Burnout Revenge Review
In Crash events, your event rating is judged by the number of vehicles damaged and the monetary value of the carnage caused.
There are only 13 different tracks to race on over eight cities, but they are raced forwards and backwards. Plenty of shortcuts and alternate routes are included in each track which are useful to get ahead of the pack, avoiding rivals as well as heavy road traffic, or to get big air off jumps to score Vertical Takedowns. Another disappointment is that there is only around 40 different Crash locations, with nearly all of them purpose built off of the racing tracks - a far cry from the 100+ boasted about in Burnout 3. Racing cars are all unlicensed (but still very impressive) supercar/GT designs which are progressively unlocked from light, 160 mph models up to super-light, 205 mph top speed cars. Completing Crash events unlocks heavier vehicles such as saloon, utility, large 4x4 and other fancy/humorous vehicles.
In keeping with the revenge theme, all the cities are rendered rather darkly to give a heavy kind of atmosphere - even the bright and sunny location of Sunshine Keys seems rather menacing in comparison to other racing games. The grinding metal sparks and flying debris are all very impressive but rarely noticed in the heat of battle. The surrounding top boosting speed motion blur has also been replaced with more of a 'shakey-cam' look. In-game music again defaults to EA Trax punk/rock with some added dance just to mix it up a bit. Strangely, some of the included music tracks can be turned off, whereas some others cannot - commercial agreements, anyone? There is always your own custom soundtracks to fall back on if the EA Trax are not to your liking.
Multiplayer is a shortfall, limited to two player split-screen and six player party mode with no system link option. Over Xbox Live, players are ranked separately on Race and Crash events to match similarly skilled players on Quick Match or Optimatch modes or create your own custom game to hook up with your Live Friends.
So, how does Burnout Revenge stack up? The new innovations such as checking traffic are quite enjoyable and Crash events are more difficult than simply landing on the 4x multiplier in Burnout 3. But the lack of variety in tracks and junctions, making for a repetitive game and small replay value all point to Revenge coming in a close second to its preceding release - Takedown. Having said that, it will definitely keep you out of the back seat of Grandma's Volvo.
