Burnout Revenge

"Revenge is a dish best served 195 miles an hour."

Burnout: Revenge marks the fourth (fifth?) title in the Burnout series, and guess what the tagline is? Battle Racing Ignited. While much doesn't blow up in Burnout 2, blowing up your own vehicle in Burnout: Revenge may actually win you the game. Now if that isn't fun, I don't know what is.

No matter what anyone says, this is the greatest game ever.

Story: N/A

Story? What story? You just gotta be the best of the best, no matter what!

AI: 8/10

The AI isn't very challenging later on, mostly just annoyingly easy. They never happen to use Crashbreakers, so don't worry about being "Instant Revenged" on anytime soon.

Later in the game, most of the problem is the traffic. Keep in mind that these people never intend for you to crash into them, so yes, they will be completely oblivious to you and your posse. Duh. It's just, so many of them seem to be oversized, and oversized trailers and harmless trucks are too easy to mess up, and this is a problem in Traffic Attack, since trucks are worth mad points and time.

Control: 10/10

Simple and as to the point as possible. Everything seems to clinch together, and I like how Impact Time and Boost are the same button. It's easy to go from full-on juicing to slow-mo controlled crash with this nifty little feature. It's great.

Why? Well, Impact Time and Boost are two seperate parts in two seperate modes: crash and race respectively. When you are moving and haven't crashed, it's Boost. When you've crashed, it's Impact Time. Very convienient.

Feel: 10/10

At first, it seems like most of the game is entirely random, except for your car, your speed, and the side of the road you are on. Everything else, from Crash Events to checking traffic, seems random. However, there are noticable patterns you need to exploit.

Like the game says, checking traffic can be controlled. It all depends on where you hit the traffic from.

Crash events have patterns that you are supposed to notice and exploit for huge points. The developers made it impossible to make a huge score later on without recognizing the patterns.

Difficulty: 9/10

It measures up well, but unfortunately, later on it all seems too easy to get good scores.

Unlockables: 10/10

There are loads of cars for you to find. Loads. From crash to race cars, everything is wonderful in the amount you can collect, and some Crash cars are pretty cool, such as the Mobile Diner. It's a great car just for fun.

There are also trophies you get for performing certain objectives within the events. There are 8 for each area and some are insane to collect, while others fall into your lap. However, collecting all 8 nets you an awesome prize for each area, plus the tasks are fun to do.

Then the Signature Takedowns. In every area there are three places you need to perform a Takedown by. This feature is very cool because it's just awesome to Takedown someone then realize it was a Signature one. It's just so cool.

Plus your rank determines the awesomeness of the cars you unlock. The higher your rank, the more awesome the cars you unlock in races.

Features: 10/10

Burnout: Revenge has a billion cool features.

First, there's the general checking traffic. Basically, you use the morning commute as a weapon against anything you want to destroy: be it rivals or other traffic. You can even do a "cue ball effect" where you check traffic into traffic into traffic. Very neat but very hard to do.

Crash mode is awesome. Basically you create a huge chain reaction that destroys the current rush hour. While early challenges are easy, later on, immense strategy is required, like a chess game, in choosing your vehicle to passing on intersections for the bigger picture. Incredibly well done, even though the physics are a little weird.

Traffic Attack is like "Crash Mode: Unlimited." You choose a car and check as much traffic as you possibly can and rack up points. It's wise to save some stationary cars for later when you have a bigger multiplier, for easier big points. Nice. In fact, you get HUGE points for Skill Shots and especially Awesome Skill Shots.

Races are broken down into Circuit, Burning Lap, and of course Grand Prix. Circuit pits you against rivals, Burning Lap against the timer, and the Grand Prix as a multiple circuit race. Be sure to utilize Crashbreakers wisely in later races.

Then there's Road Rage, where you attempt to annihilate any rivals in your path. I love how as you take more damage, your car looks worse and worse. Neatly done, and very realistic.

And Eliminator, a new idea. If you can stay out of last place when the timer runs out, you survive. However, as more people get eliminated, the farther ahead you must be.

Graphics: 10/10

Shards of glass fly around. Metal cuts loose. Wheels fly past. Incredibly awesome, and the physics with destroyed cars is absolutely amazing. In fact, everything is amazing, even the textures: you won't see them in your tunnel vision, but they are actually very well done.

Overall: 10/10
Buy/Borrow/Barf: Buy

Burnout: Revenge puts aside gimmicks for pure hard-core racing fun. It's obvious they just wanted you to have fun: the amount of explosions do not disagree.

All in all, a very solid title and all the unlockables and ranks will have you hooked for a very long time indeed.

While people go for Twilight Princess and Halo as the greatest games ever, they fail to see what gaming is all about, fun. And no game delivers more of this essential element than Burnout: Revenge.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 03/01/07