Burnout 3: Takedown

"This game is seriously awesome."

Burnout 3: Takedown is one of the most jarringly original and excessively fun racing games I've played in a long, long time. It's one of those games that feels perfect for any situation and provides an astonishing amount of thrills no matter how long or short your play time. And I say this in hopes that you'll understand just where I'm coming from. I, in general, do not like racing games very much. I mean, I love those “unrealistic” racing franchises like Mario Kart and Wipeout, but when it comes to racing a real car on a real road? Yawn. I usually feel that unless what I'm doing is truly exhilarating, videogames should never be realistic, ever. If I can do it in real life, then why would I want to play a videogame based around it? (That's why I hate most sports titles.) The racing sim genre only has a few tender spots in my heart (Gran Turismo 2 comes to mind), but other than that, it's left in the dark.

Burnout 3 is not a realistic game, however. No, not in the least. It may take place in seemingly realistic environments with seemingly realistic vehicles, but don't be fooled – this game is nearly as over-the-top as any cartoonish kart racer out there. I can sum up Burnout 3 in only a few words, and it would be something along the lines of “drive like a maniac.” And really, it's not too far off. Burnout 3 is a street racer, which means you'll have to constantly contend with the power of the traffic if you're to make it through, but rather than simply putting you in a racing environment and giving you a push forward, the developers went the extra step in pleasing audiences. As a result, players are given an enormous amount of freedom in the methods in which they win races over their opponents. And it's one hell of a trip.

I've never played the previous two Burnout games and I probably never will. But I've heard enough about them to understand that they were centered around crashing, and that's where Burnout 3 gets its heart and soul. In a standard, run-of-the-mill racer, if you were to take off in a high-powered vehicle and crash headfirst into a concrete wall at a hundred miles per hour, you'd probably get a sudden stop. Because these games are intent on being so “realistic,” you car wouldn't have a scratch on it because, well, why would it? You see, if all racing games incorporated a crash system (you know, the kind of thing where, if you hit a solid object at high speeds, your car would be sent flying in a flurry of spark and metal), the racing aspect of the game would be distorted. In most racing games, it's far too easy to crash, and therefore if you actually could crash you'd be doing it all the time.

That's where Burnout 3 comes in. Before you're done with Burnout 3, you'll likely have crashed your car(s) thousands of times. And each time you did, you'd find your car back on the road in seconds, shiny, glistening in the sun, without a scratch. Burnout 3 is a game in which you can do the most insane, maniacal things without receiving much danger other than a bit of a delayed start or an opportunity for a pesky AI car to slide past you. In a single race, you could ram your vehicle into an opponent and send him flying over a guardrail, drive on the wrong side of the road and clip a few random cars, drift a hundred and eighty degrees around a sharp turn, slam headfirst into a building, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, shunt a few opponents, get flung into a truck by an enemy vehicle, steer your wreck into a few unfortunate contenders, take down the guy that did this to you, ram into a tanker and cause a massive explosion and a pileup at an intersection… And still come in first place. In fact, Burnout 3 encourages this kind of behavior.

You'll never win a single race in Burnout 3 if you don't take risks. The game is all about doing crazy crap, because it'll get you boost, which in turn can propel you into the finish line ahead of the competition. There are the mild things. If you decide you want to drive on the wrong side of the road, switch over to that side and you'll be rewarded with “oncoming” and will receive boost points. If you see some cars coming and manage to swoop in close enough without actually touching the cars, that's a “near-miss” and results in more boost points. Big turn coming up? Hit the break button at the right moments and you could pull off one of the sweetest drifts you'll ever see, which gets you big, big boost points. The idea is to perform enough stupid crap at regular intervals to ensure that your boost meter always has a little something left in it. Rocketing through races in the lowest time possible is always the goal in racing games, it's just handled differently here because you'll never win if you don't take risks.

And one of the very best ways to earn boost is to battle it out with your fellow drivers. Burnout 3 doesn't incorporate machine guns into the mix, as the majority of the “car battling” aspect of the game is to simply slam each other into oblivion. Somehow, though, it works. Speeding up behind a guy to give him a damaging boost forward or swinging up alongside him and shunting his fine doors will result in mega boost points, but you can go one step further. In what's called a “takedown” (giving Burnout 3: Takedown its subtitle), if you manage to slam an opponent into a wall or such with enough power, he'll crash, resulting in a brief, Matrix-style slow-motion effect showing just how serious your little accident was. Taking down opponents will actually cause you to steal boost power from them, making it an obvious strategy on the hectic racetrack. What's more is that if you get taken down, the guy responsible will be marked in red. If you can take him down (this is called a “revenge”), you'll get double the boost points.

