Review: Burnout - Revenge

In a genre filled with lookalikes and ripoffs, the Burnout series stands as a very different kind of racer. Burnout 3: Takedown was a significant departure from previous games in the series. The sense of speed and impact that made Burnout 3 a landmark game of 2004 have returned in the next game in the series, Burnout: Revenge. By maintaining the good things about the last game, losing some of the annoying stuff, and adding new twists to the gameplay Criterion has given us another chance to make things go fast and fly far. Read on for my impressions of Burnout: Revenge.

• Title: Burnout: Revenge
• Developer: Criterion Games
• Publisher: Electronic Arts
• System: Xbox (PS2, 360)
• Reviewer: Zonk
• Score: 9/10

In Burnout 3 the main attraction was the sense of energy and speed that was injected into racing, and the sense of destruction imparted in Crash Mode. Burnout: Revenge runs with the destruction and speed, and refines the entire experience with UI improvements and gameplay streamlining. Revenge carries the series forward by taking everything up a notch. Every mode has had something added, there are new things to do and see, and the entire game is polished until you can see yourself in the hood.

Gameplay is basically the same as last year's offering. You race a vehicle in a series of events, trying to come in first, destroy other cars, and do as much damage as possible to others (roughly in that order). Most of the event modes from the previous game make a repeat performance, with crash mode and race mode being the two headlining events. In race mode, you fight it out with the other vehicles to reach the finish line first. Along the way you gain Boost by slamming the other vehicles into obstacles, earning Takedowns. Boost is the go-fast juice of Burnout, and slamming on Boost has a dramatic effect on your speed.

Boost is used in a different way in Crash mode, which has seen some significant overhauls. The purpose is still the same: throw yourself into a well-trafficked area with the purpose of destroying as many cars as possible. Upon starting a Crash event the changes are immediately obvious. There is now an acceleration bar that allows you to gain a fast start. A gauge on the bar rises and falls, waiting for you to hit a button. There are two green zones on the bar, and the idea is to hit the button in the middle of the top green zone and again as the gauge falls through the lower of the green zones. If you time it right you'll get a huge burst of speed, and consequently will be able to do that much more damage. While it takes a few tries to get the hang of it, the bar adds some thought to the mindless destruction. Another improvement is the removal of the iconography from Crash mode. While there were once (x3) and ($) symbols hanging in the air, there is now nothing between you and the cars. Scoring big in Crash mode now requires that you use your Crashbreaker on as many cars as possible. The Crashbreaker is an explosive device that goes off after you've passed a set amount of destruction. After a crash your score accrues while your Boost bar fills. Once you've maxed out your Boost bar, a quick tapping mini-game ensues until your Boost overflows. Then the shockwave hits. While before you received multipliers from the icons you hit during the crash, now you gain multipliers for each car affected by the blast. This can result in ludicrously high scores if you detonate in the middle of a large car pile. All these changes add up to a smarter, more entertaining Crash mode.

The other event modes have a lot going for them, too. Road Rage is a modified race that requires you to take down a certain number of cars. Eliminator is an exciting mode that starts like a normal race, with a 30 second timer running on the screen. At the end of the 30 second timer, the lowest ranked car is eliminated. The goal is to be the first place rank at the end of two and half minutes, leaving you the last car standing. Traffic Attack is a fast paced event where you utilize the new traffic check ability to rack up money and carnage. Burning Laps and Preview Races pit you against the clock, and ask you to beat certain times. All of the event modes present interesting challenges, and coupled with interesting track designs results in some extremely entertaining gameplay.

Track design in Burnout 3 tended towards atmosphere over innovation. Revenge tracks have all the atmosphere of previous title, but with more thought put into their layout. Tracks now have shortcuts laid running through them, allowing you the chance to cut off some curves and turns by diving between the convenient blue lights marking their entrances. These shave a lot of time off of your laps, and usually go through some interesting places you wouldn't otherwise be able to see from the main track. Courses have verticality to them now as well, with jumps and ramps being a part of the Burnout experience. There's even a new Vertical Takedown reward for managing to slam into someone from above.

