Burnout 3: Takedown Review (Xbox)

Still Not Burnt Out

Burnout 3 is the game I always come back to. I’ve cashed out my games collection before, yet I always buy this game when I come back, and it never gets boring. A few months ago I reviewed the sixth game in the Burnout franchise, Burnout Paradise. I stated that it was the pinnacle of the series, I’d like to eat my words.

September 2004 may not mean a lot to most people, but to me it was the release of Burnout 3, which is still to release me from it’s high octane clutches. Takedown is the fourth highest rated video game by critics in 2004, behind GTA: San Andreas, Half-Life 2 and Halo 2. According to Metacritic, it’s also joint 3rd place for the top-rated racing games of all time, only surpassed by two Gran Turismo games. The third entry to the Burnout franchise is not without it’s flaws, but they’re so small compared to the amazing feats this game achieves, and I’ll get them out of the way first.

The loading and saving screens take their sweet time, I’ve found this to be an issue on both the Xbox and PS2 versions of the game, This is a minor issue in the grand scheme of things but can really take you out of the action. During the races your heart rate is normally through the roof, but the loading takes just enough time to slow your BPM and pluck you from your happy place. It can be quite frustrating, but not nearly as frustrating as the main in-game issue.

The in-game issue is more due to the technical prowess of the console. The render distance is short, like really short, Peter Dinklage short. Combining the short render distance with the high acceleration and boost activations can cause for cars popping into frame just in time for you to crash into them at a point of the road you could’ve sworn was clear before. There’s also an issue when you unlock cars, you’ll see a short cinematic at the end of your race letting you know that a new car has been delivered to your garage. This becomes an issue when you unlock 3 or 4 new vehicles as the animation is about 10 seconds long and is unskippable.

Those are the only problems, other than those nitpicky little imperfections Burnout 3: Takedown is beautiful. The graphics were acceptable for the time, yet the sequels Burnout: Revenge and Burnout: Dominator seemed to get progressively worse. The main appeal of Burnout: Takedown is well, the takedowns. Theres an entire plethora of different takedowns in the game; wall takedowns, bus takedowns, aftertouch takedowns, car takedowns, van takedowns, T-bone takedowns, signature takedowns, psyche out takedowns… the list goes on. Each fuelled ram at your opponents could lead to a wreckage melting away at the side of the track and gaining you a hell of a lot of boost, and the power you feel is so pure and unrivalled.

There’s a large amount of variety among the different tracks too, you will find yourself racing in the same place 4 or 5 times in different events, but the levels stretch across three continents and it’s obvious a lot of thought has gone into each one. There’s snow and rain in Europe, hot burning sun in the Far East, and nice sunny days stateside (lucky bastards). Burnout also adds little niches to each area, with trams in some of the US tracks and coffee shops in the European ones. Theres also never a dull part of any track, with nail-biting moments as you rush uphill blindly into potentially huge amounts of speeding traffic.

The main part of the game is the Burnout World Tour, which consists of different styles of races and crash events to allow you to progress through the game and unlock more and more vehicles. One of my favourite modes is Road Rage, in which you have to take down as many opponents as possible to reach a target. Crash mode is another fantastic mode which could be a game all by itself. You tend to be near a busy junction and you must wreak as much havoc as possible, causing 200 car pile-ups and landing on score multipliers to achieve a high score.Burnout has a lot of variety, and game modes like this is why.

The soundtrack is catchy, fast paced and a bit, well, prepubescent. It’s the only music in the pop punk genre I can stand and i think that’s only for nostalgia’s sake. It wouldn’t sound out of place in a smackdown vs raw title. There’s enough tracks for the game to not sound too repetitive too and the songs have a lot more charm than any of it’s sequels.

Burnout 3 is a game I hold very close to my heart, and will play until it breaks, and then buy a new one. It’s the racing game of all racing games. It’s the reason I love the arcade racing genre.