The PSP has had its share of good racing action. I'll admit I'm biased, someone that comes to every game in this genre hoping to fall in love, but I challenge anyone to say the system hasn't seen many quality racing games. Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition was the last of the games in this series on PSP, and fans are obviously wondering if Midnight Club: L.A. Remix is the next big installment. Sadly, it isn't much more than a dusting off of DUB Edition and a shadow of what players on PS3 and XBox 360 are enjoying. In many ways, it is worse to see only incremental movement beyond the DUB Edition for what it says about Rockstar's willingness to put out mediocre work, to make a buck. Oh well, we've all got that buck to make, and even Superman puts on his tights one leg at a time... so we can't blame Rockstar too much for not being perfect.

There's no question that the graphics have had some upgrades since the last game. Improvements show up in more varied textures and busier city scenes, not so much in the sharpness of your surroundings. Both Los Angeles and Tokyo are included, but I would have gladly traded Tokyo for a better looking City of Angels... or gone back to the proliferation of cities we saw in DUB Edition. The navigation system has changed, moving away from directional arrows to a colored plume of smoke that highlights the next checkpoint. Each checkpoint will flash on a mini-map at the lower part of the screen, and you'll also see the GPS pointing you in the right direction. Often the directions provided fall short of helping you navigate down the correct street, which leads to quite a bit of frustration. There are just too many flat surfaces lacking visual snap throughout the game. Sure, we love the big cities modeled here, but to echo my earlier comment, I would rather have a smaller and better looking city than something sprawling that doesn't really pop off the screen.

The bounty we saw in the previous game's music also seems a bit watered down this time 'round. It isn't that the artists or song choices are terrible, but there are less of them and they seem a bit homogeneous. A number of genres are listed here, but the songs lean primarily toward rap and techno, a mainstay of any racing game. Looking back at the track list from DUB, we see more indie and offbeat artists like Peaches, Queens of the Stone Age, Lady Saw, and Beenie Man. There's no way to play a customized song list that includes your personal collection, which seems like an obvious feature. Chatter during the game gets old fast, in contrast to the sound of you putting your machine through its paces. Most of the banter coming from your fellow racers also seems poorly timed, or else L.A. racers just like talking smack when they're falling behind...

The feeling of deja vu all over again comes to a head in this department. A chronic omission is online multiplayer, which has to be the most obvious gameplay feature that would appeal to PSP owners. Test Drive Unlimited and WipeOut implemented multiplayer brilliantly, so why not here? The Midnight Club: L.A. Remix fans are cut off entirely from the world of other racers, unless you count local wireless multiplayer... Not to scoff at this, because it is great to race your friends. It is so great racing them that you'll wish you could go online and play against some other hot racers. Not in this game. Various multiplayer modes like Capture The Flag, Paint, and Tag are inspired twists on the typical racing options. If your tastes run to the traditional, it is easy to fire up a game with a few friends and just race tracks that you've unlocked during Career. The veteran players will appreciate sessions of Capture The Flag, which tests your navigation skill as well as your ability to outrun the competition. Paint Mode is like Capture The Flag on steroids, because instead of two destinations (grab the flag and return) you've got various locations around the city that can be "painted," or claimed by driving over them. Whoever controls the most territory at the end of the session is declared the winner. Tag Mode plays off the "follow me" theme of Capture The Flag by creating a shield, or "zone," around the first car to reach the Tag checkpoint. Staying close to the tagged car will score you points, while the incentive for the tagged car is to pass the torch by bumping you and then score points within your zone as you become the pursued.