Gameplay on the tracks has some new twists as well. Traffic checking is an entertaining activity that allows you to slam into NPC cars from behind and send them flying. Besides getting barriers out of the way, a checked car that flies into an opponent might net you a Takedown. Takedowns lead to the reason behind the word Revenge in the title of the game, as well. In a heated match if an opponent manages to take you out he earns the rival designation, and his marker indicator turns red. Taking out your new rival nets you more Boost than a normal Takedown otherwise would, and after a few Revenge Takedowns you'll start getting more recognition. The additional elements added to the basic gameplay make for a simple element of strategy, as you try to hit your opponents with checked vehicles and specifically target Takedowns at your rival NPCs. Which is more difficult than it used to be, because NPCs have gotten a mental facelift in the past year. They're smarter, and extremely aggressive. At the same time, they've also been given lessons in fairness. One of the frustrations of Burnout 3 was the occasional dead race, where you'd find yourself behind for the entire event because of one mistake early in the first lap. In a title like Burnout, which emphasizes collisions and entertainment over simulation, that was extremely frustrating. The opponents in Revenge are aggressive racers, but you'll never find yourself completely out of the pack. Races are always hard won, with the other racers making you earn every event you conquer.

All of these event modes come together in the World Tour, which is a trimmed down version of the three-map interface in Burnout 3. All events are gathered together under a certain rank designator. Your rank starts at 1, and as you complete events with varying medals you accrue stars towards higher ranks. Collect enough stars, and you move up to the next rank. Within each rank is a group of locations, and at each location is a series of events. Events can be run backwards or forwards, so you may find yourself running on a particular track several times over the course of a rank, each time doing a different event or going a different direction. As events are successfully completed, you earn higher ranks and unlock content within the game. New events are unlocked through your success, as are new vehicles, trophies, and mementoes of spectacular moves you've made. The feeling of movement and accomplishment on the track is transferred to the game's framework, as you move up in ranks and add notches in your belt.

The feeling of movement on the track is intense, and largely thanks to the graphical presentation of the title. Burnout is all about speed, and the game is very convincing in that department. Blurring, tumbling cars, streaking scenery, and violent explosions all convey the rate of movement the game is aiming for. The sense of speed most racers want to get across sometimes falls flat, and the success of Burnout: Revenge is a high mark to shoot for. The cars themselves are beautifully rendered, with reflections sliding around and off of the vehicle's lines. The signature bullet-time like effect called Impact Time utilized during a crash has been enhanced to provide a movie quality effect when you screw up. Burnout: Revenge is a gorgeous looking game, and pushes the limits of this generation of consoles. There are surprisingly few slowdowns, and I didn't have any problems with interrupted play because of a technical glitch. The only issue I ran across seemed to be related to loading objects into the gamespace. There is a crash mode event that puts you at the top of a hill on a two lane road with traffic in both directions. Once or twice I managed to slam into an invisible truck that had yet to be visible within the game, but whose collision detection caused me to lose before I'd barely begun. Aside from that quirk, the game is a smooth, beautiful experience to behold.

Revenge is also pleasant to listen to. The game's sound effects backup the sense of speed that the visuals portray, with revving engines, squealing tires, and grinding metal placing you squarely in the moment. The soundtrack has shared elements with Burnout 3, the popular music of today headlining with a slightly more metal edge than the pop-flavoured tunes of the previous game. To be honest, after an hour or two listening to the game's default soundtrack I started using the custom soundtrack feature. E.S. Posthumus's "Unearthed" is surprisingly appropriate for epic racing and car crashes. Thankfully, the most annoying aspect of Burnout 3's soundscape has been removed. There is no DJ radio announcer in the game. A woman's voice welcoming you to the game and giving you instructions during tutorials is the only voice-over work you'll have to deal with.

Burnout: Revenge is the fourth chapter in the series, and looks to be shaping up as another yearly EA release alongside Madden. While this game may not be innovative or indie, it's hard to argue with the sheer amount of fun you can have playing this game. The latest title in the Burnout line manages to capture the best parts of the previous games while adding on new elements, polishing the gameplay to a razor sharpness. The speed, the energy, and the variety of different ways to play will ensure that you'll have a hard time putting this title down. Multiplayer capability, in the form of split-screen and Xbox Live competition, is solid and engaging as well. In all truth, this game can hardly be called a racing game. It's a beautifully fun excuse to go fast and blow things up, and if you enjoy either of those activities you'll be hard pressed to pass this title by.