This all leads up to one of Burnout 3's most inventive features: Aftertouch. This is the ability to actually control your wreck after you've crashed as a last-resort option to bring down as many fools as possible. When you crash, you've got the option to hold down the A button and switch to that Matrix slow-motion effect. When this happens, well, what you'll want to do is watch the spectacular crash sequence itself, which, thanks to the outstanding graphics engine, looks great, as your car explodes into a thousand pieces of metal in a shrieking, sparking glory. But there are things to do. Once you're switched to aftertouch mode, you can move your car in any direction – provided it's got the momentum to do so – and even take down any passing cars in the process. It's an amazingly cool effect that's only hampered by the camera system, which doesn't always give you the view you want.

Though it's got some decent multiplayer modes, Burnout 3's single-player was in my opinion its greatest attraction, as it's long lasting and full of – what else? – good times. World Tour, Burnout 3's solo campaign, takes you to three different continents to participate in dozens of events, all varied and providing “unlimited joy” in its buildup of wreckage. You've got your basic races, some grand prix events, and a couple of burning laps, which are essentially just long runs through levels with nom opponents. There's also a very enjoyable set of events called road rage, in which you're given an endless supply of opponents and must simply take down as many as you can within the given time limit.

But without doubt the most noteworthy World Tour attraction is the set of crash events, which make up a respectable portion of the mode and capitalize on Burnout 3's crashes. In crash events, you're given a car, a road, and a set of busy traffic, usually at an intersection or highway. The object of this mode is to simply crash into the vehicles and create the most expensive mass crash you possibly can. Not only is it insanely fun (that's a word that I realize I'm using quite a bit in this review) to maniacally ram you car right into traffic and watch it all come tumbling down, it's also full of strategy. Should you go for the isolated tanker, which would cause a big explosion? Or should you hit the first in a long line of smaller cars and hope for a pileup? And then, once you've caused a certain number of crashes, you have the option to – listen to this – blow up your car (this is a “crashbreaker”) and unleash even more hell on those poor vehicles. Heh heh heh.

This does, however, lead to one of the game's biggest flaws and a lot of frustration. You see, every World Tour event has scoring that eventually provides three ranks. You need to get at least a bronze metal to pass any event. Silver and gold medals are there only if you want to pursue them, and if you're a completion freak like I am, you will. Crash events are ranked by the level of expense that you've created in your big crash. Most of the time, however, the gold medal rating is impossible to gain without getting certain power-ups (you read that right) spread out throughout the level. Specifically, you need to set your aim for “cash multipliers,” which will either multiply your end score by two or four, depending on which one you got. Usually, though, they're in tough-to-reach places that you don't have immediate access to. Your only option is to wait for your crashbreaker, and then use aftertouch to steer your car into the cash multiplier. The problem? The camera can be a big pain in the ass, resulting in a lot of guesswork as to the location of said power-up. It can become immensely irritating.

But that's really the only gameplay-related aspect that ever really annoyed me. It's just that when aftertouch is a feature so touted on by the developers, it's a little strange that the function often fails because you can't see where your wreck is headed. A little more camera control could easily help to rid this game of one of its only flaws. In fact, what are the other flaws? The game certainly looks terrific, with shockingly realistic design, a solid framerate, and – let's get a cheer – widescreen. I'm not big on the game's soundtrack, though (okay, I hate it), but this is the Xbox version, and thankfully they've decided to add custom soundtrack support, so that's not a problem. And yes, the DJ guy sucks, but you can turn him off, so what's the big deal? Burnout 3 plays great and looks fantastic, and pulls in on a terrific concept that's almost perfect. I hope that in the future, developers become this imaginative when faced with such a tired genre.

Pros

+ Drive like a maniac!
+ Crashing looks great and provides good times.
+ Rock-solid single-player mode with a lot of variety.
+ Fast, furious, intense gameplay is truly riveting.
+ Looks gorgeous and runs in widescreen.
+ Custom soundtracks, so you don't have to listen to…

Cons

- …That awful default music.
- The DJ can and will die (but you can turn him off).
- The camera can be extremely bothersome.

Overall: 9/10

Seriously, if you read through this entire review, ask yourself one question: Does this game sound fun to you? If it sounds fun – and it quite certainly is – then please do yourself a favor and buy this fantastic game. You need it. Burnout 3: Takedown is some of the most fun I've ever had playing a racing game (or, for that matter, a game in general) because it's so fast, so intense, and so damn creative. Seriously, how many games let you do this? Does Gran Turismo or Project Gotham let you cruise around at the speed of sound and crash into a flurry of sparks in Matrix-style glory? What other game lets you blow up your car and cause millions of dollars in damage? And what other game makes you feel like such a badass when you're equipped with nothing more than a simple vehicle? You need Burnout 3. This review is over.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 01/04/06, Updated 01/09/06