Outside of local multiplayer, you'll have plenty of solo action. I don't mind admitting that I have spent entire play sessions inside the garage, fiddling with this or that. Listen, I warned you I was a racing nerd... What you'll get out of the garage is an entire stable of desire-inducing machines on offer, if only you have the scrilla. Unlike the PS3/Xbox 360 versions, there's no option to take these babies out for a test drive. You'll just have to build up the dinero in the old fashioned way. That work is best done through Career Mode. This is the style of play that put Midnight Club on the map, driving around the city and challenging your fellow street racers. There is still an ungodly amount of loading, a big issue in the last iteration. Xbox 360 players, when flashing their lights, are rewarded with an instant cut to the chase. On PSP, we flash our lights and then go get a soda while the darn race loads up... Entering and exiting any of the race types is accompanied by the load screen, which gets old fast. Seeing this crop up again is the primary trigger for us to say that Rockstar just didn't make a bold move forward here beyond what was good or bad with DUB Edition. Races either contain a series of checkpoints between start and end, or a circuit marked by waypoints. There are unordered races and red-light races that have only a start and finish point, leaving it entirely up to you how to reach the destination. These end up being a lot more challenging than the races with a set path, but hidden detours make it possible to shortcut even the preplanned routes. Special races or tournaments are scattered throughout the city, to lend a bit more storytelling to the formula. This nod to GTA or other mission-based driving games is a nice addition to the Midnight Clubformula. With solo play and multiplayer, there are special abilities that can be equipped and used with your vehicle to provide an edge. Multiplayer offers actual pick-ups that will disable other cars, but other abilities like Agro, Zone, and Roar are added to the vehicle and triggered by you as your special ability meter charges. Roar and Agro are great for working out your road rage by literally scaring away traffic or bashing through like some four-wheeled juggernaut, and Zone is like bullet-time on wheels where everything slows down to allow you to make precise adjustments through busy traffic. Doing well in Career will give you rep and money. The former allows you to stack up against more challenging racers, while the latter gives you the funds needed to buy into those dream wheels.

Midnight Club: L.A. Remix feels much less challenging than its bigger counterparts, such as the XBox 360 version. Handling is looser with more of an Arcade feel, and the competitors are much more forgiving. Catching a boost from following close to a lead car is easy, but can be foiled if they drive recklessly or shift weight dramatically. The computer-controller opponents don't do slick moves like this too often, but human opponents won't miss a chance to pull a General Lee and get all two-wheelie on you. There are some discernible differences in the way various cars control, with American Muscle cars feeling like loosey-goosey, rolling nuclear power plants, and Tuners feeling nimble but underpowered. In most cases, you'll like the unlockable exotic and luxury cars, since they all feature improved stock levels of power and control. The exception would be motorcycles, which feel like the wheeled equivalent of walking a tightrope while hitting yourself on the head with a hammer. I would have preferred performance-tuned trucks over these two-wheeled deathtraps. There are other generally unforgiving control issues here with dense traffic, and background scenery that will capture you in a deathgrip if you hit it at the wrong angle. Learning to weave through traffic is a must if you're going to succeed, but there are times when it feels like you are more at the mercy of the controls rather than actually commanding your ride.

What's the expression about the path to hell being paved with good intentions? In this case, it's the path to glory that's paved with lots of little races you'll need to play through in order to build up your reputation and earn the coveted crown of L.A. and Tokyo street racing. The simplicity of instant-on racing is a bit lost on this version, as mentioned above, but the large canvas you have to explore makes for a great deal of variety. The icons you see on your mini-map as you navigate through town indicate several important pieces of info. You can tell what kind of race you have by viewing the icons and the color of each icon indicates the level of challenge, from green (easy) to red (hard). You can also adjust difficulty settings for special races, and practice in Arcade Mode to improve your awareness of secret routes. Midnight Club: L.A. Remix poses an interesting challenge for gamers that like to perfect their timing, because the traffic patterns are always shifting and make it impossible to perfectly plan a race. You can certainly map out where you'll go, but be prepared to make last minute adjustments based on traffic. There are some special features in the landscape, including pickups you'll find tucked away in hard to reach places. It isn't like exploration and free roaming is the point of the game, but you'll take a lot of enjoyment from simply cruising around the city.

Steering is handled via the analog stick, with the accelerator on (X) and various power-ups on the other face buttons. The D-pad is used to flash headlights, and in combination with the shoulder buttons, change music tracks or engage hydraulics. Weight transfer is also used by combining the analog stick with the left shoulder button, a simple enough combination. There are several views you can take with the in-game camera, none as exhilarating as a straight shot over the hood. There aren't many options to adjust other than a playlist within the game and a lot of tweaking in the garage. Selecting the right item in the garage is simplified by having only a few upgrades available early on. You'll unlock more as you continue through the game, again by earning more rep points and competing in progressively more difficult events. The ultimate take-away on Midnight Club: L.A. Remix is that it will be a game that fans buy because it carries a good brand and they'll like it for not messing up the formula. We can't say with great confidence that L.A. Remix is a significant step forward from the previous version, and for that reason we'd recommend a weekend rental or borrowing a friend's copy before you plunk down the cash.