Burnout: Revenge

Sounds like a game about my co-workers.
I work at the post office.

Screenshots

Those are some fantastic screenshots in the review. (Look for breaks in the text) Maybe they should have turned down the brightness.

Load times?

What are the load times like? They are looooooooong in Burnout 3 on the PS2. You wait to load the level (even a small "Crash" Level), you wait to see your replay, you wait to get your bonus car, &c. The game was fun, but I really hoped they managed to tone those intervals down. It's difficult to maintain that heightened energy level when there 15 seconds of waiting between each interesting part.

Better than Burnout 3, but...

This game is better than the previous version, but I don't know if it's worthwhile owning both of them (as I do). And I can't stand the new career mode interface and the car selection.

If you own neither, I'd pick up Burnout 3. I've seen it at best buy/circuit city for $19.99.

Why oh why not on pc?

Why do such great sexy games not come out on PC?

I know piracy is a big concern, but as a PC only gamer I really do hate missing out on a few great titles.

By a great margin do I prefer PC gaming mainly because of not having a pile of generations of hardware to replace constantly and the ability to download / update games with patches & fixes etc... and adding content

I don't care how great a console gets, I got over a grand into my computer why do i need another grand sitting under the tv??

A Dissenting View

Personally, I'm not sure how much I like some of the changes to the game. Specifically:

Crash mode - In B3, Crash mode was like a puzzle on speed. Finding those x3 and x4 tags and figuring how to hit them while still causing a pileup was the goal. Now the goal is more like Dance Dance Revolution (time that start correctly) followed by Microsoft Olympics (mash that B button like a monkey on meth to make the explosion happen) Driving? not really that important. Placement of wreck? important, but if you fail on the other two "skill" tests, it won't matter.

Car checking - There's now very little danger in driving on the proper side of the road. Anything you hit that is smaller than you and travelling in the same direction just bounces out of the way, barely slowing you down, adds an interesting play mechanic, but takes some of the skill out driving some of those courses. Also, it's applied a little strangely, as cross traffic still causes crashes... sometimes.

Finally, it's no longer good enough to just get a gold medal on each event in the game, you also have to get a gold medal while being "stylish" enough doing it.

It's a good game, certainly, but I prefer B3. I'd only give B4 a 6 or 7 out of 10.

I agree

I give this game a 9.5 out of 10, with BO3 getting a 9.2 or thereabouts. BO3 sucked in crash mode, mainly because there were SO many of them, they got incredibly boring after a while. I didn't finish the game because of the boring crashes. Another thing that sucked was how incredibly long it took to go back and do the crash again! I didn't feel like wasting another 30-45 seconds between crashes.
Revenge seems to fix this, it's crash mode is both more entertaining and faster loading.
Revenge is a great game, I especially enjoy the "career mode" stuff. Instead of like BO3 where you either hadn't won the game or you had, Revenge gives you 10 different levels, and AI gets smarter and races get harder as you progress.
This game is a keeper. It's also a good "casual" game to have around so when your non-gamer friends come over, it's easy to pick up the basics (gas, brake, boost).

A great game

I'm really glad they didn't call this game Burnout 4, because its more like Burnout 3.5. None the less the game is still pretty amazing and improves on the game play success of its predecessor. If you enjoyed Burnout 3, then Burnout revenge is a more refined version that adopts new elements while improving existing mechanisms.

heh funny

I originally thought this article had to do with IT worker burnout and the resulting revenge on the company. I was hoping to find tips and techniques. I'm sadly dissappointed.

Lack of Music in Multiplayer

I love the Burnout series, especially with Takedown and Revenge's awesome soundtracks (with the Xbox version ripping your own music is a huge plus), but the one pet peeve I've had about them is the lack of music in multiplayer mode. The game is so much more fun when you have a pulse-pounding high energy track to go along with the speed and intensity that playing two player just feels kinda, well dull.

Is this a limit of the X-Box/PS2 hardware or what? I know it's rendering two sceens, but could it really be that much strain on the hardware to play a soundtrack?

