Burnout Revenge Review

Be prepared for your car insurance rates to skyrocket because Burnout Revenge has arrived! How can a game with such a great predecessor be as good or even better? This is a game that shows it is possible, but not without a few flaws of course. Revenge goes back to the style of the first two Burnout games, with many changes that may turn gamers away or bring them even closer to the Burnout series (if they aren't already rubbed up against it). A little note, the opening of this game is pretty much ripped right out of SSX 3 except that it has been turned Burnout, real creative EA.

The game modes from the last Burnout games are still present, along with two new additions, Traffic Attack and Crashbreaker. Traffic Attack utilizes the traffic checking ability, having you check as many cars as you can before time runs out. When you get below 20 seconds, every time you check a car, you re-gain time. In the beginning, playing this is pretty fun, but after a while it gets really repeatitive and just plain boring, good thing there are only around 15 in the whole game. However sometimes I do feel the urge to get back at Rush Hour and find myself hoping there is a Traffic Attack soon. The Crashbreaker mode is basically all the regular game modes except that when you crash, you can set off a Crashbreaker if you have some boost left in your ride and maybe knock out a few opponents that would have passed you. This gives you WAY too much power especially since the AI players seem to use silent Crashbreakers that don't do anything or they just don't have any. Of course the regular game modes are still here, you go on 'World Tour' to unlock new cars and tracks to play with your other friends (or if you don't have any, yourself). Road Rage is still here in all its Takedowning glory along with regular races, crash (more detail later), time attack, a new and improved Eliminator, and many more.

The Online mode is back from Takedown with a vengeance. All of the modes from Takedown are back and now Traffic Attack and Crash Tour are available as well. Traffic Attack is WAY more fun online then it is off, even though it is basically the same except with two people. Crash Tour is rather unique, in it you play against up to six players all competing to reach a certain dollar amount by repeatedly crashing at a junction until someone reaches it. The winner is the one who does it in the fewest number of turns. The rating system has been updated too, now there are 50 levels for race and crash and the more people you beat, the lower it goes. Also if you beat people with a level 'lower' then you, yours goes up quicker, and that works backwards as well.

The first, and pretty much the biggest change is the ability to check traffic. Why it is called checking traffic, no one really knows, not even Criterion. Checking traffic is slamming into same-way traffic and using them like missiles to hit opponents. One thing you may notice is that when you 'check traffic', it looks like you're using the gravity gun from Half-Life 2, which is really awesome. The thing is, the real intense suspense that came from not knowing if you're going to run into a car around every corner is gone unless you're going into oncoming. The addition of this feature really does lower the level of difficulty, especially since your opponents almost never use their gravity guns on you. You have to admit that it is cool firing cars at opponents though.

The second way they have edited Burnout is Revenge. Now, when you get taken out, you can aftertouch some, then it shows you the person that took you out and commands you to get revenge on them by calling them your rival. If you manage to fufill the command (if you don't you will be punished by being taunted by the red marker over their car), you get a Revenge Takedown! What is so special about Revenge Takedowns you ask? I really don't know! I guess you get a little more boost and the red marker that was taunting you is now blue again. The horrible thing about Revenge is it really reduces the ability to Aftertouch since is flashes your totaled car for like two seconds then shoves in your face the fact that you got taken out (ha ha!). In the end, Revenge really doesn't do anything good, it's just there...staring at you...

Another change that has been made is to Crash Mode. First off, when you start off at a crash junction, you have to swing your club. If you stop the bar in the right spots, you will go very far in life. Also, the junctions now have jumps and there are multiple intersections or something like that to crash into, the last one being the biggest. You need to try to check the first junctions so you get money from them and then fly through and hit the last one making everything go boom. When you go off a jump, you have to deal with wind and trying to steer you car in the right direction kind of like Aftertouch. Now you can set off multiple crashbreakers as well if you hit enough cars. Also new to the crashbreaker ability is having to press a certain button over and over and over and over and over again if you want to make a really big boom. The last change to Crash Mode is the multiplier thingymajigs are gone and now there is a 'Target car' that will give you a lot of money if it is involved in the crash.

The last thing that has really change is the design of everything in the game, from maps to menus. The tracks have been totally changed, most importantly by the addition of shortcuts. They are marked by little blinking blue lights and they are EVERYWHERE. Of course there is a risk involved in taking them, maybe you'll be shot into cross traffic when you exit it, but a lot of times you will get a lot of great opportunities like vertical takedowns. It's just like some old guy once told me: with great risks come great shortcuts. The cars have also been redesigned, returning to the great designs of Burnout 2 which were awesome. I thought it was really cheap imitating real cars the way they did in Burnout 3: Takedown, and I guess they did too. They have redesigned the way you play World Tour kind of too. Each race has five available stars, which you can get from doing cool stuff during the race. Once you get enough stars, you level up and can start a whole new set of races to do. You will probably be very ahead of the system if you are an average player, but it does make you think that you have a lot left to do, which you do.

The graphics in this game are absolutely amazing, they are pretty much the best I have ever seen on a PlayStation 2. It does matter if the shine on a car is a little bit shinier then some other game, but it really matters when there are so many shining cars driving around. I love how when you start going really fast everything starts blurring around you and you really get a sense of the speed your car is going. The sound is, well, ok. I think they would have done better if they had a few more popular songs like Burnout 3 did, but it's still pretty good. One thing I am really happy about is they got rid of the commentator guy, he really got annoying in Burnout 3 and now he has been thrown in the trash, yippee.

I would like to thank all the little people at Criterion for making a great sequel to Burnout 3: Takedown. This is a great game, but don't get rid of your copy of Takedown, because you'll be sorry later. As a matter of fact if you try to sell it to me, I will take it and chuck it at your head repeatedly. In the end, I give Burnout Revenge 5 big fat vertical takedowns out of 5.

-Ton