Burnout 3: Takedown – Review

With driving games aplenty does Burnout 3: Takedown offer the gamer anything new in the genre? Let’s take a look….

It’s not often a game comes along that has you cackling with joy or giving loud ‘Oh Yeahs!’ as you gleefully complete another task / section. Burnout 3 had this particular reviewer doing just that at times for up to 6 hour stretches, something unheard of since she finished Halo.
For the uninitiated the Burnout Series offered gamers the chance to not only race but to cause havoc whilst doing so. This twist on the usual console racer meant that Burnout was something new, and, because it did it so well from the offset it became a gamers favorite, forever reshaping the driving genre. I’m very pleased to say that this latest incarnation in no way lets down the franchise, adding to it on numerous levels and giving the gamer something so addictive, it could almost be illegal.

Graphics:
The graphics are, in my humble girl gamer opinion aesthetically pleasing and this includes the ‘blur’ feature which I realise has got a bit of stick. If I were truly moving at 200+ mph, I’m fairly sure tunnel vision would indeed set in and I would experience peripheral blur, so, bring on your grunts and groans but I challenge you to prove me wrong. And so with this in mind the blur that happens as you speed up in Burnout 3 was of no consequence for me and in fact added to the overall feeling of speed within the games structure. The framerate too never appeared to drop and the overall draw distance isn’t too shabby either. My only negative jibe regarding the graphics would have to be the blatant product placement for EA titles that the scenery is littered with, self promotion is so unbecoming, nuff said.

Sound:
The sound of twisting metal, sparks flying, glass breaking and all out carnage is beautifully recreated for those of you that love to discuss separate channel sound effects, you wont be disappointed since you can hear it all in lovely 5.1 Dolby Digtial. Those of you who have played EAs SSX may notice similarities in the EA Trax radio station with your resident (slightly annoying) DJ Striker, fear not though you CAN turn him off and Xbox gamers can also utilize the custom soundtrack option. The in game soundtrack consists of the usual indi-rock and has a fairly large track listing of around 40 songs.

Gameplay:
Addictive, addictive addictive. There’s no point in going into intricate detail here, a game either has it or it doesn’t and this has it by the bucket load, it’s simple pick up and play brilliance. The addition of ‘impact time’ is also brilliant and allows you to do ‘after touch’ whereby you can take out other drivers whilst essentially completely disabled by giving you matrix style slow mo control of your mangled wreck. I won’t bore you with detail after detail, just go buy the dang thing, what are you waiting for?

Multi-Player: Xbox Live
Oh dear… just when it was all going so well EA go and shoot what should have been a ten out of ten title in the rear wheel by opting to use their own live interface which has meant (at least on release) a plethora of problems connecting and staying connected, which is a real shame as the game does have an abundance of online game features. Whilst we’re on the negative run I should also mention the PAL / NTSC fiasco, if you’re wanting to play a friend overseas you’ll need to make sure you BOTH have your Xbox set to the same hertz setting (ie a UKer set your Xbox to 60 hertz and hope your TV can cope should you want to play a US friend). All that said this otherwise perfect ten game loses one point since the Live feature (online features / servers) needs to be refined. On the upside if you want to try Xbox Live and don’t yet have an account the game comes with a free two month trial that you can easily set up, well there’s always the hope they’ll fix these teething problems.

Female Gamer Angle:
Well because it’s you playing and you can’t see yourself I guess you could be a female driver, but due to the on screen narrative saying things like He’s Losing You or You’re Losing Him, you are apparently only racing against guys; it’s a tiny nit picky little point but I needed to pop something into the Female Gaming angle section.

Conclusion:
Buy it, go forth ladies and gents and mangle cars galore, squeal with joy as you get your takedown rampage yet again or complete yet another crash section.
Still there?

Review by Angela