Nearly every
second of Burnout 3: Takedown should be followed with the same disclaimer in
most car commercials – “Professional driver on a closed course, do not
attempt.” Part ferocity of a demolition derby, part insanity of a speederbike
race through Endor, Burnout 3 is an incredible arcade racer and another smash
hit from mega-publisher Electronic Arts. Full of fantastic gameplay modes, Xbox
Live support, and blistering graphics, Burnout 3 has set the new standard for
arcade racers.
Set in locales
across the globe (okay, really only the United States, Europe, and the Far East)
Burnout 3 isn’t your everyday racer. Fans of the series will be ecstatic to
know that this is easily the best title in the crash-happy franchise,
encouraging twisting around corners as much as it does twisting chassis.
Bursting with innovative gameplay modes and Xbox Live support, this is THE game
for drivers who want to take the ‘sim’ out of simple racing.
Burnout functions
largely on a risk/reward system, meaning the more gamers drive like NASCAR nasty
Tony Stewart, the more bonuses they’ll receive. These risks include driving
into oncoming traffic, nearly missing other cars on the road, and powersliding
or drifting around corners. But the biggest rewards come from the game’s
namesake – Takedowns. Classic racing games may have cars jockey for position
and try and beat opponents on an inside line around a turn. Perhaps racers will
draft behind rivals, gain speed, and shoot past them on a straight. Maybe a
little bump n’ grind is even allowed in the classics. Not Burnout. Burnout
wants its racers to punish their opponents by sending them flying off the
racetrack, slamming into trucks, or flipping end over end in spectacular
fashion. The rewards for risking it all? Adding to the all important boost
meter. Boost is very important to the game, and vital in keeping opponents at
bay.
The major portion
of the single-player game is the Burnout World Tour mode. This meaty mode is a
series of challenging events divided into two main categories – race and crash
events. As these events are completed, new events open up around the world.
Each locale has several courses, and each course holds several events. For
example, beating a crash event in the Silverlake area may open up a race event
in the Downtown area, or vice versa.
Crash events are
Mad Max’s wet dream. These events have no finish line, no competitors, and only
one rule: cause as much damage as you can with one crash. Many of the scenarios
challenge gamers to drive a car into a busy intersection and cause mayhem. Now
that’s what I call fun! Bonus cash and multipliers litter the course to add a
bit of strategy to the game, but the real enjoyment comes from watching six cars
plow into a jackknifed tanker. Once a set number of cars becomes involved in
the pileup, players can initiate a ‘Crashbreaker’, which is effectively a
self-destruct button of your burning wreck. With a press of the B button, the
wreck explodes and flies into the air – the catch is gamers have limited control
over the wreckage and can send the flaming pile of metal into more traffic or
pick up the valuable multipliers on the road. The camerawork is quite effective
in showing cars crash into others as drivers maniacally watch the result of
their handiwork, like a mad scientist unleashing an abomination on the
populace. Once everything is settled, Burnout 3 switches into a nice flyby
mode, spanning the course of destruction from an elevated view and calculating
the amount of damage that was done. Sure it sounds stupid, but I challenge
anyone out there to stop from giggling like a schoolgirl at the site of the
vehicular mayhem.
To make the game
even deeper, race events have several subcategories. Because it seems
mandatory, several standard race modes are included. But the slight variations
on the tired race mode are the real joys for Burnout 3. In Road Rage, gamers
are given the challenge to acquire as many takedowns as they can within a
certain time and car damage limit. Certain takedown prerequisites are set at
the beginning of the race, and drivers must meet these numbers before time runs
out or their car is totaled. Eliminator pits gamers against a field of rivals
in a race – with a twist. The driver in last place after each lap is eliminated
from the race. Other race modes include one-on-one Face Off, time trial Burning
Lap, and race series Grand Prix. Of course even the standard races have furious
metal-grinding action, complete with Burnout 3’s signature spectacular wrecks.
What makes Burnout
3 so accessible to everyone are its simple controls and forgiving physics.
There’s no option for manual or automatic transmission… just hold down the
accelerator and punch it. Of course some basic driving skills are necessary to
shave off vital seconds and get the gold medal, but there aren’t any complicated
downshift-release the gas-handbrake-gas-upshift combinations necessary here.
The element of speed is so incredibly important to Burnout 3, and the developers
have preserved this sensation with soft physics. Obviously a car hits a big rig
truck head-on, it’ll turn into a crushed tin can. But if the car hits a wall at
a slight angle, it will usually bounce off and get right back on track. This is
something that the developers made the right call on – keep the action going and
make the game playable by just about anyone.
