Burnout Revenge
Well, after bashing EA's destruction of the Burnout series based on what other people said about it, I thought I'd better make sure I'm well informed of the problems. So I've been playing some Burnout Revenge on the PS2.
First, let's talk about SPEED. BR has LOADS of this. The framerate is a smooth 60 FPS all the time, and you get that kind of tunnel vision where you only see about a 2 inch round area on the screen as you try to pick out oncoming obstacles before you get too close to avoid them. I haven't even gotten to the really fast cars yet. So if you can imagine one of those little "correct answer" sounds from a gameshow, BR gets a *dink* for speed.
How does the game look? Well, it looks awesome. It's hard to believe how far that old PS2 architecture has come in the hands of capable programmers. The levels are large, detailed, and occasionally beautiful; the mountain level has nice vistas and old stone bridges (that are easy to fall from). There are also some really nice visual effects, such as blur around the edges of the screen. Graphics: *dink*
Is the sound good? Hell yeah! You can hear things whooshing by while you're boosting, crash sound effects sound real, and the "game" effects (like when you get a Takedown) are solid. I wish I had surround sound for this. Sound: *dink*
How about the music? Well, it's mediocre; it's just standard EA licensed music. Why is it that almost every EA game has to have licensed music? I miss Burnout 2's game-exclusive dynamic music. What's worse, is EA have decided that SOME tracks MUST be heard. There's a menu where you can select whether each track is off, played during the menu or the game, or both. Some tracks may not be set to off. That's just wrong. I can see it: "Yeah, we can make it so a player can't disable your music. Just knock 50% off the license fee." Music: *brrrm*
Now for the real question: Is it fun? Yes, it's fun. Ramming the computer opponents (as opposed to traffic) into walls and off cliffs is fun. Crash mode is fun, even if the whole "aftertouch" thing is a bit contrived. Crashbreakers don't add a whole lot to crash mode, and I haven't progressed far enough in the game to use them in races, so the jury is still out on those.
But could it be better? I think so. I still prefer Burnout 2. I played BR for 2 hours straight, then went back to B2 just to prove it. It may not look AS good, but it still looks very good. A few tweaks to the game design have been made that really make BR less fun for me.
You can now ram same-direction small traffic for extra boost. Because of this, the road is a much less hazardous place to be speeding. It also takes out the need for strings of near misses. Those were really fun because you were encouraged to keep your string going. I'd cross 3 lanes of traffic to get to the far left oncoming lane just to get another near miss, and hope I didn't lose control in the process.
You can now press the boost button, let go, and use it again before refilling the meter. In B2, once you hit boost, you were usually committed to hold it until it ran out. Once it ran out, if you had done enough stunts, it would fill again. This was lots of fun, and encouraged the player to keep the boost button held until finally running out or crashing. Also, in BR, the best way to fill the boost meter is to score a Takedown; one of these fills the meter completely, and extends its size. This marginalizes the usefulness of oncoming, drift, near-misses and air with regard to filling the boost meter.
You can unlock a LOAD of stuff, but most of it is more challenges and more cares. More challenges isn't really an "unlock," it's just standard game progression. There are over 70 cars in it. That's just too many for a game like Burnout; it's great for Gran Turismo where the focus is on the subtle differences between cars and equipment. Mostly, the different cars just offer incremental upgrades. EA just seems to have this thing about having a lot of unlockable content, even if there isn't much point to it.
So to sum it up -
fun: *dink*
more fun than B2: *brrrm*
Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5.
If I were to rate B2, I think it would come out around 4 or 4.5 stars. So BR is not as large a step backward as I had previously thought, but it's still not as good as it could be. I stand by my assertion that Burnout would have continued to be a brilliant series, if EA hadn't bought Criterion. As it stands, it is a merely a good series.
First, let's talk about SPEED. BR has LOADS of this. The framerate is a smooth 60 FPS all the time, and you get that kind of tunnel vision where you only see about a 2 inch round area on the screen as you try to pick out oncoming obstacles before you get too close to avoid them. I haven't even gotten to the really fast cars yet. So if you can imagine one of those little "correct answer" sounds from a gameshow, BR gets a *dink* for speed.
How does the game look? Well, it looks awesome. It's hard to believe how far that old PS2 architecture has come in the hands of capable programmers. The levels are large, detailed, and occasionally beautiful; the mountain level has nice vistas and old stone bridges (that are easy to fall from). There are also some really nice visual effects, such as blur around the edges of the screen. Graphics: *dink*
Is the sound good? Hell yeah! You can hear things whooshing by while you're boosting, crash sound effects sound real, and the "game" effects (like when you get a Takedown) are solid. I wish I had surround sound for this. Sound: *dink*
How about the music? Well, it's mediocre; it's just standard EA licensed music. Why is it that almost every EA game has to have licensed music? I miss Burnout 2's game-exclusive dynamic music. What's worse, is EA have decided that SOME tracks MUST be heard. There's a menu where you can select whether each track is off, played during the menu or the game, or both. Some tracks may not be set to off. That's just wrong. I can see it: "Yeah, we can make it so a player can't disable your music. Just knock 50% off the license fee." Music: *brrrm*
Now for the real question: Is it fun? Yes, it's fun. Ramming the computer opponents (as opposed to traffic) into walls and off cliffs is fun. Crash mode is fun, even if the whole "aftertouch" thing is a bit contrived. Crashbreakers don't add a whole lot to crash mode, and I haven't progressed far enough in the game to use them in races, so the jury is still out on those.
But could it be better? I think so. I still prefer Burnout 2. I played BR for 2 hours straight, then went back to B2 just to prove it. It may not look AS good, but it still looks very good. A few tweaks to the game design have been made that really make BR less fun for me.
You can now ram same-direction small traffic for extra boost. Because of this, the road is a much less hazardous place to be speeding. It also takes out the need for strings of near misses. Those were really fun because you were encouraged to keep your string going. I'd cross 3 lanes of traffic to get to the far left oncoming lane just to get another near miss, and hope I didn't lose control in the process.
You can now press the boost button, let go, and use it again before refilling the meter. In B2, once you hit boost, you were usually committed to hold it until it ran out. Once it ran out, if you had done enough stunts, it would fill again. This was lots of fun, and encouraged the player to keep the boost button held until finally running out or crashing. Also, in BR, the best way to fill the boost meter is to score a Takedown; one of these fills the meter completely, and extends its size. This marginalizes the usefulness of oncoming, drift, near-misses and air with regard to filling the boost meter.
You can unlock a LOAD of stuff, but most of it is more challenges and more cares. More challenges isn't really an "unlock," it's just standard game progression. There are over 70 cars in it. That's just too many for a game like Burnout; it's great for Gran Turismo where the focus is on the subtle differences between cars and equipment. Mostly, the different cars just offer incremental upgrades. EA just seems to have this thing about having a lot of unlockable content, even if there isn't much point to it.
So to sum it up -
fun: *dink*
more fun than B2: *brrrm*
Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5.
If I were to rate B2, I think it would come out around 4 or 4.5 stars. So BR is not as large a step backward as I had previously thought, but it's still not as good as it could be. I stand by my assertion that Burnout would have continued to be a brilliant series, if EA hadn't bought Criterion. As it stands, it is a merely a good series.
posted by Almo at 11:41 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home