Rockstar San Diego's 2005 street racer turned car culture into a career path, with licensed cars, tunable rides and a rolling tour of three American cities.
Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition is a 2005 arcade racer from Rockstar San Diego. It was the first game in the series with licensed cars, and it follows a career through San Diego, Atlanta and Detroit. A Remix version followed in March 2006 with 124 tracks.
Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition is an arcade-style street racer from Rockstar San Diego, published by Rockstar Games in 2005. It is the third game in the Midnight Club series and the first to feature licensed vehicles and full car modification. Players climb a career ladder across open-world versions of San Diego, Atlanta and Detroit.
What is Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition?
Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition is a 2005 racing game focused on fast, wild street racing rather than realistic handling. Its name comes from a partnership between Rockstar and DUB Magazine, which appears throughout the game as the sponsor of certain races and and it supplies the customised prize cars.
The game sits in the open world tradition of the series. Players drive through recreations of three American cities, win races and gain access to new cars and customisation options. Each city has its own street racers, car clubs and tournaments to conquer.
A street racer that turned licensed cars, club invitations and three American cities into one career ladder.
How do the races and cars work?
Races come in several forms. Ordered races follow a course marked by yellow-orange flares to a finish line, and circuit races run a set number of laps through the city. Unordered races let the player take scattered checkpoints in any order before the finish, while autocross races run around a walled circuit with no traffic or police.
Track events, available in arcade mode, are similar to autocross but have the player race rivals inside a barricaded course, often taking heavier damage. Frenzy events are time trials with some vehicle combat, where a nitrous boost arrives every 15 seconds and the handbrake does not work.
The Race Editor lets players design circuit, ordered and unordered races by placing checkpoints across the city. They can also set the traffic, weather and time of day. The editor is missing from the PlayStation Portable version.
Cars are sorted into four classes, D, C, B and A, according to performance. Winning races unlocks new cars and customisation options, including vinyls, paint jobs, wheels, bumpers, spoilers, neon, hoods and engine components. Performance upgrades are possible on most cars, with the exception of all A-class exotics and Mercedes-AMG models.
How do car clubs and special abilities work?
The game includes seven car types: tuners, luxury sedans, SUVs and trucks, exotics, muscle cars, sport bikes and choppers. As the game continues, clubs that drive each type invite the player to race with them. Beating a club in three races unlocks a special ability for that class.
Tuners, sport bikes, exotics and a few named models gain Zone, a form of bullet time that makes high-speed handling more precise. SUVs, trucks and luxury cars gain Agro, which lets the car plough through traffic and obstacles without damage or slowing down. Muscle cars and choppers gain Roar, the only offensive ability, which sends a sonic wave that clears any vehicles in its path.
| Car type | Club | Special ability |
|---|---|---|
| Tuners | Unbeatable Street Racers | Zone |
| Luxury sedans | Luxury Rollers | Agro |
| SUVs and trucks | Big Playas | Agro |
| Exotics | By Invitation Only | Zone |
| Muscle cars | American Royalty Car Club | Roar |
| Sport bikes | Original Riders | Zone |
| Choppers | Chopper of America Bike Club | Roar |
The online mode lets players race with others from around the world, and players can start and manage their own clubs. Most offline modes can be played online, including cruise, capture the flag, circuit, ordered, unordered, tag, paint and autocross races. Voice chat was supported on Xbox Live.
Where does the story take the player?
The career begins in San Diego, where a mechanic named Oscar runs the Six-One-Nine Customs tuning garage and guides the player through early races. The starting choice is one of six cars, from a 1964 Chevrolet Impala to a 2004 Volkswagen Jetta. The first street racers are Vanessa, Bishop and Carlos, and each one unlocks a club when defeated.
Once the player has beaten two of those racers, a challenge to the bike club and to a rival named Phil opens up. Once most of San Diego has been cleared, a Detroit mechanic named Vince is introduced, and Oscar sends the player on to Atlanta. There, at the Apone Team Racing garage, the player meets Apone and a series of racers, including Vito, Dre and Lamont, before moving on to Detroit.
In Detroit, Vince points to a Lamborghini Murcielago as the prize for whichever car club produces the best street racer. Early tournaments offer a 1949 Chevrolet Fleetline, and defeating a rival opens a challenge from the By Invitation Only club, which rewards a rare 2004 Chrysler ME Four-Twelve. The U.S. Championship Series, held across all three cities, ends with the Lamborghini being handed over, and finishing the rest of Career Mode earns a Cadillac Sixteen.
Why were these three cities chosen?
Rockstar San Diego said the three cities were chosen for their importance to the game's automotive and racing themes. Atlanta was picked for its pioneering role in car customisation, Detroit for its status as the birthplace of the U.S. car industry, and San Diego for its influence on street racing culture.
The career follows that order: San Diego first, then Atlanta, then Detroit, so each city adds a new layer of car culture to the one before.
What is the Remix version?
Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition Remix followed on 13 March 2006, eleven months after the original. It added 24 new vehicles, including some from brands that were missing from the first release, along with new races, battle maps and 25 new licensed songs. The Remix also recoloured the menus from blue and gold to red, black and silver.
The Remix kept every city, vehicle, music track and feature from the original, so the new content was layered on top of the existing game rather than replacing it.
The Remix added a Tokyo Challenge mode, which uses an altered Tokyo map from Midnight Club II as an optional career path. Players could also import their original save data, so they did not lose progress when moving to the new version.
What did the soundtrack contain?
The original soundtrack had 99 tracks, and the Remix added 25 more, for 124 in total. The music ranges across hip hop, rock and other genres, and the list includes members of Army of the Pharaohs, The Game, 50 Cent, Paul Wall, T.I., Big Tymers and Fabolous, alongside rock acts such as Jimmy Eat World, Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails.
A large number of Detroit techno artists also appear, reflecting the game's setting.
How did critics and players respond?
The PlayStation 2 and Xbox versions received favourable reviews on Metacritic, while the PlayStation Portable version was rated average. The Remix was rated more favourably than the original, according to the same aggregator.
Sales were strong. The PlayStation 2 version sold at least 1.1 million copies worldwide, and the PlayStation Portable version sold 3.64 million. The PSP release earned a Platinum sales award from ELSPA, which indicates at least 300,000 sales in the United Kingdom.
The Remix was also released as a Greatest Hits title on PlayStation 2 and a Platinum Hits title on Xbox, but not on PlayStation Portable. The series was tied to Xbox Live until it closed on 15 April 2010. Replacement servers called Insignia took over, so the online game remained available for Xbox players.
