Burnout. Sounds a bit similar to Wipeout
and the principle is similar as you drive, not from A to B, but from A back to
A again as the track takes you back to where you first started from for lap
after lap of racing for as long as you can stand it with several different
cars.
For a typical racer there are the typical options - a single race, a multi-race
(known as 'Championship' here), a head-to-head for those with more than one
joystick to waggle at once, a time-attack for those who like the solo action,
a 'Special' section for crash replays and a music player.
However, whereas the PS2 version had problems which annoyed me to the point
of giving up, the Xbox release is a different kettle of fish altogether.
The game has two main selling points, the first being a sort-of adrenaline meter
such that as you drive close to the knuckle through the traffic, so does this
meter increase and so your speed will be upped along the way. This is the
first difference I noticed from the PS2 version as on the Xbox your car zooms
along at such an intense speed, giving you an adrenaline rush and making you
actually feel as if you're there, that you could almost be Elliot Gould in
Capricorn One
when someone's tampered with his brakes.
The other thing of note is the crashes which some will have seen from the
game's previews on TV. In contrast to the PS2 original, where the crashes
didn't enthrall and just enraged because they looked like tacked-on extras
that had no part in the actual gameplay, here they feel a damn sight more
meaty and you can really enjoy them. And here, after a crash it doesn't take
half as long before you're back up to full speed and during a crash I take
this time out to see how close behind me the other racers are.
Now choose the first-person view so you're racing head-on at the other traffic
and feel your pants fill up.
Speed is definitely of the essence here. The graphics are insanely fast,
almost like running the gauntlet in a Tron race in terms of the pace and this
time round you have much more realistic control of your car. Also, with this
game there's actually a chance the CPU cars will falter and crash too, unlike
most offerings out there.
It's a major improvement over the PS2 title with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound in-game
and while I had my doubts on trying the same game on a different machine, they
were soon put to rest during the first lap of the first race.
Just after I finished writing the above, the Xbox crashed while I cornered
in the hard mode on the first race. The picture froze and the roar of the
engine sounds like ongoing crowd noise. Anyone else experienced this?
GRAPHICS SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC PLAYABILITY ENJOYMENT
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
The game has two main selling points, the first being a sort-of adrenaline meter
such that as you drive close to the knuckle through the traffic, so does this
meter increase and so your speed will be upped along the way. This is the
first difference I noticed from the PS2 version as on the Xbox your car zooms
along at such an intense speed, giving you an adrenaline rush and making you
actually feel as if you're there, that you could almost be Elliot Gould in
