Burnout 2: Point of Impact

"10/10 is reserved for the best...B2:PoI is ALMOST there!"

I've said it once and I'll proudly admit it again and again. I am a racing fanatic. There are really no other words to describe me. When it comes to racers, I'm that guy with his face plastered smack dab against the window of EB world, waiting for it to open on (insert race title name here) launch day.

There were 2 racers I was really looking forward to playing and reviewing this October, and Burnout 2 is definitely one of them. I'm going to try to do justice to this masterpiece. Please bear with me. :) By the way, here is a legend for the acronyms used in this Review:

B1 - The original Burnout
B2: PoI/B2 - Burnout 2: Point of Impact
NFS: HP2 - Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2

For those of you who haven't had the privilege of playing the original Burnout, here is a little history/info on the game:

History/Information

The original Burnout was quite the sleeper hit of 2001. As with B2:PoI, Burnout was Developed by Criterion Games and distributed by Acclaim. The games goal? Drive through populated streets and highways, in one of a limited number of generic cars, with the aim of coming in first...without crashing. Oh, did I mention, you're supposed to drive recklessly so you could acquire the oh-so-important ''BOOST''? Seems plain and simple. Well, what Criterion did was include a detailed, multiple angle view of your racer when it ultimately DID end up crashing. What resulted was the absolute best crash system ever implimented on a console. These cars didn't crash, they C R A S H E D. I'm talking gut wrenching wrecks that made you want to purposely crash...if it wasn't for the nagging fact that you were supposed to come in first. The crashes: Highly detailed. Car parts flew everywhere. Not only were there realistic visuals, but there was also the audio used to convey the fact that you wrecked. The crashes sounded like you actually took your daily ride and flipped it on the local highway, while sliding for a 1/4 mile. The car handling in Burnout was quite superb also. See, the whole idea of Burnout was to drive as fast a you could, as wrecklessly as you could, while weaving in and out of traffic. Criterion enable you to do so by making the cars handle like metal on magnets. Really. These cars (and those in B2:PoI) could handle like no other racers could, including one of my favorites, Ridge Racer V. While fun, the original Burnout did have it's share of annoyances:

1) Not enough cars to choose from
2) Limited stages and locations
3) Graphical problems galore (to the A/V geeks out there...me included)
4) Annoying ''3-peat'' crash replays
5) Limited game modes

Well, I am happy to announce that all of these problems have been fixed. What we are left with is an almost perfect racer with the replayability of a Kung Fu fighter. What I'm going to do is incorporate the above mentioned problems into there own subheadings of the actual review. Here we go:

FINALLY, THE REAL REVIEW

Criterion did it. They were able to take all the complaints with Burnout and parlay them into one of the best racers out on the PS2. As mentioned earlier, Burnout 1 was plagued by various problems. Below is how Criterion improved the B2:PoI. Mind you, this will be a modified Gameplay section.

GAMEPLAY 9/10

Cars
Unlike the first Burnout, B2:PoI has included 21 different models of cars to choose from. That's right. 21. Unlike NFS: HP2, these cars aren't liscensed. They don't sport any European or American tags on them, however, they look quite familiar to the cars manufactured by top companies like: Ford, Chevy, Nissan and Land Rover, to mention a few. I won't spoil the looks of the actual cars for you. You will have to slowly unlock them. Included this year are classic cars from the 30's and 50's, as well as a few ''The Fast and the Furious'' knockoff's (great movie). All in all, the choice of cars is quite extensive and entertaining.

Courses: Tracks and locations
Locations. For some reason, people complained about the locations of B1's courses/tracks. They said there weren't enough ''U.S.'' locations. I happened to like the few, or should I say, one European based track in B1. Well, the locations issue has been handled here. There are lots of US locations. Actually, I think they are all US based locations. I really want to tell you what they are based on, but I think I'd be breakign the GameFAQS.Com ''spoilers'' rules, so I won't. <Number of stages/courses. If there weren't enough stages and variations in B1, there is now. B2: PoI sports 6 U.S. based locations, with 32 stages/courses. Some of the stages are small, but like B1, these stages open up to vast courses that take several minutes to complete. The only catch is you have to ''unlock'' the longer courses.

Crash Replays.
If you are familiar with B1, you know how annoying it was to crash and see 3 different replays of your crash. Seems like it took forever to regenerate on the screen and keep racing. In B2 the crash replay is limited to one view of your accident, leaving you feeling like you are back up and racing in no time. The only negative thing here is that, unlike B1, you are not able to proudly save any crash you worked on for weeks to achieve. :( The Actual Crashes. These crashes are spectacular! Depending on the severity of your crash, you are treated to some realistic eyecandy. Rub up against a curb or railing and you see streams of sparks. Crash into a commuter's car and you will see and hear metal crumpling, windshields being ejected and an occasional wheel being tossed. Crash into a Bus, Semi or building and you are treated to the full power of Criterion's Renderware. I'm talking metal being demolished. Doors, hoods, trunks, windshields, and wheels being tossed around aimlessly. The level of damage is exactly what you'd expect from each type of crash. These are the best crash visuals to date.