Other than that the game is amazing and one of my favourites, and the previous Revenge title is only 20$ new, so if you don't have it already pick it up.

Time to prove your metal

Remember, this is an EA published game. All those people who posted that they've never give EA another cent in the "EA are Evil" stories (eg http://games.slashdot.org/games/04/11/11/0031259.s html?tid=98&tid=10 [slashdot.org]) can look, but they can't touch!

Re:Time to prove your metal

whenever someone (inevitably) mentions that boycotts don't work , i am reminded of this quote by a relatively unknown person:

Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.

-Mahatma Gandhi

Harder and easier than BO3

Revenge is both harder and easier than Takedown. Wait... what?

We have two Xboxes. One of them has Takedown on it that has over 80% completed. The other Xbox didn't have Takedown on it. I started playing Revenge on the latter Xbox. I managed to get to Elite (Rank "11") less than two weeks. Now I'm struggling to complete events in rank 10 and 11.

We started playing Revenge on the Xbox that has the Takedown save on it. We found out that you get a few extra cars if you have EA saved games on it (Madden 06 and Takedown were our saved games). The extra crash cars made it easier for the Crash mode...

However, the game is MUCH harder. We're at Rank 4 with this Xbox (the Takedown Xbox) and the AI in those events are equivelant to Rank 9 and 10 on the Xbox that doesn't have Takedown on it.

Pretty challenging (and frustrating). I was wondering why Revenge was so easy when I first played it. I thought this varied difficulty depending on the gamer's history was pretty clever on Criterion's part. :)

Stryker struck!

"There is no DJ radio announcer in the game."

Stryker is off the game finally. Now if we could only get him off the airwaves here in L.A.

CRASH MODE!!

I played the Burnout: Takedown game a lot, and I could never get sick of the crash mode... I just wish they would add pedestrians into the mix. *evil laugh*

Where's the PC version?

I've wanted to play the Burnout series for a while now, but I'm not going to buy a console to do it.

Why does this series not come out on PC?

Soundtrack

B3's soundtrack sucked. Not a single good tune, with the possible exception of the music behind the game's opening logo and "Press Start" screen (right after the opening music video). My sweetie's 16-year-old son agrees; none of the music in Burnout 3 was really any good, and certainly not what could be called driving music.

It appears from the review that EA made the same error with Burnout Revenge: They "did a deal" with some music studio to get some "big name" artists, thereby "adding premium value" to the game. And like Burnout 3, we'll probably be turning the music completely off, because it's just so annoying.

Schwab

Burnout 3 + Destructable Traffic

It's pretty much just Burnout 3 + Destructable Traffic. Not that this is bad, but it's not a huge change from Burnout 3. The "Traffic Checking" mode is ok. The new addition to Crash Mode makes playing it more like playing a game of golf (knock traffic into other cars to avoid crashing your own).

If the Burnout series turns out to be like the Need for Speed series, then we will probably see a new game every 1-2 years (many based on an older engine). EA tends to recycle old engines into at least 1 sequel. This is of course as opposed to what Acclaim did which was pretty much a complete redesign for every sequel...

Why not REAL ingame screenshots?

The screen shots shown in the article look like in-game between-level movie snapshots.

I don't want to see those. I want to see the ones the player sees during the game. The HUD, the 3rd person(or 1st) perspective. What is it with game reviewers rarely showing real in-game shots, instead going for glamorous movie shots, which are not representive of the actual game?

I have Burnout:revenge for the PSP, and it's more or less Burnout 3, stripped down a bit, and not as frustrating. I was even able to get a bronze on the burning lap(with the formula 1 race car). In the PS2 Burnout 3, the load times were frustrating, as well as attempting to drive the F1 racecar without crashing every 2 seconds. While I mastered burnout 2(beat the game and was able to drift real well), I gave up on BO3 due to difficulty, and never getting the timing of the drifts right.

