Burnout 2: Point of Impact

"NEEEEEEEEOWM! The fastest racer ever"

Got Cube? Then get this! Not only the top racer on nintendo\'s dream machine but one of the best games too.

Burnout 2 is a classic arcade racer. No fancy stats to fiddle with, just pick your car and race. Your up against 3 CPU opponents in one of several CHAMPIONSHIPS. The better you do the more you unlock including new motors, tracks, and a new game modes. One of the most important game play traits is using your dangerous driving to build up a power boost, or BURNOUT. You build up your boosts by driving erractically on the wrong side of the road, power sliding round bends, getting air and narrowly avoiding a crash. You can make a BURNOUT CHAIN by continuing your dangerous driving whilst using your boost. This is essential for the more difficult races and to achieve some great lap times in the time attack mode, one one of the 30 tracks.

Perhaps the best feature of Burnout 2 is the amazing crashes. There\'s even a special crash mode where your objective is to cause the most damage on one the of the many specially designed crash courses. I guarantee you won\'t be able to play this with out rolling along the ground in a fit of hysterics. Also the designers don\'t seem to have given the cars in the traffic brakes so once you start a pileup several speeding buses and trucks will pile into your pile up and the damage soars.

Graphically Burnout 2 is above average but nothing awe-inspiring. The cars look pretty smooth and their some pretty decent backdrops but the other cars, not in the race just driving along unsuspecting, are rather lackluster. Some tracks are rather similar but the layout is near-perfectly designed. The audio effects are pretty good but some of the background tunes are rather dull, but when you start boosting the noise is cranked up and fits in fairly well with the actual gameplay.

It won\'t take you too long to unlock all the cars and win all the championships, but you\'ll want to keep coming back to try and beat your best lap times, or best crash scores. The game is great fun in multi player and their are 3 modes for you and a mate to enjoy. These are Single Race, Pursuit and Crash. Pursuit mode involves player 1 trying to avoid player 2 ramming into you. this is great fun and will really test your driving skills. Multi player crash mode can be played with up to 4 players, each having a go to at causing the most damage.

All in all this is an excellent game, easily the best of it\'s kind. Very Highly recomended. 9/10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 08/06/03