Game Modes
One of the biggest complaints about B1 was the lack of modes. Criterion has returned with a vast amount of modes to play, including the following:

Crash: Like the name entails, you are required to go from point A to point B and cause as much damage to all the other cars on the screen as possible. Your score is tallied after the car is smashed. The scoring is as follows -> (1) Insurance money for each car multiplied by (2) the amount of cars to get hit or cause a chain reaction. You are then awarded a medal (gold, silver, bronze) according to the level of destruction. Criterion has also added a incentive. Get ''golds'' in AL 15 crash courses and receive a new ''cheat'' which activates a new mode in the ain menu. I won't tell you what it is. You'll have to beat the medals. :)

Driving 101: Some of you may be thinking that you won't need to go through this course. Hey ''we've all played the original Burnout''. That may be true, however, as with Crash, get all gold medals in this little event and you get a nice reward which may make winning the championships a bit easier.

Pursuit: As the name would suggest, you get a chance to ''pursue'' a street racer. The object of this mode is to simply hit the fleeing car 10 times to finally disable it before it reaches the finish line. Plain and simple.

Newly added would be the more robust championship mode. Unlike B1, where you'd race around and win with no reward besides opening up a new level, B2's Championship mode is on the money! In Championship, you can open new courses AND new cars. That's right folks. It actually pays to play. I sound like an ad for the New York Lottery. Below is a quick breakdown of the new championship functionality.

Championship
As ini B1, you start out in a regular championship (three courses). After winning, however, you engage in a head-to-head race against a better car than the ones previously encountered. After you beat the car, you can add it to your arsenal. Then there is a Chase or Pursuit session that opens. Win that (by disabling the challenging car) and you win that car. after this is finished, you go to the next race series which is a four course Championship, the next five, etc. By following this model, you are rewarded with new cars and tracks. Another neat feature is that after you win the standard championship, you are invited to a Custom Championship where you get race a variety of Japanese street Racers. NICE. Special Note - GET ALL GOLDS FOR EACH CHAMPIONSHIP! While you don't necessarily need to in order to advance, it's advised you do so you can ''win'' some more cool things.

My Personal ''negatives'' list
Although not required, I thought I would throw in a few areas where Criterion can improve for the next installment of Burnout.

Collision Detection
I was appalled by how wishy washy the crash detection is in B2. While for the most part, the crashes happened as you would expect, there were way too many times when I was near the end of a do or die situation (contending for a gold medal) and the collision system went bananas. For example, it's the 1/4 mile of the last race of the Custom Championships. The Comp player in front of me slams into the side of a truck. Does he stop. NO WAY. Just like in pursuit mode, he rebounds off the side of the truck and keeps going. No problem. I'm doing a good 160 (pre-boost) in my yellow ''Burnout'' ride. I come around the last corner of the race (with the comp behind me). He HITS me (not ''bumps'' me) in the left quarter panel, which makes me rub the barrier and crash, while he suffers no reprecussions and wins. What's up with that. I saw that happen ALOT in the game amongst the AI players.

Pursuit Mode
Goodness. Criterion could have just left this mode OUT of the game for all I care. While it is needed in the championships for you to win extra cars, I think it's inclusion in the game modes was unnecessary. As a stand alone mode, Pursuit is just...well...boring. After you win all the cars, it is easy to grab the fastest, best handling car there is and smash up the competition for any given time. What Criterion should have done here was model the Pursuit mode a little after NFS. No, I'm not saying they should have copied, but they could have made the mode more interesting by offering, perhaps, 1) 5 or so different types of police cars 2) the ability to make the laps longer (number of laps) and 3) add some police support (so they could help you out when that AI player just wouldn't crash, no matter how many things it ran into). As I said, this was a personal gripe.

Replay Saves
Unfortunately, Criterion did not add the ability for us to save instant replays of those $34 million plus accidents we caused. I can't think of any better way for a player to gloat or be prouder than by having his/her spectacular crash saved on the memory card for all times. Maybe this will be an option in the next Burnout? Hint Hint, Nudge Nudge.

GRAPHICS 10/10

If you owned the PS2 version of Burnout, you KNOW the visuals left a ''little to be desired''. Although the game was extremely fun, aliasing and shimmering were all too prevelant. That has been fixed here. B2 looks awsome. Criterion fully ran around the system and came up with perfect visuals. Although you are zipping around the rendered courses at 60FPS, when you crash and stop, you can see that Criterion put 100% effort into making the textures look real. The water and reflections also are superior. What's more is B2 has Progressive scan TV support. That should make the afore mentioned A/V geeks happy. :) I had absolutely no complaints with the graphics delivery.

SOUND 9/10

While the sound effects (tires screeching, metal dragged across metal, the sound of the boost when it engaged) were the best in a racing game to date, the generic music of Burnout 1 has returned. While not as bland as B1, B2:PoI could have used some major improvement here. If you have read my Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 review, you know I'm all for actual chart topping bands and groups with major recording deals to have sound tracks on a game. I don't know if Criterion was trying to save money or what, REAL GROUPS WITH REAL SONGS would have boosted the ''sound'' rating up to 10/10. Oh well. The sound, overall, was still good.

PROGNOSIS
I think Burnout 2: Point of Impact is a definite race contender for all of you who love racing games or speed. B2:PoI is a screamingly fast and accurate racer with so many modes of play you could easily play it for months. If you have $50, go and add this to your collection ASAP. This is either a Rent with an option to buy or a ''Have money, will buy now'' title that should be in EVERYONES library. While B2 shines in different aspects, the rating is comparable to Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 in my book. I suggest you pick B2 up soon, as there may be no more copies left at your neighborhood EBWorld!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/16/02, Updated 10/16/02