Burnout 2: Point of Impact

Author's Rating:

Pros: Blindingly fast speed and Progressive scan = amazing visuals

Cons: Pretty much a one trick pony, but man what a trick it is.

The Bottom Line: 
Forget sim style racing and sane rational games like nascar. If you want insane speed and the ultimate rush, here it is.

Author's Review
Burnout 2: Point of Impact isn’t meant to be a deep title. It’s not a SIM. What it’s meant to be is an arcade racer that offers up two things in massive doses; Speed and Crashes. Keeping that narrow focus in mind, Burnout 2 does damn near everything perfectly. You’ll start off with a small collection of generic but vaguely familiar cars and trucks – there are no licensed vehicles in the game- but you can unlock more for a total of 14 racers. The folks at Criterion have done a pretty good job of giving each car a somewhat unique feel despite the arcade roots of the game. It’s a minor tweak, but it does make a difference in several play modes- namely crash.



Crash mode might seem like a simplistic and even silly idea. Pick a car and try to rack up as much damage as you can in a single crash. Sounds simple right? Hardly. Each crash course has a fixed area where you’ll need to crash as many vehicles as possible to do the most damage, but finding the sweet spot takes a little work. Racking up massive scores takes the right combination of car, timing, speed, and finesse. Some sections will require you to score more than $30 Million in damage to earn a gold medal. Chain reaction crashes are the key to success, but if you miss the timing, you’ll either arrive too early or too late to catch the larger trucks and buses. Crash mode is insanely addictive. For such a simple concept, it’s amazing how many hours you can loose just trying to set up the perfect crash.



The main body of the game is centered around winning races on city streets. You’ll compete with four other drivers on courses ranging from Miami, LA, and New Mexico to The Rocky Mountains and a massive Airport complex (my personal favorite). Of course, being living, breathing, active city streets you’ll find other drivers on these roads too, and they aren’t there to race. Criterion has given city dwellers a decent AI model that reacts realistically to four insane speed demons ripping through the streets. Drivers will brake, dodge, swerve or just flat panic when they see you or hear your horn honking away (Or the siren after you unlock the police cruiser). Be warned though, just like in the real world it’s hard to anticipate what a spooked driver is going to do. They may actually jerk the wheel and end up right in front of you. It’ll make one heck of a pretty crash, but you’re not going to win with your car in a million pieces – and yes your car will shatter in one hell of a spectacular shower of parts if you hit something hard enough. Even more impressive than the sheer number of body parts that go sailing is watching your windows blow out and your frame crush from the impact.
Crashes can be a good thing though. If you work it right, you can use things like curbs, poles, opposing traffic or other objects to force your opponents to crash. If you’ve got nerves of steel and twitch fast reflexes you can almost always catch the other guy in a bad spot.



But crashing is only half the story. If Speed is what you crave, Burnout 2: Point of impact has you covered. All of your white knuckle driving skills will be put to the test. You score speed boost points by pulling off power slides, jumps and by racing headlong into traffic. Slip between a pair of semi’s without touching either and you’ll rack up even more boost. Once your meter is full, you’ll be able to really punch it. Hitting the boost feels like your car is being shot out of a cannon. Even from 135mph you suddenly feel like you’re entering hyper space. But that’s just boost mode. If you can hold things together despite the speed you’ll end up in a burnout. It’s like boost squared. Hang onto that and you’ll start getting Burnout multipliers. X1, X2, X3…each one provides a kick in the pants equal to the last. How long can you hold out? Anything past Burnout X2 is going to take some mad driving skills to survive. The ability to not blink for extended periods might be useful here.

Winning races will unlock more tracks and cars as well as special races and modes including a new pursuit mode. Think Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit here, but not as detailed. Your first pursuit mode will unlock the police cruiser if you win. After that each successive mode will earn you the car you are chasing. It’s a nice way to break up the flow of the seemingly endless racing and crashing.







Graphics
Obviously the key to maintaining this wild and incredibly addictive sense of speed is a rock solid frame rate and Burnout 2 provides a locked and loaded 60fps frame rate that is not only glitch free but fully anti-aliased as well. Silky smooth is the norm here. If you’ve got a set that can support Progressive Scan output you’re in for one hell of a rush. When you’re zipping along on a monster High Definition set and your Burnout kicks in you almost expect to feel a punch in the chest. It’s just that good.



Sure we could whine about the fact that all this speed takes away from our ability to see the surprisingly rich textures and details of the tracks. Or how it makes it hard to fully enjoy the amazing lighting effects that make your car look like it just rolled off the showroom floor. I suppose there’s an argument for not being able to see all the killer reflections on your car’s body work or watch the driver as he bounces around in there. Then again, that’s what replays are for.



Sounds
Everything about Burnout 2 is just a little bit over the top and the music and sound effects are no exception. Everything seems to have been turned up a notch or two past normal to give you that larger than life feel. Throw in a music track that is made up of hard driving rock tracks with a little techno groove thrown in and your ears will be as over stimulated as your eyes. Fire up the Dolby Pro Logic II system and things really come together. Favorite sound effect? The just a bit too loud “suck and whine” sound that kicks in with your boost. It give you an audible cue as impressive as the visual one that sends you flying.



Control
How can you make a title that’s all about razor thin margins of error and faster than the blink of an eye reaction times without mating it to an equally responsive control system? You can’t. Fortunately Criterion put together a perfect set of simple, easy to use controls. Heck they even threw in a horn that actually works- people get out of the way!



Overall
If you’re looking for a Gran Turismo style racer with endless options and hundreds of cars, this isn’t your game. If you’re looking for the best arcade style racer available, this is your game. Sure there’s a somewhat clunky menu system to deal with but once you get into a race and hit the boost for the first time you’ll be hooked. This game should really come with an FDA warning about addictive substances or something. Burnout 2: Point of Impact is everything an arcade racer should be.