Mostly improvements over an already great game

I really liked Burnout 3. With burnout 4, they've managed to improve most aspects (traffic checking is nice-- you don't crash from every little nick in traffic). Load times are down too (especially in crash mode) but there are a few things that stood out for us when playing:

- The loading screen is annoying with the three blocks that keep slamming together.
- The 'rewind' when restarting a crash is awfully annoying, especially on some of the longer courses. You can't skip it! Reminds me of the limit breaks in FF 8 that couldn't be skipped :P
- The totalling up of damage in the crash isn't nearly as exciting now since you get the realtime update during the crash. In my mind, waiting for the total until after everything was done added to the suspense of "did I get it!!?!"

for a truly disturbing crash experience

You could play this game between readings of J.G. Ballard's "Crash" and watch Cronenburg's movie on DVD.

Vaughan died yesterday in his last car crash. During our friendship he had rehearsed his death in many crashes, but this was his only true accident. Driven on a collision course towards the limousine of the film actress, his car jumped the rails of the London Airport flyover and plunged through the roof of a bus filled with airline passengers. The crushed bodies of package tourists, like a hemorrhage of the sun, still lay across the vinyl seats when I pushed my way through the police engineers an hour later. Holding the arm of her chauffeur, the film actress Elizabeth Taylor, with whom Vaughan had dreamed of dying for so many months, stood alone under the revolving ambulance lights. As I knelt over Vaughan's body she placed a gloved hand to her throat.

- J. G. Ballard. Crash. (1984)
    http://www.researchpubs.com/books/ballexc2.shtml [researchpubs.com]

I like it

But then, my tastes can easily be described as open-minded :-)

Gamecube

I'm a little confused as to why neither Burnout 3 or Revenge came out on gamecube. Is it a power issue, or a rights issue?

Does making it easier really imply better?

In Burnout 3, the F1 style racers were very difficult to drive. In Revenge, they're very easy to drive.

It seems that most of the difficulties have been removed from the game in order to reach a broader spectrum audience. Burnout 3 made people frustrated and many would just stop playing it at a certain point while with Revenge it just keeps going and going...

Don't get me wrong, I like the game, but it seems like a much easier game than the last one.

I have to disagree with Zonk about the gameplay being the same, as it's much easier than in the previous incarnation.

Worth owning but only just

Switching from Burnout 3 to Burnout Revenge was, well, interesting. They've changed a few things that were broke, introduced a few new things that are partially broken, and created a different but not better game.

The revamp of crash mode is fun but also broken. First off, the launch is stupid ... you quickly master this and you won't get gold unless you get a perfect start. Games should be rewarding, not frustrating and missing a perfect start (and then having to reset) is just frustrating. Likewise, the rapid-tap of the B button to provoke a crashbreaker is nasty, and penalizes my wife who can't hit the button as quickly.

The new environments for crash mode partially upset this, as well as the wider selection of vehicles. The fun part of crash mode now is finding both the right path and the right vehicle ... Burnout 3 crash mode was just about the one, single path.

What's dissapointing is that there's no longer a crash replay! That makes it harder to determine how to "improve" your rating since you see just the aftermath of your run, rather than the run itself. And the target car is silly, since it is almost guaranteed to be involved in any reasonably sized crash. Additionally, it would be nice if two vital statistics were displayed at the end of the crash in addition to dollar damage: number of cars wrecked and explosion multiplier. These can be dug out with a few button presees, but they are critical to levelling up and should simply be displayed.

A side note: you can see the hand of the developers clearly in crash mode; not only do cars NOT try to avoid crashes, but you can see cars hit a "radius of control" at which point they accelerate into the crash. Despite this, the physics of crash mode is improved in many subtle ways. Cars tend to twist and roll in a much more realistic manner.

In terms of new things that are broke, being able to rear-end cars is a total mistake. It randomizes the races, since you just plow through traffic, with your vision obscured by the vehicles you've slammed ahead of you, until eventually you hit a bus or wall. It's very common, because of this (and shortcuts) to see you position shift constantly between first and last. When I first heard about this feature, I assumed you'd be able to side-check, not rear-end, vehicles ... and I think that would have been a more tactical, more controlled, less random approach.

Opponents do not avoid you as well during aftertouch; it's much easier to score an aftertouch takedown in Burnout Revenge than in Burnout 3, but it's much harder to score an ordinary takedown. "Psyche-out" takedown are even more rare.

