Burnout

"Great Potential, Bad Execution"

I have to admit, when I first saw the commercials for Burnout, I was intrigued. They showed crash scenes like no other game in creation. Soon after seeing the commercials every day for the next couple of months, I began to think the game looked rather interesting, but I stayed away from it for fear of being another cheap racing game wannabe. I finally broke down and rented Burnout from my local Blockbuster Video, and here's what I thought of it.

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General
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Looking at the cover art, I noticed that Acclaim had put a lot of time and effort into making the game look flashy and inviting. Slick packaging, detailed action shots on the back and a mystery review stating nothing but positive things about this new and creative game. They really have a way of appealing to the masses with packaging like that. I also noticed the DVD formatting, so I expected graphics to be top notch as well as game depth to be on the somewhat larger scale. If only that could have been true.

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Presentation
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I first loaded the game up and noticed the splash screen had a blurred out import Accord look-alike with a decent logo and thought the game had promise. Menu screens were easy to navigate, although somewhat lacking in content, still seemed well placed and about what I expected for the game. Vehicle selection takes you to some 5 initial vehicles all resembling a modified version of a real life counterpart with good bump-mapping and lighting effects for an adequate showroom. Nothing too flashy, but it gets the job done. Pick a race, pick a car, pick a track and you're off. Couldn't be more simple. Too bad the game could have been.

Presentation 7/10
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Graphics
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Let's get into one of the more important aspects to me in video games... graphics. When the race first starts, I immediately noticed the backgrounds looked fairly well detailed, nothing too stellar, but good enough to please. The cars represented themselves well from what was in the showroom. So far, I was pleased... and then the game started. It became abundantly clear to me that the game designers didn't have too much in the way of a plentiful pallet of colors. As you drive down the very busy streets, most of the vehicles you are attempting to avoid seem to just jump out at you because there isn't enough definition between the asphalt color and different hues of the cars. Racing down a dark grey street trying to avoid silver, black, navy, and maroon vehicles quickly becomes a test of your state of awareness. With everything blending into one another, you never seem to have enough time to avoid accidents that really should have been avoided. Granted, you can see the 18-wheelers and Metro Buses, but c'mon. If you can't see those coming, you have other problems. Upon further inspection, I noticed the backgrounds and buildings all seem to have the same colors, just different shades. Most of the buildings are brown, some patches of green grass, and brown dirt with black flecks in it. Not at all what I had expected from a DVD format game.

Graphics 4/10

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Sound
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I can't really say much about the sounds since 6.2 seconds into the game I turned the music off to avoid bleeding from the ear drums. The music in this game is just utterly awful. Whoever was in charge of this aspect of the game needs to be tested for tone deafness. Unimaginative and unbearable. The cars all sound 'ok'. Nothing too exhilarating about the exhaust note and the screeching of the tires seems adequate, if not a bit above basic. The crash sounds, however, appear to be rather nice at first, but eventually leave you wanting to hear what happens next. After hearing the same ''THUD... SHATTER'' over and over again, you begin to wonder who laid the mattress down to shield the sounds of all the falling parts from that wreck.

Sound 3/10

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Gameplay
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Ok, here's the meat of the game. How it plays. Burnout offers a solid arcade style race that is challenging enough to keep veteran racers, like myself, sweating for the finish line and rookies throwing controllers across the room. This game is fairly tough. I put in roughly 6 hours just to make sure I won every Championship and let me tell you, I don't think I've said more swear words at the television than any other time in my life. I haven't done the Face-Off mode yet, so who knows what that may bring. Although challenging, it is rather amusing and somewhat addicting. Looking past my gripes about the graphics and that horrendous music, I found myself enjoying the ''get in and go'' style of driving this game has. Sure, you're going to be smashing into everything in your path the first few times through, but that's what this game's premise is, isn't it? Speaking of smashing, the game fell short of my expectations with the crashes. I've yet to see anything like they had in those commercials, and after a while, I found that I really didn't care to see the replays of each crash over and over and over again. The game's whole idea is pretty good one. Race high speed down the highway, score points for committing blatant acts of lunacy such as blazing into oncomming traffic, nearly missing other vehicles on the road and power sliding. Two of which are rather fun. Power sliding on the other hand leaves MUCH to be desired. The only way you can get the car's rear to leave it's intended trajectory is to nail the brakes quickly mid-corner and immediately smash the gas. This gets you into a ''slide'' that seems more like a front wheel drive plow than anything. Only at the very end of the turn does your car begin to see a sideways stature, and should you countersteer, you'll quickly regain direction in a way that was never expected. Where are the graceful drifts around a sweeping decreasing apex of a turn? I guess those types of maneuvers are left in Gran Turismo. One addition could have helped that I was rather surprised not to see. An E-brake. Where the heck is the E-brake? ALL driving games should have an E-brake. Most of the top notch one's do. Sure, if the game physics are good enough, you wont need to use it, but it would have helped these cars that seem to travel on go-kart tracks. I guess I may just have expected too much from an arcade racer. I found the game fun, yet I felt like I was left wanting.

Gameplay 8/10

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Overall
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I have my complaints about Burnout, but all in all, I enjoyed the game while I had it. I would not suggest anyone to buy this game, but if you're looking for a mildly entertaining game that offers up a pretty decent challenge even to the most die-hard fans of the racing genre, drive down to Blockbuster and pick up a copy.

Overall 5/10

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 06/25/02, Updated 06/25/02