Burnout 3: Takedown

"Its like Burnout 2! (But not as good)"

Intro
I love racing games. I have always preferred arcade style racing to the simulation style ones. I play games to take a break from the real world so arcade style racers just appeal to me. That is what brought me to the Burnout series.

There are some who say you should not compare a sequel. That it should be reviewed on it's own and treated as a separate game. I never agreed with that line of thought. When a company makes a sequel, they want those who liked the previous versions to jump in and buy it. They want to market on the success of the previous versions. When getting a sequel, I hope for new and better or at the least more of the same. With Burnout 3, it does neither.

Story
It's a racing game. There is no story. Just race and beat the game's goals to unlock more cars and more tracks.

Game play 7/10
Everyone knows how a racing game plays. The Burnout series would play the same as every other game out there except for the turbo bar works a bit different.

In Burnout 2, you earned turbo by driving dangerously but never losing it. You received turbo for power sliding, driving in the wrong lane, and getting close to other cars but not touching them. If you crashed, you lost time, all of your turbo, and then got placed back on the road.

Burnout 3 operates almost the same. You earn turbo for power sliding, driving in the wrong lane, and cutting it close to other cars. But most of this turbo does not amount to much. Now you get full turbo from destroying the other drivers. Even if you crash but manage to hit another racer, you get more turbo. This takes the skill out of the game. A race is more or less determined by how many times you smash another car rather than any skill as a racer. It reminded me more Twisted Metal when I was mashing cars into walls and into other stationary objects. Burnout 1 and 2 never rewarded you for hitting another car.

Race modes include racing against six cars, racing against only 1 car, a road rage mode where you smash cars in a set time, time trials, and then the crash mode. Most of these are pretty standard. My one problem was the time trial. There are a bit too many of them and they interrupt the flow of the game. For a game that rewards you for smashing cars you then get thrown into a time trial where one crash will cost you a gold award. There are also too many of them. They gave time trial multiple names so they could brag about how many racing modes there are, but it is all the same. They have Time Trial, Special Event, and Preview Lap. All three modes are the same. One lap against the clock. I hated that. A rose by any other name is a rose and a time trial by any other name is still a time trial.

Then we get to the crash modes. In the Burnout 2 crash mode it would place you in a set traffic pattern and you had to break a certain cash amount for damage. You had your choice on the car and how to approach the scene. This involved a lot of strategy. Did you pick a small and fast car for the speed to fly through things or a heavy SUV to just ram and shove? You then had to experiment and pick the best angle to cause the most damage. This is all gone in the crash mode in Burnout 3. They now give you the car they want you to use. This instantly removes one element of strategy. They also placed target icons to increase your score. I found that hitting these icons was far better than hitting any car. So I found myself not aiming for cars, but aiming for icons. Not much of a crash mode.

Then we get to the traffic. Burnout 2 featured interactive traffic. They would try to weave out of your way. They would flash their brights at you if you were in the wrong lane. They would even honk their horns. This is all gone in Burnout 3. All the traffic drives at 20 mph and is completely unaware of your presence. You can drive straight down the road at a minivan and the minivan will never make any attempt to change course. My other problem was that smashing your fellow racers was easy and gave me turbo; just tapping one traffic car would result in my car turning into a twisted mess of steel and throw me 30 feet in the air. The traffic reminded me of a bomb rather than traffic.

Burnout 2 featured many course but also different driving conditions on some. You would have night driving and driving in snow and rain. This is all gone in Burnout 3. Every race in Burnout 3 feels like it is 10 in the morning on a bright sunny day. Gone is any trace of water on the track to make things slick. Gone is the night to worry about headlights and darkness. Burnout 3 is in a perfect shiny world with no weather problems. I am amazed there are trees in Burnout 3 because it never rains once to water them. This is a step back and I miss bad weather. It added more realism and more challenge.

The game does offer a lot though for racing. There are plenty of different cars and looks to them. There are a lot of different courses. Racing through events unlocks more cars and more tracks. I just found the crash mode boring and requiring no skill and the time trials (plus special event and preview lap) really interrupted the flow of the racing.

Graphics 7/10
The game looks pretty standard for a racing game. The area it exceeds at is in the crashes. When you wreck, your car gets splintered and twisted. The graphics really help this as you watch windows shatter and smash, pieces fly off and your car twist into shapes that no car was meant to do.

The game lost points for me because of two problems. The first was the motion blurring. Yep, motion blurring. The faster you go will cause things to start to blur and lose detail. I felt this was cheap and unnecessary. I would rather go fast and appreciate the look of the objects around me rather than blur them. It almost felt like they were covering up something. It was not something done in most other racing games and it just feels cheap.

My other problem was the weather. Whoever programmed the bright sunny days did a great job. But with no other weather, you get tired of seeing the same bright and sun-filled courses over and over. It made the game unrealistic. Even SNES games had bad weather. Even Mario Kart had some dark courses in caves, castles, and haunted houses. Burnout 3 seemed to take place in a world of sunshine that made me wonder if Barney and the Telly Tubbies are lurking around the tracks. It just made the game unrealistic.

Sound 7/10
The game features very average racing sounds. It really is hard to make a racing game sound good. This game actually features less sound than most. Tires never squeal and never once will you hear a car honk. All you hear are engines roaring and occasionally cars getting smashed or using your nitro boost. I would have liked hearing my tires protest at extreme turns and the occasional car honk from other cars or even my own.

The crashing does make up for this a bit. The sound effects are perfect for when the cars smash apart. You can even slow down the crashes and the sound effects get slowed down perfectly with it. It made the accidents so much more perfect.

The music is a different story. Burnout 2 featured generic rock. But the music was interactive. The faster you went, the louder and faster it went. As you went faster, more instruments were added. The music in Burnout 2 really added to the mood because it reacted to your driving. In Burnout 3, EA just decided to dump a lot of money and scrap this idea. They added about 20 songs most of which are punk. They are not interactive and just blast away without any reaction to your driving. While some of the songs are great, others are just generic punk. There was a radio button included to change songs while driving and I often found myself just changing songs to get to about 5 that were good and stood out. The rest was just filler. Thankfully, the game supports custom soundtracks so you can just add your own music. Racing to what you enjoy is so much better than fast forwarding through generic punk songs just to find the one Ramones song they included. I really can't think of anyone I know who likes generic punk. I would rather race to good alternative rock and a lot of my friends would prefer rap music or techno. Generic punk just isn't that great, even if EA spent a lot of money getting real bands.

Play Time/Replay 9/10
The game has plenty of races and plenty of cars to pick from. There is more than enough to keep anyone busy for a long time. I did like how there are more races in this than Burnout 2. At least it was superior in one aspect. Add in online play and you can keep busy with this for a while.

Final Recommendation
Ignore the title. This is a poor sequel to Burnout 2. If you want to pick between them, pick Burnout 2. Its just a stronger racing game title and requires more skill. Burnout 3 would have been better if they never tried to live on the legacy of the previous game. If you find Burnout 3 for 20 bucks or less, pick it up. It has enough to keep any racer busy. If you have played Burnout 2, just try not to think of this as a sequel. It really doesn't improve on anything.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 02/21/06