the driver must be careful or say good bye to the race.

* WideOpenSandbox: Main selling point of the series; Going anywhere around, without any limits through real life cities.

** The freightliner century class qualifies as this too.

* DestinationDefenestration: If you thought streets were the only place to go think again, some buildings are accessible too to drive thru, you only need to create some shattered glass to open de door.

* DrivesLikeCrazy.

* ImpersonatingAnOfficer: Using the Mustang cruiser in Midtown Madness 1 allows the player to pass inadvertently from the cops, [[DressingAsTheEnemy as if you were part of their force]] letting you going much more freely through the race or the exploration mode.
** This is no longer a exploitable feature in the sequel.

* UsefulNotes/TheLondonUnderground: Present in Midtown Madness 2.

* NumberedSequels.

* SimulationGame.

* BusFullOfInnocents: On the first two games crashing any bus could lead to randomly listen frightened people from them! [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential Speaking of safety driving]].

* KarmaHoudini: In all three games, the player gets no punishment for all of his/her trouble like wrecking a police car, speeding, smashing traffic, etc.

* NoNameGiven: The player's default profile is just ''Driverx'' in the first two games.

* SoundEffectBleep: Angelina from Midtown Madness 3 has some attitute.

* WreakingHavok: If you survive the race and get to the breaking point of your vehicle

* DrivingTest: Crash courses, from midtown madness 2. As you pass the courses you get new paint jobs and cars.

** Midtown Madness 2: Crash course mode takes the player to be a cab driver at London and a stunt driver at San Francisco.
** Midtown Madness 3: Undercover mission at Washington D.C. and Paris.
* FollowThatCar: From the crash courses: Don't let the other cab escape from your sight!, at London! Also, you must follow and the destroy a truck before your time is up, at San Francisco!

** Special mention to the Crash course: "The heat is on"; You must escape from the police and lose them to pass.

* ProductPlacement: It's visible in some vehicles like the playable city bus or npc taxis promotions of other Microsoft products, like the MSN Gaming Zone, VideoGame/MonsterTruckMadness 2, VideoGame/MotocrossMadness and their precision racing wheel. The developer, Angel Studios, also shows up.

* ArtificialStupidity: Midtown Madness 3 has some the dumbest cops ever. Drive into a body of water while the cop cars are chasing you in cruise, the cops will follow you. Then, they will respawn right near the water and drive into it again and again and again, even when you drive away from the water when you respawn.

* KarmaHoudini: The player gets no punishment for all of his/her trouble like wrecking a police car, speeding, smashing traffic, etc.

* DontTryThisAtHome: Wise advise from one of the announcers from Midtown Madness 2.

* FollowThatCar: From the crash courses: Don't let the other cab escape from your sight!, at London. Also, you must follow a truck before it finish and Destroy it, at San Francisco!

* FollowThatCar: From the crash courses: Don't let the other cab escape from your sight!, at London and follow a truck and Destroy it, at San Francisco!

* HippieVan: From Midtown Madness 2 some unlockable paintjobs show lots of bright colors; special mention to the hippie themed ''Light Tactical Vehicle''.

* CoolCar: Most of the cars indeed. Then you got the fastest: A Panoz Esperante GTR-1 in ''2'', and a Koenigsegg CC in ''3''.

* [[CheckPoint Checkpoints]]: Present all the time, except for cruise mode.
* CoolCar: Most of the cars indeed. Then you got the fastest: A Panoz Esperante GTR-1.

* Using the [[ImpersonatingAnOfficer Mustang cruiser]] in Midtown Madness 1 allows the player to pass inadvertently from the cops, [[DressingAsTheEnemy as if you were part of their force]] letting you going much more freely through the race or the exploration mode.

* [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Invisibility Invisibility]]: Though it works better at night, the Panoz GTR-1 secret shadow paint job in Midtown Madness 2 makes the car transparent. [[CoolCar Cool uh?]]

Developed for Windows, the first title was released in april 1999 (while its demo was it in May), followed by a sequel, released in september 2000; this two were developed by Angel Studios and published by Microsoft. ''Midtown Madness 3'' arrived in June 2003 as an UsefulNotes/{{Xbox}} exclusive.