Burnout 3: Takedown

"Burnout 3 does not indicate that the series has burned out…"

The Burnout series has been great and shows no sign of slowing down, in a literal sense as well. As far as racing games go, this has to be one of the fastest racing games around. However, don't expect to be tuning your ride or modifying those spoilers on a licensed real-world vehicle. Burnout is about driving brutally fast in traffic, with arcade based controls, with plausible vehicles in different vehicle classes, and with crashes that will remind you about the fun you might have had with toy cars as a kid. This is a great solo arcade based racing game, that happens to also have good off-line and on-line multiplayer.

Burnout 3 is a racing game and that is primarily what you get, with the exception of the crash intersection mini-games. There is no story. Your primary motivation to play this game, other than the fun to be had, is to get a Gold Medal in all of the events and achieve all of the awards in order to unlock everything from cars to tracks to more challenges. As I said earlier, none of this would motivate you if the game wasn't fun; which it is if you like to drive fast and force your opponents to crash. That is right. You are encouraged to make your opponents crash into other opponents, traffic, buildings, whatever have you. If you accomplish this, you will get more boost which will allow you to reach even faster velocities. Now you can also receive more boost by driving into oncoming traffic, making jumps, and drifts but to increase your boost bar you'll have to fight opponents. Other than acquiring as much boost as possible, you'll just have to steer, keep the gas pressed, tap the brake to drift, and hold that boost after you yourself crash for after-touch control (slow-mo control) to hit other vehicles for a last ditch kamikaze effort or while in the air. It's just that simple for the controls.

As far as the events go, you will have to race and come in first in order to get a Gold Medal; sometimes you'll have to race in a circuit or succession of races to earn the Gold Medal by being the overall leader. There are other race types where you have to cause a particular number of opponents to crash in a given time frame and another where you eliminate the slowest car each lap. Another mode is the crash intersections, where you have to cause an accident totaling a specific amount of damage in order to receive Gold Medals. There are now positive and negative (heart-breaker) multipliers icons, medal icon bonus points, and an immediate explosion icon to aid you in achieving your goal of amassing the most damage possible. In all truth that is the nuts and bolts of the game, unlocking stuff, racing, and crashing. Should this be fun? Maybe not, but it certainly is.

Now having owned and played Burnout 2 and Burnout 3: Takedown for the XBOX, I feel I can make a good comparison of the 2 titles. However, I am reluctant to say whether Burnout 3 is better than Burnout 2. Burnout 3 has a lot more to offer than Burnout 2 as far as gaming content goes (more tracks, cars, events, and modes), but that does not necessarily make it better in my mind. A lot of the cars in Burnout 3 seem to be identical in there stats (handling, speed, and weight) and they look very similar in a given vehicle class. Sure they say that there around 90 vehicles, but it is very superficial. Also, the cars looked a lot better in Burnout 2 (I know Burnout 2 had some exclusive content for the XBOX, but that's still not a good excuse to me). The modes are more fleshed out in Burnout 3, but they removed the after the race replay that was present in Burnout 2. Also, the icons added to the Crash Intersections strip down that mode into attempting to get the multipliers, which diminishes the enjoyment of that mode a bit. In Burnout 2 you unlocked everything once you earned a Gold Medal in all the events, which is fair in my book. However, you have to meet other requirements in addition to all the Gold Medals to unlock all of the vehicles in Burnout 3 (like a certain crash in a particular track or 2,000 crashed opponents total), which is nice for bragging rights but unnecessary in my mind for unlocking cars. Burnout 3 does add some nice features like the after-touch controls and the off- as well as on-line multi-player.

Pluses
(+) A lot of modes that are fully developed
(+) Fast game-play + responsive controls + crashes = fun
(+) A lot of replay value; 30-50 hours to unlock everything
(+) After-touch
(+) On-line multi-player
(+) Custom Soundtrack; also in Burnout 2

Minuses
(-) Not as good looking as Burnout 2
(-) Superficial mechanic to unlock some cars
(-) Superficial variety in cars; some cars in a class either look very similar or play identical

Uncertain
(?) Its debatable how whether the icons for the intersection crashes add depth or make the crash mode too simplistic (get the multiplier)

Overall 8
If you own and enjoyed Burnout 2, you might as well get the Platinum Edition of Burnout 3. If you are deciding on which one you want to get (2 or 3) and on-line multiplayer isn't a big deal, I would probably suggest 2 a little over 3.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/01/05