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Adjustments made, but sometimes unnecessary

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: January 28, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Burnout Revenge. The next incarnation of a great series. I couldn't wait to get my hands around the XBox controller and race a few computer cars and friends. Well, I got what I wanted. The problem, however, is that I got a LOT more than I wanted. And all that extra pushed me right into the pit, and contentedly so.

All of the good elements are still in this edition. The sense of speed is unmatched; adrenaline still flies through you as your car weaves in and out of other cars/traffic (a rare occurence here) to be first across the finish line. The car models are sleek and shiny. The crashes are nasty and involve other cars. This game overall looks really good. Maybe too good, but more on that later.

I soon discovered the first annoyance: Racing along at 190 miles an hour, miscalculating a turn, and flying towards a guardrail and.... No crash! Instead, a dead stop! No violent wreck that produces a sports-car comet with debris-tail. That would be at least acceptable. You go head-on into an obstacle, you crash. Such is the Burnout way, right? Not this time. The clock ticks away and you have to hold down the brake to slowly back out of the corner you're now stuck in. This is a common occurence with this game, and I'm frankly surprised it is so obvious. Deduct a fair amount of fun points there.

Now to the looks part. Burnout Revenge is eye-candy. It's a beautiful array of rich scenery and (nerve-racking)light effects, which I guess are supposed to add to the ambience of the experience but only end up hindering the path. Which is, to say the least, very distracting. Rarely can the driver clearly see the road ahead (save for a few tracks) until it's too late and he's about to slam into something. If the point of a race is to win, or have fun trying, this is not the way to do it. There is simply WAY too much going on at one time visually to try and have a serious, competitive race and expect to progress markedly. Couple this with the fact that no CPU driver really ever crashes unless you bump it off the road. So much for race mode. Crash mode would surely be fun! Uhh.. kind of.

New to Crash mode are an utterly pointless half-moon power-guage start thingie, which if not done right every time will somehow blow up your motor on the Starting Line, and the shameless plug of a Carl's Jr. Mobile Diner(?). Here, the crashes are more challenging, and the payoff is spectacular, but you'll need a lot of patience. Tweaking the Crash mode with this "startup meter" was a mistake. Who really cares how you start? You are there to careen towards traffic at an insane speed and cause insurance damage, not make a pretty start!! Give me a 5-second countdown and let me step on the gas! Also, if you want a preview of the crash route you're about to embark upon, and it shows you the complete route, you have to sit through the WHOLE thing as it winds back up to the starting line, and THEN you get to start. All in all, crash mode still playable, but lose the product placement and the startup gauge. Both needless.

New mode: Traffic attack. Another step in the wrong direction. Until now, the protocol of Burnout racing is DO NOT hit other traffic except for the cars you're racing.. Now it's suddenly OK to hit traffic going the same direction as your car. All of this while fighting to keep a clock going.. Whatever.

Summarily, this game feels rushed. The new "shortcuts", provided you can steer into their path, are a toss-up as to whether or not they'll actually help you in the race. Every opportunity to get ahead of the others is met with some building or piece of map that juts into your path at the wrong place, causing a crash. Frustrating it is, especially when you're finally passing that car ahead of you! There's no room to boost freely and enjoy pure speed and traffic-weaving.
Whomever tinkered with the formula adjusted the wrong spots. Burnout Takedown is easily a better and more fulfilling game. Takedown isn't so flashy and is more engaging, and in less time. I dislike excess tedium in any game, especially a racing one. Burnout Revenge needs to take more pages from its big brothers. Only then would it be more enjoyable. This game has its good points but they're few and far between. San Francisco Rush did it better. I hope someone else has a good time with this installment.

Unimproved Graphics -- No HD

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 3
Date: September 15, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The traffic checking is a cool new feature and it continues the fun of Burnout 3. But this title can't get a high rating from me because the graphics are unimpressive. They're a little more realistic and less cartoonish than 3, but the colors seem washed out.

Part of the problem is that I am playing this on a 61" DLP. Sadly, this title only supports 480p and that's just sheer laziness on the part of the developer. This should have been at least a 720p game to get a high rating from me.

I guess I'll have to wait until they release a version for the 360 and hope that they don't cop out there.

Amazing game - totally updated and better than ever

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 12 / 14
Date: September 18, 2005
Author: Amazon User

If you check my other reviews you'll see that I really didn't like the updates and additions in Burnout 3. I loved Burnout 2 but B3's gimmicky icons and unfair AI made it frustrating to play beyond belief. Sure it looked nice; much better than the aging Burnout 2 but they fixed things that weren't broke.