The new race crashbreakers (the ability to explode when taken out) are generally a good idea; you have to be tactical about them, since detonating without taking out an opponent leaves you with no boost at all. However, your opponents do NOT have this ability ... only you! This is an example of how they've made the game easier, but not necessarily better.

The "stars" system is another broken change. Despite the fun feedback you get during a race for reaching new levels ("OK", "Good", "Awesome") ... you are unlikely to finish the race before getting the maximum of four stars and I can't see you ever getting gold without earning four stars. So the stars are just window dressing on top of the ordinary medals you receive anyway. If stars were harder to earn, so that you could finish with a Gold but only two stars, for example, it would be a different story.

The 10 levels of unlocking progression is more confusing and less satisfying than Burnout 3's approach of unlocking classes of cars. You unlock a huge number of cars, sometimes it feels like one per race. The cars are all fast (many blindingly fast) but run together as well, the names are less memorable than Burnout 3's, and all seem to handle the same. The differentiation between cars (outside of top speed) is even less in Burnout Rev

Sounds like this game needs......

..... A hot coffee mod.

9.9/10

I've only got their demo disc with one race track on. Great to play. Can't wait till I get the 'real' version. Visually stunning :)

360

Now what I'm wondering is what they're going to add to the game to make me want to buy it for the 360, as its supposed to be released either at launch or in the second wave of games. It would be nice if they toughened up the game a bit. Almost every comment has said the game is way too easy. It'd also be nice if some of the graphics glitches were ironed out. . . it's really annoying when you takedown someone and you see... not what you're supposed to see.

Yearly? let's hope.

Burnout revenge freaking rocked this year, it's not more of the same.. well it is, but that's ALL you need. More crashes, more areas, and more cars. That alone made this game a 10/10 in my book, the fact it's agressive high octane driving just gets my juices flowing every time I play a game in the series.

If it does go yearly the big improvements might get cut down but if the amount of tracks and type of tracks stay at this level it won't be bad.

The only problem it has is difficulty being low. but overall it was a very solid follow up to Burnout 3.

The other option is that it's going how some games go. MainGame, expansion, new MainGame, expansion. Similar to how GTA sorta did for the first and third game (if you call VC a expansion which it is in many ways)

Burnout 3 is a tough act to follow

I've never been a racing game fan (my favorite "racing" games are probably Mario Kart and Excitebike), but Burnout 3 is the major exception. It sounds like all the crappiness (annoying announcers, weak music, unbearable AI) have been addressed in version 4. The one glaring issue from Burnout 3 I would like to eliminate is the way it pulls you from the race everytime you take someone out. It would be nice if you could turn it off for racing. After the first 1000 opponents have been mashed it starts to get old.

curious experience

I played revenge first, which was fun for the 15 mins or so that I played it, I crashed into a lot of stuff, went fast, earned points and prizes, etc. But my initail thought 30 seconds into my first race was how much fun it would be to avoid the cars rather than hit them. I say I played revenge first, as at home I have takedown, which I bought cheap second hand. I played it, it's harder, I never completed the first race in the standings the twice I tried, You have to avoid the traffic, or get oh so close to it, and for that it's a better game, and one I'll return to. There is no challenge in hitting everything, and you feel that revenge is being nice to you so you don't feel like a loser first time out of the gate.

Revenge is nice and all, and I prefer the female DJ, vaguely reminiscent of the DJ in Warriors, "big news boppers..." but for all that I prefer the challenge of the third game. Number 4 is all flash and no substance, on first impressions at any rate.

I will continue to be bored by this genre until...

I will continue to be bored by this genre until they give the cars guns, mines, and possibly other weapons ala "James Bond". They had this figured out, to some degree, in the 1990's, as I remember playing several games in the arcades and on game systems (Rock 'n' Roll Racing, one of my all-time favorites) that fit this bill. What's wrong with game developers that they don't do that now? Anyone know of such games?

NFS + missile launchers, oil slicks, and mines would rock my face clean off its bone. C'mon, people! If you can upgrade an engine, you can upgrade a weapon system...

Video Torrent

I saw this [filerush.com] a few days ago. It sure seems like it'd be a lot of fun to play, but as a Mac user I'll never know. Back to UT2004 vehicle maps, I guess. "Road Rage!"

