Midnight Club II

Midnight Club II

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Complete guide to Midnight Club II Motorcycles (Update #4)
By Kairu
This guide gives you a run down of how to best use the motorcycles in Midnight Club II, it discusses cornering, accelerating, speed, braking, flying, landing, city environments and many other tips and tricks.
   
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1. Bikes in General / Weight Transfer
Another guide on MCII explains that using the bikes in the game is the best way to win races which is true, in my opinion. This guide will show you how to get the most out of the bikes and teach you how to use them in order to progress through the game easier than if you were to use a car.

Weight Transfering is the biggest advantage bikes have over cars, it helps with cornering and acceleration (I'll cover both in this guide) and is very easy to learn how to use and master. I have my weight transfer key set to 'a' on the keyboard with 'w' as down for in-air-controls and for leaning down closer to the fairing of the bike for a gradual speed increase and 's' set as up for in-air-controls and pulling off wheelies which also increases speed dramatically.

You will unlock the use of Weight Transfer after completing Gina's 2nd race in Los Angeles, as well as the first bike in the game, the Cohete.
2. Cornering
This is probably the best way to use the bike to your advantage. Cornering with bikes is somewhat difficult but feels pretty rewarding. Using Weight Transfer is probably about as fast as ripping the handbrake around corners in a car, which is how players commonly take corners due to the way the Angel Games Engine works, but is definitly faster than just turning through a corner in a car normally.

different corner angles call for different levels of Weight Transfering, for long corners just steer left of right normally, if the corner is a 90 degree left or right, like most corners in the game, it is best to either hold WT and turn while accelerating or, the better more successful approach, hold WT and turn left or right hard to quickly flick your bike into the turn, then lift off WT and turn normally to exit the corner, if you time this right you should be out of the corner at almost top speed.

When approaching a sharp corner at high speed slow down in advance because the bikes brakes are awful and take a millenium to slow you down. Also watch out for curb cutting in Tokyo since this city has lots of sharp corners and the bikes have a tendency to fly over curbs when they hit them which could cause you to fly straight past the corner into a wall, costing you valuable seconds, or send you in the complete opposite direction of the curb, because physics.

If you're travelling at high speed and need to make a quick 180 degree turn, rather than just locking the rear wheel and attempting to spin the bike around, you can begin an endo and turn left or right. This will immediately spin you around and, with the help of a burnout, you'll be back up to speed in no time. You do have to time this carefully and you do have to be going fast for this to work, otherwise you'll just spin away on your front wheel.

Make sure you don't go overboard with WT as if you go too fast and use WT to take a corner your rider will lean the bike over too far, causing sparks to fly up from the scraping and you'll skid uncontrollably past the curve.

Watch out for blind corners, not being able to see what's around the corner is a pain and can cause a lot of rage when you pull off a perfect turn only to run head-on into a truck because you couldn't see it when you first entered the turn.

Don't worry to much about cornering until Paris because you'll only do about 5 races in LA with the first bike and you won't be going fast enough for there to be any real struggle at cornering. This is more for in Paris and Tokyo.
3. Accelerating / Speed
Bikes basically have infinite boost, If you pull a wheelie you'll know what I mean. You just lean back on your bike using up on WT and you'll take off like a rocket. Legit, you can get to, like, at least 300km/h on the Cohete doing a wheelie. They're also great for getting back up to speed after a dodgy corner.

The alternative way to take off fast is by leaning down closer to you bike in order to be more aerodynamic, it's slower then pulling a wheelie but is better for short roads when you just need to gain some ground or put some distance between you and the other racers but you don't have enough room to pull off a successful wheelie.

Make sure you're careful when finishing a wheelie as if you let go of WT while the front wheel is fully in the air it'll smash back down and you'll most likely lose control of the bike and crash, this is especially so with the Cohete, the Monsoni and the Nousagi aren't as bad since they have much better control capabilities, but still be wary.

You can also slipstream turbo other CPU but they can't do the same to you, sneaky.

Try and keep your head down most of the time because it gives you more control over your bike and will make you go faster then usual, it makes lane switching easier and will give you just that little bit more acceleration to 320km/h.
4. Cities and the Different Types of Roads They All Have
Each City has different types of roads and terrain which can effect the bikes performance significantly.

Los Angeles: As said before don't worry about this city to much with it's concerns about the bikes, you'll do maximum 6 races here with a bike and the free roam in this city is pretty user friendly. it's a good place to practise the techinques before progressing through the rest of the game.