Along comes Burnout Revenge and it's almost like the publishers realised their mistakes. Gone are the Nintendo icon collectables in crash mode and some good wholesome fair and fun gameplay is back. Of course it now looks better than ever - streets ahead of B3's water-down XBox graphics. Playing this game at 60fps on a big screen TV travelling at Burnout's trademark a bazillion miles an hour is a joy.

So what did they change? What did they fix? Major and minor stuff. Gone is the incredibly cheating AI of B3. Sure they stick close (and cheat a little!), but they're not 20 seconds behind only to suddenly appear in front of you because you're doing so well. Gone are the bonus icons of crash which I detested so. Gone is the simplicity of Road Rage, where a simply nudge will knock a takedown out.

What they have added first is the single most joyful addition - 'checking'. Or 'ramming any traffic going in the same direction as you and using the car as a weapon'. This makes the WORLD of difference when it comes to getting up to the high speeds. You now have a choice. Stay in your lane and check - you may be able to go faster, or alternatively risk it in the oncoming lane and gain considerably more boost. This makes the levels actually have strategy - especially on the improved multilayout levels, where you may have 3 or 4 secret tracks embedded within.

Also added is crashbreaker *during* races and takedowns. They even fixed the random camera angle during aftertouch - you can actually strategically use after touch to takedown one, two or even three cars behind you thanks to the smart camera. Then you set off a crashbreaker and all hell breaks loose.

Crash mode is back and better than even. Sure they have the 'takedown' car - a bonus car which offers lots of money, but it only has to crash; you don't have to hit it directly. So now you're free to experiment - no longer looking for the 4x bonus icon. And boy are the crash levels HUGE. I mean city huge in some places - they take place over multiple levels, tops of buildings all the way down the street. Hundreds of cars. And since you can check during crash mode you can set off multiple simultaneous crash systems by using a car as a battering ram. Crash mode is 1000 times better over B3.

Sure I have a few niggles with the game. In Crash mode you no longer control the speed of your vehicle during the crash. You set your speed at the start a la golf game controls. There's also crowd noises - cheers boos etc which I didn't like. But these niggles are more a case of me looking for faults than simply sitting back and enjoying an amazing game.

I could go on about the great progression system, the fantastic award cut sequences or the new race modes (Crashbreaker Eliminator for example). But I won't.

Burnout Revenge has redeemed the Burnout franchise. If you liked Burnout 2 (or even 3) then be prepared for a whole new experience with this game. Wonderful.

Great game but its lost a little something

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: September 15, 2005
Author: Amazon User

First off I would like to say that this is a really fun game. If you've played burnout 3 then this is very similar. It still has insane speed, outrageous crashes, and lots of different ways to play. I'm not sure if I just got too used to burnout 3 but I really didn't enjoy all the changes that were made to this game. Crash mode is probably my favorite part of the burnout series. I loved trying for the highest score in burnout 3 and searching for the sometimes elusive 4x all the while trying to create as much destruction as possible. Unfortunately crash mode has been revamped. Instead of hitting the gas in the beginning, you have this stupid "golf swing" meter to decide how fast you take off. Some may find this fun but I was really annoyed that I couldn't just take off and had to get my "swing" just right in order to go fast enough to clear a large cliff. They've also added wind as a factor so now you'll have to fight the wind as you fly off the ramp to your crash destination. I'm sure some like it but in my opinion this is supposed to be an arcade type game and I don't want to have to worry about wind or reving my engine via a stupid golf swing meter. The only new part of the crash mode that I did like is that there is now a target car that you need to crash to get bonus $$$. The problem is that when they give you the initial overview of the course it doesn't show were that target car will be. overall in my opinion crash mode went from a blazing hot perfect 10 to a ok, this is fun 8.

The other major feature that has been added is the ability to ram cars going the same direction as you. Now I will admit that raming a car and watching it go flying into a bus and creating a huge pile up can look great but to me the biggest rush in burnout 3 was going 200mph flying in between cars and knowing that one little mess up was going to send me flipping and slamming wildly into the wall. now I can just plow my way through traffic like a supercharged bulldozer. I wouldn't have minded if this was just a mode added into the game instead of a feature that has been incorporated into every mode in the game. It just took away that white knuckled feeling that burnout 3 had. Its not like I hate this game and I know I'll spend many hours working my way through all the modes but its always disapointing when a sequel isn't as much fun as the prior version. Instead of it going two steps forward I feel like this is one step back.

Like the best cupcake ever, except for the huge worm in it.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 10
Date: September 29, 2005
Author: Amazon User

While this game is insanely fun, and combines the satisfiing disfunction of road rage with mad speeding, Burnout Revenge sadly remains a flawed experience. What I simply cant understand is why the developers, who have hands down made the most entertaining race and crash experience for any video game system, included a complex (for video games anyway) rating and advancement scheme.

