Full Review: Did Acclaim stall at the start line?
Burnout, a port of the PS2 version of Acclaim’s adrenaline-pushing arcade game, is a solid game, and though not classifiable as simply a racer, it manages to combine racing elements with a very real adrenaline rush. However, somewhat lacking in a few areas, this title is only good, rather than absolutely great.
The gameplay is easy to fathom – you’re street racing with between 1 and 3 competitors. The difference between this game and most others, however, is the fact that you’ll be doing so in full-fledged traffic, even in rush hour. This alone gives you a sense of “driving on the edge,” but coupled with the fact that you can build up your turbo-meter by driving into oncoming traffic and creating near-misses with other cars, the gameplay element is a winner. Once your turbo-meter is full and flashing, you can do a “burnout” (hence the name of the game) and increase your speed seemingly by two or three times, giving you a real adrenaline rush. The sense of speed throughout the game is exceptional, and aided heavily by the traffic, you’re sure to get your share of thrills from this game.
On the other hand, the gameplay can get repetitive after some time, and although the game isn’t really that long you’ll get tired of it if you’re playing for more than a couple hours. Multiplayer adds some more fun factor, letting you duke it out with a few friends, pushing them into oncoming traffic and flying past them when your turbo-meter’s full before theirs, but it can also get tiring after a while. The levels with the most traffic are by far the most fun, since the graphics are good but nothing too out of the ordinary, and so don’t give you lots of astonishing scenes to stare at. The cars don’t look that fantastic either, all being somewhat simple and low-poly, but this helps the game maintain a solid 60 fps, which never seems to dip regardless of how much traffic is on the screen.
The other element of the game that’s rather entertaining is the showcasing of crashes – every crash you cause is replayed a couple times in a dramatic cinematic view, and the purpose of this is two-fold – besides looking cool, it allows anyone behind you to catch up a bit, adding a bit more dimension to the game. And since to get turbo you need to go for “near misses,” crashes become an interestingly important part of the game. The AI even crashes at times, giving a more realistic feel that you’re racing people rather than a machine.
The rest of Burnout is impressive – graphics, audio and effects all look good, but none are as good as you’ll see in Gotham or Grand Turismo. Some of the different game modes give a real arcade feel, but none are as replay-able as you might hope, following suite with the rest of the game.
