Burnout 2

First off, let me say this is a top notch game. Full marks on what ever system you use to rate them. 100% or 5 out of 5 etc, you know what I mean. Let me say that as I am about the only person on the entire planet NOT into Sims, Final Fantasy, or any other RPG/management game, this is going to be a short review.

Burnout 2 is a game of speed, and wonderful crashes. You race in cities or along country roads, with normal law abiding (read slow) cars puttering along. So it's like driving in a real world enviroment all the time, but without worrying about jail time. The races consist of either a 3 other player madness, a bash the other driver until he's out thing, or my all time fave of all time, the CRASH mode - juicy stuff indeed.

You see they give you a little set piece of road, nothing too large, and you have to cause as much financial damage as possible by making cars crash. This is where it gets good. In the normal game the crashes are satisfyingly crunchy, with glass flying everywhere, trucks skidding across lanes, and cars piling into eachother. I am sure if you have ever been in a real pile-up you would certainly NOT want to play this game!

The game physics is just believable enough so you don't get cars doing odd mid-air trickery or rebounding strangely from obstacles, but not too real, as real spoils things right kids? You get squealing tires, LONG skid marks, smoking tires, smashing windows, even police chases thrown in, and YOU can be the cops if you like!

My only reservation seems to be that on my first go I appeared to unlock nearly everything, although personally I can come back again and again to this game for the crash mode alone! Not had the chance to go multiplayer as yet but I am sure that would be good also.

Thanks Criterion for an amazing re-energizing of my computer playing time! And it seems that in September of 2004 there is version 3 coming out!! This was referring to the XBOX version of the game, it's one of the first XBOX games I have bought, but it looks like it's going to be a long and happy relationship.



Speed and crashes like you would not believe!