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It's easy to see the appeal in a videogame based on the underground street racing culture prevalent in many of the larger metropolitan cities the world over. Anyone who has been behind the wheel of a car will also understand why the freedom that Midnight Club II has to offer is like a breath of fresh air.

Yes, running red lights, driving on the wrong side of the road, and mowing pedestrians down as you blast your way to the finish line, is par for the course in this game. The abundant political in-correctness found in Rockstar's other popular games has been brought to Midnight Club II in spades - it is deliciously bereft of morality.

The gameplay itself consists of racing other adrenaline junkies for their 'pink slips', or ownership papers. Win, and your opponent's car is yours. Simple really. Also thrown into the mix is the challenge of having to unlock two other cities to conquer (there are three in all), extra gameplay features such as nitrous boost and slipstreaming, and opponents who are quite varied in both look and driving style.

Of the three cities, only one is initially available, Los Angeles, with Paris and Tokyo becoming available as you progress. Each city is a reasonably accurate model of the real thing. The road structure is far from identical, but all of the major landmarks famous in each of the cities are easily identifiable, and recreated in near-perfect detail. Los Angeles has a dry climate and a mix of city, suburban, and industrial neighbourhoods. Paris is jam packed with narrow alleyways to tear up, Tokyo having a densely packed CBD with much faster roads on the outskirts.

All racing is set at night, hence the name "Midnight Club". It would have been easy for Rockstar to neglect the racing environments, after all, murky darkness is to be expected ….. at night! Yet each of the cities is comprehensively rendered with plenty of detail. Lighting effects are superb. Blazing underneath street-lamps with the pools of light flashing across the body of your machine is simply fantastic. The graphical anti-aliasing is, in a word, amazing. Jagged lines are all but non-existent. Additional effects are all class, right down to fizzing street-lamps when you knock them over, and pedestrians who bounce comically off your bonnet when hit (see! – just as politically in-correct as Rockstar's other games!). The graphics are crisp, sharp, and crystal clear, and this applies to both vehicle models, and the urban environments.

You know, there is something undeniably cool about weaving through heavy traffic, laughing maniacally to yourself while driving as recklessly as you damn well please. It's a liberating feeling that Midnight Club II recreates admirably.