Burnout: Revenge

(EA for Xbox)
by Eric Chon

It looks like EA got their grubby mitts all over this franchise and gave it the “Madden” workover. Scarcely a year has passed since the brilliant Burnout 3: Takedown destroyed gamers everywhere, and here we sit with a new release and another $50 gone. Is it worth it? Are there significant changes to what many perceived as a near-perfect gem?

Yes and no. And not all of them seem well thought out either. My list of complaints with Burnout: Revenge is fairly lengthy, especially since this is marketed as a complete sequel. Revenge feels more like an expansion than a new game, and wary gamers should take heed: If you’re perfectly happy with Takedown, getting Revenge is a bit pointless.

For starters, the number of cars has been severely reduced, and it takes much longer to gain new ones. We no longer have the variety at hand, and that just sucks. In addition, crashbreaker courses have eliminated the score multipliers, and now there’s some pseudo-golf sim bit at the beginning that determines whether you start off fast, slow, or just fucking BLOW UP. What the hell? Why do we need this?? And to further add insult to injury, if you decided to restart, you’re treated to a slooooow zoom back from where you stopped to the start point again. It takes ages and sometimes even dips below the ground, giving you a bizarre clipping effect that can make you think the game broke on you. And this is all in the crashbreaker mode.

The music is even worse this time around, but you’ll be thankful that you can use a custom soundtrack (just rip CDs on the X-Box to do this) and that the fucking announcer from the third game is gone. He’s been replaced by a female who DOESN’T interrupt the radio to tell you what game you’re currently playing. Frankly, this is probably the second-best improvement.

So what ranks as the main change in Revenge? It’s actually the only real reason to get this game, and it’s a strong reason. You can now collide with on-coming traffic and PUSH them out of the way, gaining boost as you do so. In fact, if you’re skilled enough, you can try and aim for your opponents and create a nice pinball effect.

But that’s about it. Personally, I’d stay away until the price-drop hits, because it just might be a bit frustrating to cope with some of the wonky changes. I hope Electronic Arts doesn’t start their yearly update with this title, because that would mean they would find things to change just to justify a purchase. And that just sucks.
(www.ea.com)