With the release of Burnout 3: Takedown, developer Criterion Games
makes the choice surprisingly easy. Put it this way: Even if driving
games aren't normally your thing, Burnout 3 is still right for you. It's
that good. It ranks among the best racing games ever made.
The original Burnout, released back in 2001, was a great arcade-style
racing game. It delivered a sense of speed that most games lacked, and
it also showcased some pretty spectacular crashes. In fact, the crashes
were so cool that they were spun off into their own mode of play in
Burnout 2. The crash mode in Burnout 2 was totally separate from the
main racing game, but the puzzle-like challenge of wrecking your car in
the right spot and at the right time caused the most spectacular, most
damaging multicar pileups, which represented an amazing addition to the
game. Burnout 3 expertly combines the two main elements of the series
while also adding some great, new game-play modes, a career mode that
ties all of these different modes together, good split-screen support,
and online play that supports up to six players on the same racetrack.
These changes and added features drastically improve a series that was
already very impressive.
Burnout 3, like the previous games in the series, is mainly a racing
game that rewards you for living dangerously. The game features simple,
extremely responsive controls, so you can accelerate, steer, brake
(around corners), and boost for a burst of speed. The courses in the
game are open-road tracks on winding freeways and city streets, and,
naturally, the streets are populated with a good amount of traffic.
Driving dangerously comes in the form of driving in the wrong lane,
getting close to (but not hitting) other cars, catching air, drifting
around turns, and so on. When you pull such risky maneuvers, you're
rewarded with boost. But the quickest way to fill your boost meter in a
regular race is to make your opponents crash. Take-downs, as you might
imagine from the game's subtitle, are a major part of Burnout 3. When
you knock another car out, not only is your boost meter filled, but also
it's extended up to a maximum of four times its original size. The
downside is that you'll expose yourself to some pretty dangerous
situations to earn all this boost, and crashing will eliminate much of
your boost, chop off one of your bonus meter segments if you have any,
and, more than likely, cause you to fall back one or two spots in a
race. For an easy-to-play racing game, Burnout 3 actually gives you a
lot to consider.
The other big gameplay mechanic in Burnout 3 makes the crashes much more
exciting and interactive. When you crash, you can drop the game into a
slow-motion mode called impact time, which makes for a very interesting
and even innovative dynamic where the pacing of the game can drastically
shift for a few moments if you crash. While this slow-motion look at
cars getting mangled is beautiful in and of itself, you can actually
make light adjustments to your car's trajectory using the left analog
stick or d-pad, which is something the game calls "aftertouch." By
applying aftertouch when you crash, not only can you stack your car into
trucks, tankers, and other cars--just for the heck of it--but also you
can attempt to knock into your opponents during a race. If you're
successful, you'll earn an aftertouch takedown, which refills your boost
meter and prevents you from losing any bonus meter segments. Basically,
it functions as a recovery move. The fact that Burnout 3 makes
crashing--which is usually the most undesirable part of competition in a
racing game--a completely enjoyable part of the game is remarkable.
Burnout 3's crash mode has also been completely redesigned to take
advantage of aftertouch, so you'll have to do more than just wreck into
the right spot this time around. Instead you'll need to maneuver your
vehicle's carcass around for best results. It's a strange and
surprisingly well-thought-out addition to the game.
There are several different types of events in Burnout 3 that build on
the basic concepts of driving dangerously and making the most of your
wrecks. Many of them can be played on their own or in an offline or
online multiplayer setting, but a few of them only really come up during
the game's world tour mode. The most standard mode of them all is the
single race. A single race puts you and five opponents on the track,
and, as the name suggests, you race. Some tracks feature multiple laps,
while others are long enough to be one-lap affairs. The game has a good
variety of environments, and multiple tracks are set up in each one by
using the old Ridge Racer-style system of opening up certain paths while
closing others to make the most of each section of road. The career
mode occasionally strings three races together into a grand prix event,
where you'll earn points at the end of each race based on your finishing
position. There's definitely a good amount of variety here.
Burnout
3 delivers a sense of speed that other driving games can't even touch.
Crash mode returns to Burnout 3 with the same goal as in Burnout 2--to
create the largest, most expensive pileup possible. The crash junctions
still have a puzzle-like quality to them in that you'll have to figure
out the most efficient crash spot in each level. However, with the
addition of aftertouch and a series of on-track power-ups, the mode
feels totally different from how it did in Burnout 2. Controlling your
crash brings a lot of depth to the mode. Some power-ups are merely cash
bonuses, whereas others are score multipliers, which are very important.
Also, you won't have infinite boost right out of the gate here. You'll
have to pick up a boost icon, at which point you'll boost whether you
like it or not.
Crash mode also benefits from a new function called the "crashbreaker."
This basically lets you make your car spectacularly explode on command.
However, you can only trigger it after a certain number of cars have
become involved in the wreck. There are also instant crashbreaker
power-ups on the track that, as you might expect, cause an instant
crashbreaker, effectively letting you blow up twice in the same
level. This makes the basic progression much deeper than simply wrecking
you car and watching the fun unfold. Now, a common crash junction has
you getting the boost icon, maneuvering to wreck into something big,
then aftertouching over to a score multiplier or other bonus. Once you
reach the crashbreaker threshold, pop that sucker, and use your second
wind to aftertouch over to both some cars you may have missed and
another power-up. And if you're really looking to break stuff,
there's an instant crashbreaker power-up. The junctions get pretty
elaborate, and you really have to think on your feet to cause the
biggest wrecks. The results tend to be immensely satisfying in ways that
are unique to Burnout 3 in particular, since its crash mode is so
bizarre and yet so good.
