"Just behind Mario Kart DS's rear as best racer on DS. Still not perfect, though..."

INTRODUCTION:
Burnout. Not many gamers are out there who do not know what that game is. It's arguably the best arcade racing series ever, not to mention one of the fastest and entertaining. When converted to PSP, it was a miracle that it managed to remain faithful to Burnout and be possibly the best racing game ever put on a handheld. So when I heard it was being converted to DS, I was over-joyed. So why not a 10/10 for this?

GRAPHICS - 7/10:
Pretty good. The cars are a bit blocky, but the tracks look beautiful, and the layout is exactly the same on PSP. There are some clipping issues with takedowns and crashes, but other than that the game is nice-looking. It keeps a steady frame-rate, but the main problem is the sense of speed. Burnout is all about going ridiculously fast. Burnout DS's sense of speed is about as good as Ridge Racer DS's. However, when you're boosting, the motion blur kicks in and then it all looks good.

SOUND - 6/10:
Underwhelming and disappointing. For a start, there's no licensed music. Tony Hawk's on DS proves that you can put licensed music on a DS game, so Criterion/EA has no excuse here. The music they have put in is boring MIDI loops that may make you want to mute the music volume. The crashes sound awful, but the engines aren't too bad...

GAMEPLAY - 8/10:
It's Burnout, definitely. There's all the takedowns and signature takedowns, and pursuit mode, plus race, road rage, crash and the rest. So it's still a fun game to play. The crash mode is very hard this time around, because there are basically no cars to crash into! But the other modes are still fun and remembering the DS's limitations, EA have done a good job bringing DS to a handheld.

LIFESPAN - 9/10:
It's just as long as the PSP game, so you've got the whole World Circuit mode, and then multiplayer WiFi via single-card or multi-card play. So the game will last you a few months, and is well worth coming back to for the multiplayer.

OVERALL - 7.5/10 (rounded up to 8/10):
EA and Criterion have done a good job bringing Burnout to the DS. It still has it's problems, some of them substantial, but considering this is their first DS game together, it's a good start. The next Burnout DS should be a much better improvement. So for now, Mario Kart DS is still definitely the best racing game for the DS, but that's no reason to stop Burnout coming in second. All in all, I would really only suggest this for fans of Burnout, for if you've never played a Burnout game before (or you don't like them, period), this is definitely not the place to start... Burnout: Revenge (XBox version) is.

+ Recognisably Burnout
+ Great multiplayer
+ Nice variety in modes

- Clipping issues
- Audio is unpleasant
- Sense of speed lacking

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/26/05