Burnout 3: Takedown

"Not the Second Coming we were expecting, but it's still great"

So the sequel to Burnout 2 finally arrived. I don't know about you, but I was extremely upset when I found out the series was going to EA, and I say this well aware that the previous publisher was Acclaim. While the game pulls through, it's not the orgasmic experience I was hyping it up to me.

For those of you who are new to the franchise, Burnout is one of those series (perhaps even the only series, unless you count F-Zero) that relies on lightning reflexes and skill instead of such racing game conventions as “memorize the track” and “outspend the opponent with high-level tune-ups before you start the race”. Ideally, you'll never have to use the brakes except for a fraction of a second to activate drifting. The tracks are designed with nothing but high speed in mind, and in the end, you're left with a feeling of unparalleled excitement, bordering on an adrenaline rush.

Gameplay: 9/10
The game is still great fun to play, though the formula has changed a bit. So what's different from Burnout 2? The game is less about pure racing, and more about taking advantage of crashes (in B2, crashing was a stupid marketing gimmick that only took away from the experience). Causing other opponents to crash makes you steal a part of their boost bar, enlarging yours (which means you can boost for longer), and refilling it. Reciprocally, getting crashed by an opponent decreases your boost bar. A new feature is that when you crash and you're still flying in the air upside down, instead of using that fraction of a second to have your life flash before your eyes, you can get the car to steer slowly in the direction of your choice, which means you can manage to get the drivers behind you to crash if you position yourself in their path. If you pull it off, it counts as a crash in your favor, and your boost bar will enlarge and fill up, allowing you to (potentially) catch up with those who passed you. Anyway, I personally believe they did a good job at doing something useful with the stupid crash gimmick, though some might not like the new Destruction Derby style of gameplay.

Another important difference is that there's no more "affirmative action" AI, at least to some degree. Now, if you're far behind them, they won't slow down until you catch up: they just won't use their boost, so you have a decent chance of catching up. However, when you're in the lead, those behind you will use their boost to catch up. The opponent still cheats though, as I observed in a 1v1 race. I crashed him enough times to have my boost bar be 4x big (the maximum), which means that his must have been a mere 1x (the minimum). I boosted ahead for a while then drove normally while looking behind, and before long he managed to catch up with me even though he couldn't possibly have enough boost to do it (the traditional methods of getting boost, such as Near Misses and driving on Oncoming Traffic, are much less effective this time around). It's not that big a deal, but it is kind of annoying to know that you're the only one who gets the handicaps.

There's also online play. I don't have XBL, but I can imagine how awesome it might be. It's very refreshing to know EA actually bothered to program a feature that wasn't made with the PS2 in mind.

Graphics: 8/10
As surprising as it may sound, the graphics, at least in terms of eye-candy, look worse than in B2. This time EA's actions are criminal, because unlike the rest of their games, Burnout 3 might very well be one of the defining games of this generation. Our old friend Aliasing, which you might remember from most PS2 games, is one of the main characters in this game. The image consistently looks “dirty”. Another PS2 guest star is Motion Blur. You might remember Motion Blur from such games as MGS2, where it it was overused in association with Slow Motion to make the cutscenes' slowdown less obvious. Needless to say, I don't like it, as I've come to expect clear and clean graphics from my Xbox games.

On the technical side, the race tracks are a lot bigger now. The average track is longer than B2's biggest track. There's also a lot more traffic and content like buildings, signs, etc. Speaking of the tracks, some of them are remodeled B2 tracks. I wouldn't have recognized them if it weren't for some trademark turns.

In the end though, the pros don't make up for the cons. You might think that since you're always driving so fast, you won't have time to enjoy the eye-candy. It's not about the eye-candy. The aliasing and dirty image make it hard to see things on the horizon, and when you're going this fast, you're pretty much only looking at the horizon. When you can't tell if that dot far ahead on the road is a car or a wall or a sign, and you're boosting at 200mph, that's a bad thing. For those with HDTV, a guy on IRC told me it looked downright horrible, with all the flaws made more obvious.

Once again, the pattern of the PS2 and EA holding videogaming down perpetuates.

Audio: 6/10
The sound is standard racing game stuff. I don't really have an ear for these things, I couldn't tell a game's car engine sound from another's, so those of you with 20 000$ audio systems who need to know how adequately the sound engine processes Fourier Transforms and the frequency range it covers, look elsewhere. I do wish drifting made cooler, higher-pitched noises though. You can barely hear it.

Surprisingly for an EA game, the music isn't full of horrible rap songs to show that EA is “hip” and “with it” (am I the only one who believes the marketing drone who thought up the term “EA Trax” needs to be beaten to death with an old shoe?). Instead, it's full of of horrible pop songs. If you're a fan of Linking Park, or 3 Doors Down, or all those emo neo-pop bands that all sound the same, you're in for a real treat, the soundtrack is full of similar stuff! I listened to it for about 3 hours before switching to Custom Soundtrack. Oh yes, for once we have an EA game with CS, Allah be praised!

Replay Value
Like B2, this is a pure-gameplay, pick-up-and-play game. It's the game you can still pull out for a couple of quick races for months after you've completed it, and still get enjoyment out of it. There's plenty of replay value as far as I'm concerned.

As for the length: there's 173 events, though unfortunately most are Crash events. I would estimate the amount of real (actual racing) events at 80 or so, which is still interesting, and far longer than B2 was. And when you complete the events, you can try to get all gold medals to obtain new cars and challenges.

Conclusion
This game has to be played by any self-respecting gamer. However, poor people who played B2 to death should remember that this is a sequel, and that despite it's differences, the gameplay still feels the same. Anyone having doubts should at least rent it to see what all the buzz is about.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 09/08/04