If you ever wanted to thrash a bunch of cars in a street race, yet having a totally different approach to that of Project Gotham Racer, this might be the alternative you’ve been waiting for. Except Burnout takes the premise of giving you a city to race in then adds traffic with you and 3 other racers in the race to take 1st place.

Gameplay:
The whole idea behind Burnout is that you are one of 4 street racers in a large city. Along your way to reaching 1st place in each race the cities are full of traffic and not just any traffic as some serious AI has been implemented here it’s very realistic and also annoying at times as the traffic will change lanes from time to time rendering crashes probable! But your computer opponents always seem to be close to you when you’re leading. For instance when you’ve pulled 2 flat out boosts and then you crash the opponents have catched up even after all that acceleration, a minor flaw but still annoying.
The tracks within Burnout vary, they can be open as such – motorways and duel carriageways but they can also change to inner city back alleys. Although the game lacks any serious amount of tracks as overall there are 3-5 tracks in the whole game although many are replayed as supposed different tracks shown as backwards versions or in the dark. The cars aren’t too plentiful either you do have muscle car and a saloon car to start off with but other cars that you are rewarded with such as the roadster aren’t too different from the muscle car, overall there are only 1 or maybe 2 cars I would actually use others such as the bus and pickup are sheerly a waste of time and were perhaps put in for comical use.
The game is very reliable to control as everything is where you want it on the control pad and accelerating, braking and checking who is behind you is easy. As you play through Burnout there are a couple of extra elements there to add extra fun to the game, first of all is the boost, which is given to you as you pull many dangerous stunts through the race such as driving through oncoming traffic, doing jumps and drifts too once you have done enough for a boost you can let rip and have some real fun. The replays that are given in game come as an annoyance to myself, as your crash you have just done is replayed 3 times before you get set on the open road again, although this is balanced out by the fact that after a crash the computer sets you off at a reasonable speed to keep the gameplay flowing.

Graphics:
As far as Xbox graphics go Burnout has reached the standard that Xbox owners expect and an evident improvement over the PS2 version. The landscape and city looks nice, but nothing special, the cars however are very well modelled considering the game is not looking at a particular model of car. The damage inflicted is pretty good too but I would have liked it to be in more detail as there is only windows smashing and dents appearing, no body parts coming off? One of the main features the game boasts is the effect the boost offers when at top speed everything around the car becomes blurred and the camera is drawn back slightly, nicely done and brings out the sense of speed in the game .But the graphics have been put to good use maybe a small tweak or two could have made the game look really good.

Sound:
The sound isn’t exactly the best area of the game, although it doesn’t disappoint. The game has it’s own soundtrack which is a little boring at points, the only track I thought was any good was one which drew you into the atmosphere of the game and is always played around the last lap of the game, makes you a little tense just before the finish of the race. Still the point being there isn’t a great soundtrack, only other major attribute of the sound in the game is the Dolby 5.1 that has been implemented giving a great sense of speed once again.

Longevity:
Unfortunately this is where Burnout lacks ever so slightly there are a couple of modes such as Championship and Single race that offers the backbone of the game, although the championship mode only offers six sets of races unlocking the rest of the game, fairly little for a championship mode. There’s the single race mode, which is fairly self-explanatory, there’s also time attack mode which is practically the same as single race waste of space really. Burnout only offers a special mode offering crash replays, music player, credits and face off available at first other modes becoming available after playing through championship mode. Burnout is leaving you with an overall package that worth a few nights in of solid gameplay, afterwards there is little to keep you coming back as the only multiplayer involved is a head to head match, with Xboxes capabilities there should have been 4-player split screen.

Round Up:
Burnout takes all the fun of street racing and doing what you can’t do in real life into a game, it’s questionable whether the game is worth a full £40. The game itself is wonderfully crafted with one or two parts lacking which should have been fixed, but the fact that game is great at first and has little to offer after a rental say. With the impending release of Burnout 2: Point of Impact on the horizon it’s worth a rental to keep the tension of the sequel at bay, I’m keeping an eye on Burnout 2 don’t know about the rest of you?

Pros:

• Simple gameplay and great fun
  
• Great sense of speed and realism
  
• Good arcade style action
  

  Cons:
  

  • Computer AI good, but ‘iffy’ in places
    
  • In game crash replays- overdone!
    
  • Only worth a rental really due to low content