Burnout

"Smashing baby! Yeah!"

Games that feature the sole purpose of avoiding collisions, making near misses and taking huge jumps to earn money and otherwise are rare to find. With several games out on the market these days that allow you to do only one of the aforementioned things, it’s hard to find a game that really allows you to have all three of these in one title. However, with Burnout, you have a game that doesn’t feature anything other than racing and near misses, but whether or not it really delivers the goods and allows you to have fun while doing it is, as always, in the eye of the beholder! One of the biggest points about this title is the fact that the game features some overly spectacular crashes that are all a part of the game and really can sell the title to just about anyone. What the game offers in terms of depth is really quite limited, in which the game revolves solely around making it from checkpoint to checkpoint and building up your speed for a complete and total mad dash. While nothing compared to Gran Turismo 3 {as if much is} you’ll find that the game does offer quite an enjoyable abet limited alternative to what we already have available.

The game play is split up between different modes that include an Arcade Mode, Single Race and Two-Player, much like any of the other racing games that we’ve played out on the market already. When you boil the game down to what it has to offer, it really isn’t much about the racing that you perform in the game, but rather what kind of mess you can get into and out of in the same breath! The game offers you more ways to crash and avoid collisions than any other racing game than I can think of at the moment, and even though this may seem like a rather moot point to base a game off of, it is quite fun. Most of the game is spent using cars that ‘exist’ but because of no licensing for the car names or otherwise, you’re left with vehicles that look and feel like the car they are imitating. While not the most original, it does suit its purpose by giving you vehicles that act and react like anything you could go out and drive, in the end making it an all around roster of fast cars with poor handling or slow cars with awesome handling. Gamers should be able to switch into this game and learn how to crash with the best of them and then go back and review the Crash Replay. This is a different feature that I’ve never seen before, in which you can use the camera to see the different wrecks that you perform from all sorts of different angles! It may not be the most in depth game that you’ll ever see or play, but it does add to the overall fun.

Controlling in Burnout is something that takes a little practice and some patience to get used to depending on what you chose to use as your control. The analog stick is extremely sensitive and you’ll find that if you use the directional pad, you have a different amount of handling on the car. While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, you may find that learning to use them both takes plenty of practice, even if you are skilled with other racing games that are already out there! Veterans to the racing genre will have to learn how to use the control and the different style of drifting that is featured here, and beginners will probably do well to go into the practice racing and learn how the different cars respond to control input. Performing different actions in the game requires you to speed by cars at extremely close ranges and even though that may sound easy enough to do, there are some instances where you have to be so close and precise, you might as well be connected to the car that you’re trying to do this to!

Visually, the game doesn’t offer you much with the ambient settings around you. While the tracks and the locations are nicely drawn and rather huge, they do have a general tendency to appear flat and lifeless. The amount of cars that you race against and through varies depending on where you are, but for the most part, everything that you see just doesn’t have all that much detail or style to it! Special effects in the game with flash and flare only come from the crashes that you do {or cause} and you may find that after seeing a car flip twenty times and come to a skidding halt, that there is nothing new to see. All in all, it would have been nice to have people walking on the streets and maybe even some different car types, but when you boil the point of the game down, it’s all about smashing your car up or making it to the end of the track.

Audio wise, the game music is simply enough to make you rip out your hair. While I’m a fan of older guitar music and generally music from the mid to late eighties, there are just too many references and instances of music from this time period for my liking! Action in the game is limited to the music that you’re listening to, and much like back yard wrestling, you might do well to put in some hardcore racing music, or if you’re lucky, the Wipeout XL soundtrack. The sound effects are also your standard amount of crunches, squealing tires and otherwise. If you’re really looking for something different from all the other racing game sounds, then you’re looking in the absolute wrong place for it.

Burnout is a decent racing alternative from the games that we already have and have played before. Featuring some of the most awesome looking crashes, the main focus of the game isn’t about racing so much as it is smashing your car up into a twisted metal wreck. With touchy control, decent game play and good looking visuals, the only thing that most gamers may find wrong with it, is the fact that the game has a limited amount of cars to work with. With that being said, Burnout is a solid rental choice, but if you’re looking for a game that features more cars, more tracks and more depth, then stick with Gran Turismo 3 and leave this one alone!

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 12/28/01, Updated 12/28/01