Burnout 3: Takedown

"Best in series"

Ah... Burnout... things started heating up on this Burnout, Burnout 3: Takedown. This is everything a racing game should be; great graphics, a great soundtrack, very good sense of speed, easy to learn, great crashes, damage, and even has an entire mode dedicated to utter destruction. I'll rate this game mode by mode.

Race Mode:

Great sense of speed and graphics: This is the first thing you notice. This is pretty straight forward racing; You get a little boost bar, which you can refill while in use by one: driving on the wrong side of the road. Two: Near hitting traffic. Three: Making jumps. Four: By taking down rivals. Or Five: Aftertouching. While takedowns have been around for a while, aftertouching is new. When crashed, you can hold down the R1 button to slow down time and attempt to hit your rivals. It can be difficult at times, but...

Overall, I give Race Mode a 10/10. All I can say is that this is what racing should be.

Road Rage:

Its like Race Mode, with a twist... this time, its all about getting as much takedowns as you can, refill your time meter above, and staying alive. The damage you take from crashing, shunting etc. is kept and added to a total, once the maximum is hit, you lose. These are usually the easiest of all three modes, and are very fun.

Overall, I give Road Rage a 10/10. Utter destruction meets racing. A beautiful marriage.

Crash Mode:

Okay, now for the newest edition. While the version in the next edition, Burnout Revenge has bigger crashes and is a lot more detailed, this is pretty fun. The point is to strategically launch and crash your car to grab all the multipliers and such you can, but to not grab the heartbreaker. This was hard, usually, and pretty repetitive. I didn't enjoy it that much, but it depends on the player.

I give Crash Mode a 7/10. Its difficulty got annoying at times and was rather bland to me.

Now for the other details.

Replayability: 10/10. This was a very fun game that, when completed, leaves you itching for more chaos. Now, either replay it, or play Burnout Revenge, but ultimately, you should end up deciding to take this game on a few more times in the end, mainly for its beautiful scenery, soundtrack, and pure adrenaline rush.

Graphics: 9/10. The graphics are great, but there are games with better graphics, namely Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2 and Gran Turismo 3 and 4, but they are among the best I've seen. It has the ever present glitch of when getting too close to something, it becomes invisible, but that's something we just haven't overcome yet, sadly.

Sound: 10/10. The sound effects are another great feature. They all mirror what you'd expect when cutting through the air at 200+ MPH and colliding at the same speeds. Twisting metal, breaking glass, and aftertouch is even better when everything is slowed down, including the music.

Music: 10/10. This game had many racing gems. All of which are very fast paced and reflect the same sense of speed this game gives you as your drifting around corners at 150+ and launching your self between other cars at greater speeds. This game had me coming back for its soundtrack at times, and I'd play it as a CD at small parties ^^;

Difficulty: 7/10. Sadly, the only difficult part of this game was crash mode... so difficulty scores a solid seven. Otherwise, it'd score a 2. Sorry, but if you're looking for difficult racing, look somewhere else. Road Rage had its fair share of difficulty but still scores a 3.

Overall: 8

I would give this game a higher rating if it weren't for the low sense of difficulty and annoyance of the first edition of crash mode, but you need to experiment, right? Overall, this was a great game, and is well worth the buy.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 07/24/07