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Burnout 3: Takedown (Shadow_Gamer927 Review)

 
Are you bored with averagely "pretty" racing games? Do you want your cars to crush as they smash into a building at 200 mph? Or do you just want to screw the racing and just cause as much damage as you can? Well the demands have been met. Burnout 3 has finally arrived.

We have been experienced to a few quite a few pretty racing games lately, like Need for Speed Underground and the Gran Turismo games, but Burnout 3 puts them to shame with its prettiness, it looks like it could be a game for the next generation of consoles! The cars and environments are all stunning to look at. I played both versions, and I actually found that the PS2 version has the better looks (finally a game on the PS2 that looks better.) When your car rubs against anything you are grazed with a shower of the best looking sparks in gaming history (PS2 only.) Reflections on you car is also nice to see. Some of the environments can be very bright and distracting at times, this can cause you to take your eyes off he road for a second and that's all it takes to cause a 11 car pile up, but at least its cool to watch.

I dont know why, but not many games show damage to your car, but not does Burnout 3 only show damage to your Car, but it also has game physics (o I love the game physics.) Having physics allows this game to have pieces (and chunks of your car) fly into the air after you have crashed your car into the many things in your way. Youll crash into cars, semis, buses, bridge columns, road dividers, explosive gas trucks (), Tuk Tuks (resemble golf karts), and of course youll smash into (or be smashed into) walls. It can be stressful in a race when your going over a hill and a car will just pop out of nowhere and cause you to crash; at least it looks cool. I think this proves that this equations works: Cars + Physics = As much fun as you can with your pants on.

Im very glad that they made the controls as responsive as they are. I guess they would have to since it is a game based on dodging (or hitting) traffic going as fast as you do. Anyway the controls are sharp, responsive, and what they should be. Not really anything else you can say about them.

This is a racing game so of course you can race, but thank (insert whoever you worship) that thats not all this game gives us. Dont get me wrong the racing rocks, but Ive never been the biggest fan of racing, I'd rather crash into things. Thats why I like Crash mode. In Crash mode you are able to choose from about 100 levels (most are the same courses, just with different obstacles in them) to crash into intersections or incoming traffic trying to cause as much damage as you can (which is measured by the green paper.) After you get a certain amount of totaled cars your able to use the Crashbreaker, which allows you to blow up your car and everything around it! After you blow up (or go over a ramp or just crash anywhere in the game) you are giving the option to put everything in slow-mo which allows you to control what's left of your car into your opponents, more traffic, or pick ups to increase your score. However, the biggest problem is in the slow-mo. It would be nice if you could control the camera to see were your steering you wreck. I mean there is another analog stick, why not be able to use it?

Just having the racing and crashing would have made this game good, but they wanted to make it great and made it great is what they did. Theres Time trail, one on one, Grand Pres, and my very favorite mode: Road Rage. Road Rage is a mix of racing and crashing. You race through a level for a certain period of time or until your car is undrivable. Sometimes it may seem like your car can take another crash but the game ends, which kinda ticks you off. Your objective is to take out as many of your opponents as you can. Smash them into walls or other cars before they do it to you! I love it because its high speed driving while cars explode, fly over you, smash into walls and into each other. It truly is a huge adrenaline rush! If you ever get tired of that (which I doubt you will) there is multiplayer and on-line play. The multiplayer is awesome and is basically everything you do as one player, just with other people. You can race, chase each other down, and have a Crash party, which allows you to play with up 8 people in a compition to see who can get the most damage in a crash level. I only had the chance to play it on-line on the PS2, and its great... when it works. The servers seem to crash a lot or time out too often, and it just seems broken. Im not sure how much better the X-box live is for it.

With the huge amount of stuff to do, they have just as many cars to do the stuff. They dont give the exact name of the cars in the game, but who cars as long as they all look good. They do have several different series of cars. Theres the Compact, Coupe, Muscle, Sports, Super, Special, and the Heavyweight series. As you get more points, beat certain races, or collect certain rewards you unlock more cars. You can get points from everything you do, that includes on-line play. If you want the cars from the Special series your going to need to work for them, and just me their worth it.

The game has the look, control, and variety, but does it have the sound? Does the sound make you feel like you are going 200 mph while cars flip over you? Simply put: yes, yes it does. The sound effects are top nach and give you the feel you need while playing this game. The soundtrack is decent. It is basically a bunch of punk rock bands that are not known to everyone. There good, but I think EA could have done better in my opinion.

This game is so close to getting a perfect 10, but it does have a few minor problems with it. So that makes it an imperfect game. I still highly recommend this great arcade racer. I give Burnout 3: Takedown a 9.5 out of 10.
 
-Jason H. (Shadow_Gamer927)