Arcade Racing with Serious Contention

Author's Rating:

Pros: Easy Learning Curve
Music
Ways to Unlock
Number of Vehicles

Cons: Crush Mode Duration
Not much to 2-player

The Bottom Line: 
Burnout 3 is a wild ride for players, featuring the best in Arcade Racing and Combat Racing. I recommend this title.

Author's Review
So, you're driving through the city streets at breakneck speeds while avoiding traffic and the competition. It's just another edition of Burnout. Burnout 3 was my first introduction to this crazed racing series. To date, Burnout 3 still holds that special place in my heart.

Burnout is comprised of two concepts. The first is arcade racing. The game is an arcade racer and much more forgiving than simulation series like Gran Turismo. Among my favorite things to do is drift around corners then blast into a straight way. Burnouts second concept is battle racing. As this game is rightfully named "Burnout 3: Takedown", players score big for taking risks and eliminating opponents by running them off the road. The greater the risk, the higher you score.

The game's mechanics are easy to pick up. Using the standard left to steer and right for acceloration configuration, it starts out feeling like any other racer. Players can choose between first person and behind the vehicle camera views. The final aspect of control is the boost button. This will shoot players at the vehicle's top speeds. While the compact series doesn't boost very well, muscle, coupe, and later hit speeds over 200mph in no time flat. Just hit the boost, and enjoy the ride.

The garage is over 80 cars strong. While most look different, the feeling is about the same. Cars are measured in terms of top speed and weight. The speed to weight ratio affects acceleration, but heavier weight is used more for combat and turning, while lighter weight and speed is optimal for the racer. Regardless of how you play, there will be a car with a ratio of weight to speed that suits your style.

To make the game more interesting, there are multiple ways to unlock new vehicles. The hardest is "Burnout Points". These are based on how well you race. The most fun is Takedowns. The more Takedowns, the more "Assassin" style cars you unlock. Sadly, once you unlock the Assassin Super Series, there are no more cars to unlock by Takedowns. Once you master the Aftertouch (which is a guided crashes that can be used to Takedown others in a Matrix style bullet time), you'll rack up Takedowns in no time flat.

While racing is the main attraction, there are some interesting side attractions. Road Rage reminds me of the "Death Race" mode in F-Zero X (N64). The goal is to knock as many opponents off the track within the allotted time. The game is all about contention. In addition to this, there's Crush mode. Players are encouraged to crash their cars for maximum damage in intersections. The more damage done, the close you get to unlocking other vehicles which are only usuable in Crush mode. Sadly, the crash vehicles cannot be raced. Crush mode is a 60 second ride that forces players into loading times more than play time. For this reason, I don't like it as much as racing, but Crush mode (in and of itself) is lots of fun.

Graphically, the game certainly is a racer. Cars look good, and the environments use the normal set of 2D and 3D combinations to render fast and still look detailed. The courses range from Asian streets (complete with TukTuks) to beach front USA. While I enjoy the scenery, I'm more a fan of showing it to my victims by means of a Takedown.

The song selection is pretty good. Shortly after playing this game, I went out and bought an album by one of the featured artists. The list ranges from the Von Bondies, to Jimmy Eat World, and even My Chemical Romance. There's enough music here to find at least 2 songs you can rock and race to. If you're a fan of rap music, I recommend Need for Speed Underground or another series.

While the music is a highlight, the audio effects are on par with other racers. Players may or maynot like Striker, the in-game DJ. Striker announces the events and keeps an upbeat attitude. The downside of Striker is that he interrupts the music while you race. At times I like Striker, and other times I find the voice grating.

Multiplayer wasn't what I hoped. Like most racing games, Multiplayer is a simple race against someone else. While you can also enjoy both "Crush" and "Team Crush" modes, the game doesn't offer much else for multiplayer. I had hoped to see the ability to unlock items in multiplayer. While this is not the case, the game does support online plan. At this stage, the servers are pretty empty. But, at least it is free.

Overall, I really enjoy the Burnout series. Burnout 3: Takedown is both my introduction to the series and a fun game. I strongly recommend picking up this game if not one of the sequels (with the exception of Burnout: Dominator, which does not feature online play). The games have an appeal that spans across from casual to competative racing fans.