Great Game

I played it (xbox version) last week when I was over at a friends. Direct compared to Burnout 3 it has a lot of plus and almost no minus. You don't crash with you bump into traffic on your side, they made the crash courses so much better and more fun. The courses have shortcuts and its fund to find them and use them. They have some new parts, like the "crash cars on your side and get the money limit before the time runs out and the time goes down if you don't crash any car".
I love it and I can't wait until it comes out for japanese PS2 ...

Here's hoping

I haven't played the new one, but I hope they keep my favorite feature in the game (strangely enough) where the game makes you completely invincible while it is showing an opponent crashing in slow motion (if you caused it). I could be heading into a tractor trailer at 180 mph, but if they cut away to the other car right before I hit it, I will basically plow right through it without damage.
One time I was heading for a support beam at about 170, they cut away to a wreck I caused, and when it flashed back, I was going a suspicous 5 mph, but completely unharmed. Oh sweet realism.

Radio DJ

Thankfully, the most annoying aspect of Burnout 3's soundscape has been removed. There is no DJ radio announcer in the game.

I'm pretty sure that you can turn off the radio announcer in Burnout 3 (at least in the PS2 version).

Structure?

My only real criticism of Burnout 3, shared by a few people I've spoken to, was the game's structure- an unguided morass of near-identical tasks for near-identical cars. The handling model and track design weren't a problem. Anyone know how Revenge has turned out in this regard, seeing as the review (like most) doesn't cover it?

Re:We need new editors

Bah, you're just jealous. You know as well as I do that games give the editors an excuse to play games while on the job.

[CmdrTaco sees Zonk playing X-Box]
CmdrTaco: "Just what do you think you're doing, Zonk?
Zonk: "Who, me?" [fumbles the controller a bit] "I'm, uh, reviewing a new game. Yeah, that's it."
CmdrTaco: "Oh, well that's okay then. Make sure it's a good article with plenty of screenshots!"
Zonk: (grumbling under his breath) "rastafrastanogood now i have to do a writeup"

Don't we all wish our jobs were so great? :-P

Re:We need new editors

What a bunch of whining jerks. If you don't like games and/or Zonk, go into your preferences and turn them off. I did this when Katz was still around and was much happier.

-prator

There Is No "We"

Sometimes I wish that Slashdot would grow a spine and stand up for what it believes in.

Slashdot is a website. It doesn't believe anything.

Metonymy partially aside, it's irresponsible to believe that the opinions of some commentors are the same as all commentors, the site editors, and all Slashdot readers. If you make the mistake of basing your self-worth on having lots and lots of people agree with you (or worse, on being able to find apparent hypocrisy of overgeneralized groups of people that don't agree with you), you're in for a lot of disappointment.

If you want to boycott EA, do it. I do. If someone asks, I'll explain why. It's not worth it to me to throw a fit and try to find conspiracies in everyone who doesn't, though.

Re:They BROKE crash mode.

Personally I think they totally improved the crash mode. It used to be (Burnout 3) pretty static. The main goal was to hit the multipliers with some car wrecks. This task was pretty repetitive and very 2D.

Now the crash mode adds an element of initial speed plus the added fun of "Car Checking" (New feature of Burnout 4 to launch small vehicles by impact) Plus the new vertical elements such as cliffs, ramps, wind resistance. Also the added fun of having a crash breaker based on the level of explosion the vehicle can produce. Plus you can have multiple crash breakers if you get enough boost. You get more points by causing vehicles to explode... not just wreck. There is also the "target" car that you aim to destroy for bonus points. There is also some limited camera control where before you couldn't do anything about it.

I thought Burnout 3's crashing was okay... Burnout 4 made it sweet.

Re:They BROKE crash mode.

Oh thank you. I bought the game yesterday and played for about an hour. In Burnout 3 I thought both modes were equally enjoyable. I'm not feeling the new crash mode. It's slow and boring (though there's a good chance I don't know what I'm doing yet). The start meter is a nice idea, but it sucks to sit through the stall or the blowout. I didn't like the load time when we first got to the level; why do I need to enjoy it again?

Again, this is based on an hour's playing. Opinions expressed may not have any relationship to reality.