Burnout Revenge

It's time to cause some chaos on the track in Burnout Revenge, a racing game that's all about crashing and burning! Compete in races and unlock flashy cars, but more importantly, do as much damage as possible as you engage in fierce bouts of vehicular battle. As a sequel in the highly regarded franchise, Burnout Revenge refines some fan-favorite modes, upgrades car combat to the next level, and offers a huge helping of awesome racing action. If you're looking to burn rubber and trade paint, this is the racing game for you.

Main Game Features

• Compete in thrilling races with modern cars
• Drive 77 different vehicles
• Solo modes and local/online multiplayer

Core Gameplay

Burnout Revenge is the follow-up to Burnout 3: Takedown, which is often considered one of the best racing games ever made. As a sequel to such a beloved game, Burnout Revenge offers the same high-quality racing that players are familiar with, but with some distinct new changes and upgrades. As always, the controls are tight and responsive, reflected in the simple handling of various fast and flashy cars. This means you'll earn lots of boost, drift with ease, and generally have an easier time controlling your car. Burnout Revenge isn't going for realism, but rather offers arcade-style racing where crashing and mayhem are the main focus.

As you race and compete in different styles of events, you earn ranking points by performing dangerous maneuvers and driving aggressively. For example, nearly missing traffic, driving in oncoming lanes, and swapping paint are all rewarded. You are also encouraged to wreck your opponents in unique ways and earn extra points for performing these takedowns. Burnout Revenge adds an entirely new style of takedown as well, the “vertical takedown”, which can be performed by landing on top of another car after a jump.

Modes of Play

Burnout Revenge doesn't have a story that ties its races together like Need For Speed: Underground or some other racing games, but it makes up for that with variety. In the main single-player mode, World Tour, you are tasked with completing a series of events in 10 different tiers of challenges. These events take you to different exciting tracks, such as the Sunshine Keys, Motor City, Angel Valley, and more. Each location contains several events, as well as a list of challenges and unique takedowns to collect. If you can complete an entire sheet of challenges, you'll unlock a new car for use in the tour. All the while, you'll also earn stars towards your main driver rank, which unlocks later tiers and more extras.

The game also features local and online multiplayer, where you can face off against real players in all the different event types from World Tour. This includes standard race, road rage, three types of crash-specific modes, and the new “traffic attack” event. Traffic Attack is not only the newest mode, but also one of the best, with significant speed and chaos. Your objective in traffic attack is to survive as long as possible until the timer runs out, and you can earn extra time by running into traffic and causing huge pile-ups. The crash modes are especially fun, where you earn Crash Dollars by causing the biggest and most expensive crashes possible.

Conclusion

Burnout Revenge has just the right amount of arcade racing and crazy crashes, making it an ideal racer for players who enjoy being fast and furious on the track. Sabotaging your opponents is the name of the game, and you're rewarded for causing excessive damage during crashes, so being a madman behind the wheel is a guaranteed road to success.

Pros

• Crashing is better than ever
• New combat abilities are excellent
• Quality racing gameplay with smooth graphics

Cons

• Some repeated tracks
• No story to tie things together
• Online multiplayer can be laggy

How was It Revenge might as well be an IV of adrenaline pumping into my veins. It has the same intense traffic-battling action as Burnout 3. though don't expect the same huge jump in quality that you saw from Burnout 2 to 3.

You won't see a lot of new modes, but now, the tracks have more alternate paths and side ramps, which means more room for the cars to bump around in. Also, regular traffic on the road doesn't automatically mean instant death anymore. With the exception of oncoming cars, big rigs, and buses, you can barrel right through all normal traffic without missing a beat. This makes the game a lot less frustrating--and less challenging--than Burnout 3.

I have loved playing Burnout since the second game in this series, and I can't say that I've ever seen an arcade style racer that's better. And although it has already appeared on the Xbox and Playstation 2 several months ago, you'll see that Burnout Revenge is a creature born to live in the Xbox 360. From stunning high-def to the multiplayer offered by Xbox Live, this game is a great combination of ease of play, game features, and sheer destructive energy.

The first thing I'm happy to report on is the crash mode. In Burnout 3, Crash mode was crippled, having been turned into a powerup hunt. Aftertouch your car into a crashbreaker, win the stage. Revenge fixes that by giving you access to crashbreakers all the time, as long as you can crash enough cars to fill up your boost bar. A further improvement over the Xbox and PS2 versions is the discarding of the acceleration minigame before you started the crash junction. Another great change is the traffic checking, which lets you slam same direction traffic out of your way. You can't take out a big rig or a bus, but you can knock other traffic into them to take them out. Finally, I've got to say that after walking through the races in Burnout 2 and 3, I was happy to see a much more refined balance in this game. It is difficult to get a gold the first time around in certain gameplay modes, and even at lower levels, getting the highest rank in a normal race offers good challenge.

Ultimately, all improvements aside, there are two reasons why Criterion deserves accolades for their design. First, Burnout games are always really easy to play, since you can just jump straight in and start playing. Second, these games almost always know exactly how to use their features to the fullest potential; Revenge is no exception.

Visually, this game serves to prove one important fact. I need a high-def TV. After seeing the difference between a normal TV and a high-def TV, this game is meant to be played with such high quality. Visual distance is greater due to the clarity, and frankly, it is so much easier to avoid crashing on a better TV. Like most modern EA titles, the soundtrack that comes with the game is great, but what made me happiest is the sound of the Burnout theme playing over the intro menu screens.

Burnout Revenge is an unqualified success, and in my opinion, should be a must have for any Xbox 360 owner.