Burnout Revenge Review

Features and Modes

The single player mode in Burnout Revenge is the World Tour mode which gives you a taste of all of the different race types and in the game. Events are broken up into different ranks with several events taking place in each rank. All in all, there are 169 events spread throughout 11 ranks and it will take you quite a bit longer than a weekend rental to get through everything. There are standard races. Eliminator races where the last place car is eliminated every thirty-seconds until only one car is left. Road Rage events ask you to crash your opponents as many times as possible. Burning Lap and Preview races are time trials that pit you against the clock.

The final race type is the one that made Burnout famous – Crash. In these events you are plopped onto a busy roadway and the objective is to crash into as many traffic cars and cause as much destruction as possible. Each stage is a puzzle and you have to figure out the correct speed and position to hit the traffic in order to cause the most damage. The powerups from Burnout 3 are long gone this time around, but you can perform multiple Crashbreakers depending on how many cars you wreck. Overall, crash events are fun little puzzles that are undeniably satisfying.

Multiplayer

Multiplayer races, both on and offline, add a lot of value to an already solid package. You can take part in all of the standard race types as well as crash mode. A nice new feature is called Crash Battle where two players compete on the same crash event at the same time and try to see who can cause the most damage. When the take the game online, the events change up a bit to accommodate more players. Road Rage events turn into team games where one team tries to race to the finish while the other team attempts to take them out. You can also once again play crash events in a party where you go through a series of events and your damage total carries over all the way to the end to see who caused the most destruction overall. All of these modes run very smoothly and are a ton of fun to play online.

The best part of Burnout Revenge’s online play is that it takes a few cues from Halo 2 to make the online matchmaking a lot more fair. You have seperate rankings for racing and crash events which means you’ll be playing with people of roughly the same skill and with the same cars. The lobbies and everything else in Revenge are also completely redesigned from Burnout 3 and are much better this time around.

Graphics and Sound

One of the best aspects of Burnout Revenge are the absolutely fantastic graphics. The cars are detailed and the environments you race in are varied and extremely detailed as well. And, of course, the crashes and destruction you cause looks really, really pretty. Everything moves at a silky smooth framerate and the sense of speed you’ll experience is unmatched. I’ll go out on a limb and say that this is the best looking racing game on the Xbox and it is going to be amazing to see what we’ll see in next gen games.

The sound is also very well done in Burnout Revenge. Sound effects for engines are spot on and effects for metal scraping on metal, explosions, and everything else are all perfect. The soundtrack is also surprisingly good and you won’t be as quick to switch to a custom soundtrack this time around as you were in Burnout 3. Another big change from Burnout 3 is that there is no longer an annoying radio DJ constantly blabbering at you.

Bottom Line

Burnout Revenge is right at the top of the racing genre for the Xbox so it is pretty easy to recommend. The racing is fast and furious and fun and the crashes give the game that little extra bit of satisfaction that really pushes the overall experience over the top. Being able to check traffic cars along with the vastly improved online play make this a must own game even if you have played Burnout 3 to death. Just about every aspect of this game has been honed to razor sharp perfection. Burnout Revenge is highly recommended for a purchase. This is a game you really need to play to believe.