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Submitted to www.gamefaqs.com and rejected. Screw them!

Introduction

Some people are on a constant quest for realism in driving games. They want real (and customizable) cars, real speed and handling characteristics, sophisticated opponents and real tracks.

If you are one of these people, you will hate Burnout Revenge as it has none of these things: it's the "Anti-Gran Turismo". But if you are like me, and prefer mayhem, ridiculous jumps, exploding stuff and a feeling of insane speed (remember Rush 2049?) then this is the game you've been waiting for your entire life.

This review will focus on differences and improvements over Burnout 3: Takedown, itself a near-masterpiece.

Gameplay: 10/10

The main (in fact the only) single player mode is World Tour. The goal is to win races and unlock cars, tracks and new events. The more races you win, and the more aggressively you drive, the more stars you get. Earn more stars to advance your revenge ranking, and progress through all 10 ranks to complete the game. I can't imagine taking less than 20 or 30 hours to finish everything, if you're really good.

Here are some of the goodies that improve on Burnout 3:

Traffic Check! Small vehicles can be hit from behind without crashing. Send them into your opponents (or oncoming traffic) and enjoy the chaos.

Evolved Crash Junctions. They're not junctions so much as scenarios now. Multiple crashbreakers are possible, and the areas are more varied.

Race Crashbreakers! This is nuts. After you've made your way through a few rankings, the game turns on crashbreakers during races. Taking out 2, 3, 4 (or all 5) opponents in a massive explosion after a crash is immensely satisfying.

Mad Air. Lots of hidden (and by "hidden" I mean marked with bright blue lights) detours and shortcuts offer thrilling jumps.

Vertical Takedowns. Oh yes, death from above.

Revenge Takedowns. If you're taken out by an opponent, they're red-flagged, and you can try to return the favor. It's a nice gimmick, and adds to the fun.

Graphics: 9/10

The sense of speed is amazing. Everything is utterly gorgeous, and looks even better in 480p (hold triangle and X during boot). Minus 1 for poor centering in 480p mode, duh.

Sound: 10/10

Hook up your subwoofer and turn it up. This morning my wife thought there was an earthquake. Bonus points for getting rid of Stryker and the dumb "Crash FM".

Replay Value: 10

As I mentioned, there's at least 30 hours of first time play in this game, more if you're not a l33t racer. After I finish it I'm just going to start over. This stuff never gets old.

Music: no rating

It's the same stuff that's in all the games. There are plenty of decent tracks. Whatever.

Online Play: 8/10

It works, which is more than I can say for my experience with the last one. Opponents seem to skitter and slide in a peculiar way, but perhaps this can be fixed on the server side.

Multiplayer: 10/10

Multiplayer mode is essentially the same as in Burnout 3. Party crash is super fun.

Glitch Warning

The game, while magnificent, is not bug free, hence the 9 rating overall. I've been in near-crash situations a couple of times where the system thought I crashed: the "press R2 for crashbreaker" message came up, even though I was still driving in the race. After the next takedown or crash, the message went away. And there have been a couple of occasions where I "fell through" the road and crashed in a bottomless neverland. But the game has never crashed completely. These glitches are extremely rare, and haven't prevented me from enjoying the game immensely.

Rent/Buy

Scroll up and read the first two paragraphs again. You'll know what to do.