Imagine this, your racing along, your laughing, your madly smashing cars into Matrix like pileups, your driving like an idiot through crowded city streets (populated by ghosts it seems), you complete the level and are now looking forward to the next race, the new city scape etc, and the next thing you know your being tested on your ability to crash your car into parking lots for "points " to the sound of canned applause. Odd to say the least.

I never experienced such gaming greatness combined with such gaming idiocy. Someone on the EA design payroll is a clearly a schizophrenic. And if crashing into parked cars isin't bad enough, you have to also learn a relatively unintuitive set of commands to maximize your damage. And nope, you cant advance to the next juicy city street racing smash em up UNTIL you beat these levels of game design ineptitude. I think Napoleon Dynamite said it best: "IDIOTS!"

Phew.

Having said that, the driving agro sections of the game are so fun, so well rendered and so pleasingly violent that one forgets that around the corner another altogether different game is awaiting you.

And what corporate record company got their hooks into the marketing department at EA? The insipid " Mall Punk" music is so transparently manicured by corporate hipsters one can almost hear the money changing hands . Just thank the Gods that EA provided a soundtrack volume control.

So yeah, buy it. Burnout Revenge's sweet spots are sweet enough to mask the bitter, boring filler, but it does make one wonder what the powers that be at EA are smoking these days and why they ruined what could be a classic.

Great sequel

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: October 29, 2005
Author: Amazon User

EA have done a bang up job with Burnout Revenge. Although gameplay has hasn't changed that much and only minor improvemnts were made this is nothing short of spectacular. I would have to give this 4.5 out of 5 2 thumbs up all the way

One of helluva racer

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: October 27, 2005
Author: Amazon User

First things first, the Burnout series has always been about one thing: the crashes. Not the actual game crashing (though it has occured twice ironnically) but the cars in the game grinding and shunting against one another. There are five different racing events which include race, eliminator, road rage, crash, and traffic attack. Race and Crash are what I digged the most, the high adrenaline and exhilirating action of Race is unbelieveable. Cars can top 209 mph, with nice blur effects thrown in. This game allowes you to ram other non-racing cars into your oppenents. The game is easier than Burnout 3 but the tracks are much better and prettier looking. Crash mode is a Burnout series trademark, the basis is to get your car ot cause the biggest pile-up as possible, and sometimes you have to work around which spot to hit and such, then afterowrds you are awarded a medal depending on how much vehicle damage you did. And crashbreakers are back and badder than ever. In Burnout 3, you could only use them in Crash, now they are available in all the other modes (After reaching a certain rank). Crashbreakers are when you explode your car much like a kamikaze to destroy oppenents or cause more vehicle damage in Crash mode. Speed plays a major part in this game, you have boost bar which you can increase or fill up by doing certain "risks". Multiplayer for the Burnout series was never intersting nor any fun so stick with the single player aspect of the game. This game receives 4 stars overall for being glitchy at times and it won't take too long to reach the "Elite" rank. Still, this thing is hard to put down once you get into it.

Crash mode Blows

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 4
Date: September 16, 2005
Author: Amazon User

All I will say about this awesome game is that if I wanted to hit a sweetspot on the crash mode, I would have bought a stupid golf game.

Best Burnout Yet

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: October 09, 2005
Author: Amazon User

With a name like Burnout Revenge, you might expect the latest game in the series to be a little rougher, a little meaner. And you'd be right. While it isn't a total reinvention, Burnout Revenge makes significant alterations to the Burnout formula that essentially render every other game in the series obsolete.
Burnout Revenge might not be the revolution that Burnout 3 was, but in the end, it changes more than enough to make it feel like a very different game. It's a technical marvel, but more importantly than that, it's one of the most exciting racing games ever made. Unless you don't have the reflexes to handle it, Burnout Revenge is a must-own game, especially for fans of online competition.

Time for some Payback!!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 3
Date: September 16, 2005
Author: Amazon User

My favorite racing game just got better. Even more fun, longer tracks with alternate routes to take. More cars and colors to choose from...none of that just red, blue or black. And it seems like its alot harder to takedown a CPU car than it was in part 3. Plus you can easily tell that they tweaked the AI because the other racers always seem to be one step ahead of you.

Like the previous reviewer I hate the new target car in Crash mode. Its a random car and you don't know which until you crash into it or blow it up. I never really like Crash mode anyway.

The new Traffic killer is cool especially at high speeds. The cars you hit bump and crash into other suckers on the road like a pinball. But you will still lose everytime against oncoming traffic and diesels. Everything else is the same but better. If you loved Burnout 3 Takedown then you will surely love this one.

Also if you have a Madden 06 save you get the Madden van and if you have a Burnout 3 save you get some lame car. Its nothing special really.

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