The third installment of the Burnout series is a definite improvement of the last two, making use of race collisions to score big. The first was restricted to conventional racing with the inclusion of crash replays (which didn't really serve a purpose), the second utilised those crashes to set aside events to engineer city street crashes around the world, and the third incorporates the same objective as its prequel but adds the challenge of creating Takedowns. Thus far it is the best, one of the very few racing sequels that I have seen surpass the original.
The game's graphics are on an even footing with the previous Burnout games, adding painstakingly graphic detail that comes out simply gorgeous. Plus which, the environments of the race courses mimic almost exaclty the real counterparts of their locations � for example, Winter City and Alpine Expressway being placed in Germany (although the Europe Crash Nav is actually zoomed in on Italy) match the roads in the real Germany; however, not all of the Far East has motorists driving on the left side of the road, as China and South Korea don't do that. For the most part, however, someone could look at a few screenshots and be tricked into thinking that what they're seeing wasn't generated by a computer.
Although the rhythm of the original Burnout game can be heard on the title screen, the rest of the music is appropriately thematic: impulsive, loud, and fast. (However, rock does have its limit, which is pushed in the song Radio Up, but the inclusion of popular rock artists such as Jimmy Eat World and Franz Ferdinand more than makes up for this.) The sound effects are also accurate and fit in very well with the graphics. You just have to love the sound of metal twisting after the Crashbreaker....
The only thing matching the impressive visual and audio quality of Burnout 3: Takedown is the control, which is conventional yet fluent � the power of the right trigger (which, unfortunately, would prevent this game from being played on a Playstation 2 console), the ease of control over the car, and the Aftertouch, a feature that allows players to steer their car wreckage to crash into opposing racers in races and collect pickups in Crash mode. However, the letdown is the gradual difficulty of the crash missions and Aftertouch being disabled on Xbox Live Team Crush, but given the player enjoying the game so much this should be relatively moot.
This is a godsend for hardcore racing enthusiasts, placing most other games of the genre, especially their sequels, significantly behind it. Because doing Crash missions are exciting and are fun to attempt, there's little euphoria over winning the Custom Coupe Ultimate (which is awarded for winning a Gold Medal in all Crash events). And even if you lose a race, it's always fun to try again. A balance of euphoria and excitement warrant an outstanding replay value that is guaranteed to keep this game on the shelf even if Electronic Arts produces another sequel.
Although you may know me as a Pok�mon expert, it's healthy to put some attention in something else, and when this is restricted to videogames, Burnout 3 beats the entire competition and wins the race by a long shot for the golden trophy of my interest. For music lovers and racing fans, I strongly recommend this game � don't be deterred by its status as a double sequel.
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