Paris: You won't unlock the bike until you vs Ian in his Fripon X/Monsoni so in the mean time I recommend using the Bryanson V untill you get the Monsoni. The roads in Paris are very tight so what I said before about sharp turns applies here. the few long roads are great for doing wheelies and reaching high speeds, just watch out for the millions of buses that litter the city as well as sudden turning traffic. Try and stick to the outer edge of the road as it's good place to be when riding, or you can be edgy and lane split instead, your choice. There are a lot of backstreets so stay slow when riding through them as they're narrow and are usually paved with cobblestone, which is very hard to ride over, not to mention the copious amounts of traffic in the backstreets, play it safe through there and floor it on the straight's where it's safer. As said before old cobblestone roads cause major speed wobbles, stay in the middle of the road on those bits to give yourself space so you don't slip and smack the wall. Watch out for the steep roads near Sacre Coeur they're tricky to land on and can cause you to lose control and again hit the wall if you land wonky. There are lots of crests in Paris too, around the Art Museum and when coming in and out of the Underground Highway's, ride slow over the crest as if you ride over them too fast you'll go flying into a wall or miss your turn.

Tokyo: Probably the hardest city to ride a bike through with all the objects littered through the streets and backallies (watch out for the indestructible lampposts and skips). The traffic drives on the left in this city and there are a lot of delivery trucks and buses. Be sure to stick the landings in this city and try to land on your rear wheel so you have better balance when you land. The river in the middle of the city is shallow but if you ride through you can slide really easily and lose a lot of speed so try and stay on the banks when riding through, try to gradually rise up out of the basin when exiting the river as flying out doesn't always end well.
5. When it's best to not use a bike
In some race situation it's a good idea to not use a bike.

Weather: It's not a good idea to use a bike when an event is held in the rain, this is beacuse of the bikes unique handiling model, it makes it hard for the bike to grip properly and renders WT useless as well as making the brakes less effective. It's also recommened that you do not use a bike for an event held when it is foggy, as your visibility of the road ahead will be cut in half and, especially on the bikes, you really need to be able to see where you are going and if there are any objects in your way whether that be cars... or skips (They're actually the worst). You can, by all means, try racing in fog for a challenge but if you want to make life easier for youself... don't.

Race Types: I would not recommened attempting an unordered checkpoint event using a bike. There are usually sections of unordered races where you and your opponents will cross paths, either in a cross section or head-on. This can be risky beacause the AI are braindead, so they often like to swerve into you head-on just as you think you've passed them safely. Also it can be hard trying to navigate through the city with your map out while also trying not to crash into traffic, and believe me unordered races have the most traffic out of almost any of the other races.

Ultimately it's up to you whether you race in these conditions/under these cirumstances or not. Attempt whatever event you like with a bike. Some good cars to use in place of the bikes if you want to play it safe would be: the Inertia or the Citi Turbo in Los Angeles, The Bryanson V or the Fripon X in Paris and the Vortex 5 or the Knight in Tokyo.
6. Final Words and Good Luck
Well this is the end of the Complete Midnight Club II guide to bikes, I hope you learnt something from reading it. I recommend riding the bikes in free roam before attempting races, this will get you acquainted with all of the tips covered so that when you go to race you will be able to demolish the competition straight away. I wish you many more hours of fun with this game (since there won't be any more Midnight Club's anytime soon) and happy riding.

Just for fun, here are some fun facts about the bike names:
'Cohete' = 'Rocket' in Spanish
'Monsoni' = 'Monsoon' in Italian
'Nousagi' = 'Rabbit' in Japanese
5 Comments
Arc Feb 9, 2020 @ 2:14am 
I can attest to the comment talking about downshifting. Playing a bike in manual gives you the ability to reliably take any corner at any bike at a good speed (or if you have to come close to a stop the recovery is pretty quick since you don't wreck). The bikes also weave through traffic better in lower than top gear. The Nousagi controls almost like a car in this respect if you leave it in fifth gear.

Having recently used this guide and the note about playing in manual I was able to get through the game only using bikes without getting walled (the only exception was Savo's first Paris race took me a few hours). Using the manual shifting effectively keeps your speed reasonably high at all times and keeps you from wrecking as often. You can take 90 degree hairpins into one way streets on the Nousagi by shifting down into second gear and turning hard, it's crazy.
/// MDMA /// |||||||| Feb 19, 2018 @ 11:12pm 
A few things I would add to this guide:
--Beware sidewalk physics when cornering in Los Angeles and Paris, too!
--The best way I have found to slow a bike down is by downshifting (yes, I play manual transmission). Downshifting is more predictable than brakes and you can maintain your line better by downshifting.
--When riding in traffic I recommend going between the opposing traffic (double yellow lines). You won't have to dodge a car changing lanes this way, but watch out for crossing traffic!
--I would recommend turning off cinematic camera in the options. This will keep the camera behind you instead of shifting whenever you use weight transfer to turn or pop a wheelie.

Happy riding! :steamhappy:

P.S. Monsoni is not French. It might be Italian? It would make sense if it is based off a Ducati.
nigga Jan 25, 2018 @ 6:29am 
thanks to this guide, i beat savo with nousagi :D
Katz Sep 4, 2016 @ 5:11am 
Great guide, cheers!
Boy Racer Mar 7, 2016 @ 11:49pm 
Helpful. :SnailMini: