Burnout Revenge

Is Burnout Revent a mere port or somethign special for the Xbox 360?

With all of its various racing events both a joy to play and beautiful to look at, Burnout Revenge for the Xbox 360 is one wild ride. With all the great features of Burnout 3: Takedown, and even a few new tricks to boot, Burnout Revenge is simply a must-play game for any Xbox 360 owner even remotely interested in driving games or massive destruction.

In the main single-player mode of Burnout Revenge you’ll be taking control of a long list of seriously mean machines in an attempt to unlock all the cars and events the game contains – and it contains a long list of cars and events. You start with fairly innocuous cars, but as you progress further into the game you’ll collect some sweet rides. Each car is rated on its top speed (that should be self-explanatory), its weight (which determines how easily it gets knocked around by other cars), and Crashbreaker power. That last one is how big an explosion your car will make when you detonate it during certain circumstances within the game.

Events take place within different levels of the game. You start with the level of “Unsafe” and progress from there. Within each level are locals and within each local are a series of events. Winning initial events unlock more events (and cars) for you to tackle and will award the player stars. After enough stars are collected the player is allowed to move up to higher levels.

Events types include Race, Grand Prix Race, Burning Lap, Eliminator, Preview, Traffic Attack, Road Rage and Crash. Events broadly break down into ones where you set your sights on coming in first or beating a time and those that have you causing wreaks.

Race is just what it sounds like: simply get to the front and finish as close to the head of the six-car pack as you can. Grand Prix Race is a short series of races where you accumulate points each race and your points standing at the end determines where you place. Burning Lap is a race to see if you can best a predetermined lap time. Eliminator has you racing a pack of cars, but at predetermined intervals the last car in the pack explodes until there are no cars remaining. Preview is like Burning Lap except you are given a preview of a higher level and/or better car for a quick lap.

Traffic Attack is a run around a track as you try to trash as many bystander cars as possible. Each time a car is hit the monetary damage total increases and the time limit delays its march toward zero. Only cars going in the same direct as your own can be hit. Hitting a car head-on results in a crash and wasted time. Road Rage is a bit like Traffic Attack but now you are trying to perform takedown manoeuvres on your fellow racers. Taking down the requisite number of opponents gets you the medal.

Now we come to my favourite event style: Crash. In Crash events the player is presented with a set-piece scenario where he must drive into traffic and cause as much monetary damage as possible. The more damage, the higher his ranking. You start standing still and rocket off to meet the traffic at some juncture. Once you crash, the vehicles start to pile up until critical mass is reached. At this time the player can unleash his Crashbreaker – the explosive energy of his car. This causes further mayhem and can even cause critical mass to be reached again for a second crashbreaker explosion. In addition to the mundane traffic, there is a target vehicle that if it gets destroyed boosts the players score further.

What makes the Crash events so much fun is the puzzle aspect they pose. It may look like just rushing into the centre of the intersection will get the big crash, but a little experimentation might indicate that a less straight-forward approach yields the highest damage total. Perhaps swerve a little and catch that tanker truck full on for some spectacular fire. You also get to watch the pileup as it occurs … a very visceral pleasure. This is the event type you’ll be trying over and over again thinking that you can always change the outcome just a little bit for a better score.

In addition to the single-player mode, Burnout Revenge also offers a fair assortment of multiplayer modes. With a single Xbox 360 and one TV you can race with two players. Over Live the maximum number of players increases to six. One aspect of the Live multiplayer experience that bears additional elaboration on is the Revenge system that gives this edition of Burnout its name. The revenge system tracks opponents that have caused you to wreck and makes that opponent a special target for you to get even with by causing him to wreck. In the single-player mode it is kind of a flat feature. Who really feels animosity toward an AI-controlled car that may have made you crash? With humans this is a different matter. The Live service will track your targets for revenge as you play. But of course it will also track how you’ve been doing and make you the target of those whose bodies you have stepped over on your way to victory. I do regret to report that there is no System Link multiplayer.

Of course all the modes of play in the world don’t do any good if the controls to play them are no good. But that is no problem for Burnout Revenge. The controls perform spot on and are very intuitive. The standard Xbox 360 controller is great, but I’m still waiting for the wide availability of the MadCatz MC2 Racing Wheel for the 360 to get all there is out of the driving games that have thus far been released on the system. I’ve been convinced that steering wheels were the only civilized way to play driving games ever since I brought Turbo and its steering wheel home for my ColecoVision back in the early ‘80s. I’m still just as convinced of that now.

Criterion Games and Electronic Arts released the Xbox and PlayStation 2 versions of Burnout Revenge almost exactly six months ago. In the intervening time little has changed between the gameplay in the Xbox 360 version of the game and those for the last generation of consoles. The small changes are really just tweaks to gameplay to make the package a little more player friendly and to provide a slightly beefier online experience. The big step up is in presentation. And to put it briefly, it is absolutely spectacular.

The Xbox and PlayStation 2 versions of Burnout Revenge looked pretty great, but the Xbox 360 version shows what good use all that extra graphics-processing power can be put to. The explosions are huge and detailed, particle effects are terrific and the cars and environments are splendid. I doubt this is anywhere near the top end of the 360’s capabilities, but it sure looks nice for now. And the graphics are not the only thing that got pumped up. Sound is also measurably better, with an engine roar that is the best so far and a boost sound that will make you feel you got yourself caught between the tail fins of an F-14 Tomcat. Best of all, visuals and sound combine to make you feel you’re going around the track at 200 miles per hour with your hair on fire. The sense of speed is incredible.

At this point the question may be asked, “Which Xbox 360 racing game is now best?” Well Project Gotham Racing 3 is still king of the hill in the simulation category, but for overall racing fun, you cannot beat Burnout Revenge. In a smiles-per-mile analysis, it comes in first place every time. Full Auto is lucky it came out a month ago. While Full Auto has its moments, when the two are put head to head there is no contest. The larger variety of racing styles in Burnout Revenge constantly keeps the action fresh where Full Auto quickly gets stale. Burnout Revenge easily earns a core of 9.

This review comes courtesy of our friends at Gameshark.com .