For those who did not get to experience the original, Burnout is a traditional racing game ripped off typical lifeless tracks and placed on busy streets filled with traffic. The goal of making it to the finish line goes hand-in-hand with avoiding other cars, as crashing is obviously detrimental to survival. Thing is, simply driving on the right side of the street and hanging out of harm's way won't net you first place every time. A Burn Meter is also in place, which acts as a nitro of sorts, built up by narrowly missing other cars, driving into oncoming traffic, flying off hills into the air, and powersliding. Once the meter is full, the car can take off with an additional boost in speed and acceleration. The screen will stretch, a heartbeat will begin pumping, and the music will become louder all to help the experience become exactly that. Then comes the relentless Burn combos, which can win a race by themselves but are equally dangerous thanks to not slowing down. Performing actions that build up the Burn meter while already in nitro creates additional meters that get fueled automatically when the first one finishes.

There are tons of new tracks (with shades of the originals here and there), all with their own style and feel. The city streets are primarily straights with larger width, all the country ones are smaller and winding, and the seaside ones are curvy along the beach. All of them look incredible, stretching out as far as you can see to where you can even make out placement markers of your opponents across lakes on a different part of the track. The water is very flat-looking and not too spectacular, but it is rare that you will get to see it up close, and is really the only graphical shortcoming in the levels.

While perhaps not on the realism level of GT3 or Sega GT 2002, the graphics still dominate in every other way. Sparks fly out with every collision, everything is clear as day (with a bit of stair-casing due to the hardware), and little touches abound, from cars activating their turn signals to different speedometers depending on the type of car chosen. Everything is far and away better then the original and positively stunning. If you can, you must pick up the component cables to see this game in its real beauty, and be sure to enable 16:9. Videophiles will love this; it makes the game so much nicer on the eyes with none of that blurring that plagued the first one.

Then there are the insane crashes. The cars all real-time deform, with pieces of them flying everywhere, tires bouncing down the road, windows blowing out - all looking insanely painful. Almost all of them cause me to wince or shout out every time, no matter how many times I watch them. These blow away the crashes in any other game with cars. Nothing, but nothing else even comes close! Watching them spiral up hills and off of medians into buildings, it is obvious a lot of work went into these. However, they seemed to have removed the crash replay saving and multiple angles of the original, which rather disappoints me. I liked being able to save replays and show them off later, and since everything in Burnout 2 is so much bigger and better (the original is now unplayable to me due to how far superior this is) I wanted to save these even more. But alas, it was removed, for reasons unknown to me.

Thankfully, the loss of replays is more then made up for in new modes and more championships than before. Actually completing the game will take longer then the original did (but still not very long) and there is way more replay value overall. Newly added are Pursuit, in which you play as a cop bashing into an opponent trying to escape, and Crash, where a specific setup is presented and the object is to crash and create as much insurance damage as possible. Both of these also support two-player modes, which makes each infinitely more fun, so be sure to grab a friend that also likes watching cars smash into each other. Unlocking everything also adds a bit of additional time throughout the various games, as golds must be earned on everything to obtain extras (even the practice stages have something to offer).

Aurally, the game is also great; engine noises are done perfectly in time with great rumbling and the tire screeching sounds awesome through drifting. The honking is done well (it isn't special, but it is just honking), but the police sirens can start to get annoying during Pursuit mode after a while. The music is wonderful stuff, fitting perfectly and, while normally hanging out in the background, jumps in with reinforced volume when the Burn meter kicks in. This gives it an extra jolt that adds way more than one might think it does, and I absolutely love it and can not imagine it delivering the same impact without. It gives a huge boost when powersliding back and forth across a track, whipping through the air leaping over cars . . . and the Burn meter kicks in with music pumping even more as the screen stretches out and the turns come even faster . . . This is what racing dreams are made of. Or should be.

If there is any game that exemplifies car chase movies, Burnout 2 is most definitely it. Destroying the original in every way, this game is absolutely incredible! The only real way I could see it being made better is if it had a movie-maker mode like the Driver games do (which I can only pray for in a third one). Otherwise it is simply the best damn racing game I've played since Metropolis Street Racer was released. I only hope more companies take after what Criterion has done with the PS2 and add better visual support and actually make sequels exactly what they are - not a simple rehash with a couple of new cars, like how most racing series turn out.

· · · MechDeus