Because Burnout 3
is such a good-looking game, splitting the screen for multiplayer isn’t the best
way to play with other people. Thank the lord for Xbox Live. Burnout 3 on Xbox
Live is a pretty good way to take out pent-up aggressions by crashing other
gamers across the globe. Online game modes include Single Race, Road Rage, Team
Crush, Double Impact, and Party Crash. Road Rage online pits two teams (up to
eight players total) in an elimination style-event… Blue team tries to outrun
the Red team, and Red team tries to takedown the Blue team. Party Crash is a
multiplayer crash event, with each participant competing against each other.
Each car runs its individual trial, and the damage totals are calculated. Team
Crush sees two cars working together to generate the most damage, and Double
Impact has two cars competing against each other to cause the most damage.
While these modes are very fun to play, a game of Tag or Kill the Carrier ala
Midtown Madness 3 would have been a blast.
The visuals in
Burnout 3 are spectacular. From the presentation to the detailed levels,
there’s little to complain about the aesthetics of Burnout 3. The mountainsides
of the United States, rustic urban architecture of Europe, and neon-clad glitzy
cities of the Far East all look positively smashing. The detail on the cars,
although they’re not licensed cars, is very good and the real-time damage
modeling works very well, particularly during axel-busting wrecks.
The sounds of
Burnout 3 are great in the right spots. Because the game is centered around
crashes, it’s really the crashes that need to sound great, and they do.
Shattering glass dominates the audio (who doesn’t love shattering glass?), and
it’s accompanied by a symphony of metal-to-metal clashing, thunderous
explosions, and whiny car alarms. To make things even more dramatic, takedowns
are slow-mo’d and the sound is suddenly interrupted – the hard rock music stops
and atmospheric sound effects take over. It’s a simple addition that makes
taking an opponent down… fun! As for that hard rock soundtrack, it’s very
fitting to the fast paced action and is well put together.
While Burnout 3 is
very worthy of praise, there are a few things that keep Burnout from being an
all-time classic. Burnout 3 is all about gorgeous crashes… WHERE ARE THE
REPLAYS!? There is a basic replay at the end of crash events, but nothing that
the user can control. If I knock another car over the guardrail and into a
tree, sending the wreckage spinning like a Frisbee, I am going to want to see
that baby again… over and over. Not going to happen in this edition. It’s a
major oversight that will hopefully be fixed in the future. One game element
that can be considered both a blessing and a curse is the “rubberband” action on
the computer-controlled cars. The rubberband action I’m talking about is a
feature in some racers that makes rivals speed up or slow down depending on how
the player is driving. Simply put, every race will be competitive. That’s
great when you’re having a terrible race (although not too gratifying), but
terrible when you’re seemingly blowing the competition away. There’s nothing
wrong with a little rubberband action, but Burnout 3 makes it a little too
obvious.
| Review Scoring Details for Burnout 3 |
Gameplay: 9.5
Burnout 3 is all
about the guilty pleasure we all get from seeing a major car wreck. The
gameplay is nearly flawless, combining variety with intense action, making
Burnout 3 ridiculously addictive.
Graphics: 9.0
Given all the
fast-paced action, the graphics hold up remarkably well. There’s definitely a
Need For Speed Underground look about the game, which is a good thing. The
backdrops are so well detailed, that drivers may catch themselves looking at
sailboats cruising around the Marina… that is until the driver runs into an
oncoming payload truck at 100 mph.
Sound: 8.8
Ahhhhh… I love the
sound of shattering glass in the morning. Solid all the way around.
Difficulty: Easy
Burnout 3 is the
epitome of pick-up-and-play. Accelerate with the right trigger, brake with the
left, and boost with A. Capiche?
Concept: 9.4
Everyone loves
fast cars. But everyone loves fast cars crashing even more!
Multiplayer: 8.2
Surprisingly the
multiplayer is not as fun as it should be, but the Xbox Live portion is slightly
entertaining.
Overall: 9.3
Burnout 3 is one
of the best arcade racers of all time. It’s instantly fun to play for just
about anyone. The game’s speed progresses from Andy Dick insane to Charles
Manson insane, always pushing the envelope and always keeping gamers glued to
their TV, white knuckling their controllers. With a nearly flawless combination
of graphics, gameplay, and gorgeous crashes, Burnout 3 is a must play for anyone
with a need for speed.
