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Preview:

2nd September 2004:
Burnout 3 (EGN)
Electronic Arts let us take the latest Burnout game for a spin at EGN, and we can finally reveal whether it'll live up to the hype...
Posted by Marc Hull - Xbox,PlayStation 2 - UK and Europe

How many games can you think of that contain one mode or scenario that's so great that groups of people flock to play it on a daily basis over a year after its release? I'm talking Blood Gulch on Halo, Tag Team on Dead or Alive and, of course, Crash Mode on Burnout 2. There's just something immensely satisfying about carefully lining up your car, letting rip with the boost, ploughing into a bus and then watching a whole opera of carnage unfold before your eyes, just without all the blood and guts of doing it in real life. So, it's with a certain amount of glee that I picked up a control pad at this year's EGN to play the next instalment in the series, Burnout 3, and find out whether it can generate the same levels of excitement as its predecessor.

The first thing that smacks you in the face like a lorry at 60 mph is just how good this game looks. I mean, Burnout 2 looked good, with its reflective cars, light-bloomed buildings and well-textured tracks, but some of the stuff in Burnout 3 just blows it out of the water. The motion-blurring effect that was evident only during the crashes before is now applied during actual gameplay to heighten the sense of speed, and it works really well. A whole heap of new particle effects have also been added, such as sparks which stream from your car's bodywork as it scrapes against barriers, and even a new blue glow from your exhaust when you apply the boost.

However, realising that there's still a limit to just how good you can make a PS2 game look, Criterion have cleverly improved the game's presentation as well. Bump into another racer and a nice little icon will flow onto the screen with words of encouragement, or drive into oncoming traffic for a while and another icon will appear telling you how many points you're scoring. One of the best bits of eye-candy, though, is when you push an opponent off the track and score a 'Takedown'. At this point, the game switches from looking at your car to give a short, slow-motion replay of their crash, before quickly moving back for you to continue the race. It's a little disorientating at times, especially if the view moves away just as you're about to take a really sharp corner, but it's a visual feast for the eyes!

No doubt that, if you're like me, you'll already have been following this game since it's announcement last year, so I won't go into too many details about the game's 40+ tracks, 70+ cars and 100 crash courses, apart from to say that the small amount we got to see at the show looked pretty fantastic. Instead, I'll mention the things that (gasp) may not be so good about the game.

The first thing that I noticed when I got to grips with the title is that boosting is now much more of an essential aspect of the gameplay than in the last two games. You can now boost whenever as long as your boost bar is at least partially full, and obtaining boost is much more a case of stealing it from other racers by bumping into them or taking them out instead of racing into oncoming traffic or getting near-misses. The problem that this creates is that you need to battle with your opponents in order to get enough boost to pass them. However, if (like me) you get taken down within the first few seconds of play, you'll soon find that your opponents have scampered off into the distance and it's difficult to get enough boost to catch them up. Fortunately, this only seemed to happen in multiplayer, so I'm hoping that single-player is a little less frustrating and gives you a chance to train up before tackling people online.

My second gripe is the game's soundtrack, which differs greatly from its predecessors in that it consists entirely of licensed tracks. I must admit, I'm not a great believer of using licensed music in games, since it rarely seems to match the style of the game, and after the great non-licensed tracks of Burnout 2, I was hoping for a similar quality from the third game. Fortunately, some of my fears of an entirely R&B or rap-based soundtrack have been dispelled, and there are a couple of nice songs among the collection of rock and boy-band tracks that have been assembled. However, at the back of my mind I can't help but wonder what it would have been like if they had written their own music like the last two games.

Overall, the problems that I mention are very minor, and I still expect Burnout 3 to make giant strides from its predecessor in most areas. However, is this really 'best racing game ever' material? Well, you'll just have to wait until our review to find out...

Marc Hull

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Burnout 3:Takedown
for Xbox

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