Customer Reviews

Burnout 3 Takedown

5 star:		(84)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Look. I'll break it down for you:

Do you like to race cars in video games?
Do you like to see cars crash, explode, flip, and disintegrate?

That's all you need to absolutely fall in love with this game.

Some people complain about computer cars that throw themselves at you. Hello? It's a videogame! I suspect that those complainers simply don't know how to play the game to avoid these cars.

As for the music and the DJ, guess what? You can turn them off if you don't like them.

But AI cars and punk music are not the reasons to love this game. The real star of the game is the ULTRA-realistic crash animations. I swear, you will never get bored of watching these cars crash. Sparks fly, fenders pop off, hoods crumple, and cars split in two in the most amazing animated crashes you will EVER see.

I highly recommend this game. Is it the best RACING game out there? No. But it's not about the racing. It's about watching things blow up, going really fast, and not taking this too seriously.

Have fun and buy this game!

This is by far the best game in the Burnout series. I have all three. This game is great especially since EA decided to help produce this one. You get all of the special features of a big name game company (like actual songs from actual artists and online play) while still enjoying the simple fun of a small brand game. Don't get me wrong this game is very complex, but the idea is the same, do the best crashes and finish first. I know some people are complaining about the lousy soundtrack, and I partailly agree. Some of the songs are pretty good (like the ones by Jimmy Eat World and New Found Glory) but most of them are stupid garage punk rock bands that don't know the first thing about music. The other downside is that stupid Striker announcer guy. The graphics are great, but like some of the other reviewers noted, it's not the ultra-realistic gran turismo graphics, but they are still one of the better PS2 games for graphics. Oh and there is soo much more stuff to this game. 100 crash junctions, 40 levels, almost 60 cars and thats just the start of. It also comes preloaded with the Need For Speed Underground 2 demo, and it seems like a pretty good game. Overall Burnout 3 is highly addicting and fun.

I'm a huge fan of the Burnout series. I've been playing since the original a couple years ago and I can't quite get tired of them. Some people had a problem with the first game's long levels, but I thuroughly enjoyed them, it added that much more time to make others crash. And now, in the new game, Burnout 3: Takedown, you will find the 40 or so levels to be perfect, along with everything else in the stellar title.

For one thing, the graphics, while not super realistic like Gran Turismo games, are still some of the best on the PS2. Everything is quite colorful and vivid, and you get a wonderful look at everything around you after someone has pushed you into a gaurdrail, causing you to flip around in the air while all the broken glass and flecks of paint and car part flaot around in slow motion along with you. But what makes crashing really fun, besides the awesome damage animation, is the fact that when somebody makes you wreck or you hit something and crash, you can hold a button to slow everything down, and you can actually move your crashed vehicle around to put it in the path of oncoming racers that may or may not have caused you to wreck, proceeding to cause of festival of twisted metal vengeance.

But one thing that was more noticable than anything is the artificial intelligence in the other drivers. For the first time in any racing game I actually felt bullied around, like I do when I'm playing with real people. Which is needless to say really freakin' cool. They ram you into oncoming traffic, tailgate, sideswipe, team up on you to sandwich your car, and coolest of all, they actually make realistic mistakes. They will literally misjudge a drift around a corner or get faked out by you or another car and crash. And that just blew me away.

Now, onto the thing everybody likes to talk about, the speed. Even when not using your burnout meter, your screen is still blurred around the edges as you are pushing a minimum top speed of 150-160. Without your boost. That's insane! Then, when you actually get some boost (which you can now use even when your meter isn't full) you hit speeds closer to 200 mph! And you really take your life in your hands then, because by the time you actually see that car up ahead coming right at you in the oncoming lane, you've already smashed into it with tremdous speed. Note: this is not a complaint, it's just a really cool idea pulled off superbly. Sure, you can race the entire level going mach speeds if you like, but you'll probably crash more that anybody else too. So, unless you have Elven vision, I'd just wait till you find a good clean patch of road with little to no traffic on it to really hit the gas. Or if you're a second behind somebody, and hitting them at turbo speed would mean a pretty crash for them, then by all means use it. You don't have to listen to me, just race and win your own way.

I'll wrap up by saying that I have not beat this game yet. I've put about 9 hours into it so far and still haven't unlocked a third of the games unlockables. And I haven't even touched the multiplayer yet! So my advice to you is this: If you want the best arcade racer ever created, buy this game. If you're not a racing fan, or if you don't have a PS2 or XBOX, then don't bother with this game. But if you're capable of playing this game, be prepared to let that itch on your face go until the race is over...

Graphics-5
Sound-5 (except the soundtrack is new wave punk/pop, so I just turned it off. But the in game sound effects are much better than any of that crap anyway)
Control-5
Overall-5

I spent over 100 hours of play time on Burnout 2. I couldn't stop trying new ideas for the crash modes. I kept trying to beat my old times on the races. Sure I'd get gold, but could I get all the races done without crashing?? It just couldn't get any better. Then comes Burnout 3. I'd been following the trailers for a while and now with the demo release.... well, the release date just can't come soon enough. I'll play my demo over and over till then. The graphics are awe-inspiring. The 'turbo' button also works as a slow-motion button during the crashes. Sparks and particle effects, broken glass, even paint flecks... it's fantastic! You'll find yourself crashing on purpose. I'm sure that the crash mode will be available again. Where it is THE goal to drive into intersections to cause as much damage as possible. I'll probably get the Xbox release version vice the PS2, but it's the same control feel of Burnout 2 that I'm familiar with. Go to the homepage and check the trailers if you want more as well. Enjoy!

EA takes over the Burnout series and does exactly what you want: make the game faster, longer, more fun, and more violent. Unfortunately, EA also insists on playing a song at EVERY menu in the game, just like they did with all of their sports games, bringing corporate synergy to a new level. You'll hear one bland rock band after another--it could all be the same band. Awful.

The game? The game is excellent. The same buttons, the same concepts, and then some. The game is much, much faster, insanely so. The crashes feature more parts flying, more paint flying, tires, ripping metal, etc, etc. And the more cars you wreck, you get a chance to blow up your own car and cause even more destruction. Nice.

They also value 'takedowns', meaning just taking out other racers (running them off the road, ramming them, causing more wrecks, etc.)

Basically, if you liked the Burnout games, this is a no brainer. Same deal, only more insane. Again, the only thing missing is the bodies flying through the windshields at 200 mph.

We rented this game just to see how good it was. My son and I argured over who's turn it was to play this, we had so much fun and some laughs too. They made this game teen rated, only to have the some foul language, nothing you don't hear on TV. But they could of made this game without it and it would have still been fun.

this game is the first game of the year thats so perfect, its undescribable. There are 0 bugs that i've found, the only thing i've found to be somewhat annoying, is that the online ranking are all messed up because of people who cheated using gameshark. the single player game is so addictive that i found myself playing into the morning, and then feeling bad when i put the controller down to goto sleep. I have yet to unlock everything but it is only a matter of time, its so fun unlocking things, there are so many things to unlock you basically get an award for everything you win.

the online mode is fantastic, i find myself LOL-ing everytime i play a race, road rage is the funnest, although i don't see many games for it. I remember the night after i got the game, i had a crash server set up that i would change the crash location every game of 3 crashes, my server was so popular i didn't turn it off until it was empty. I even had regulars. The next night i set up a road rage, and got pretty angry, i mean this one guy kept using the same car, every race, and got his team to win everytime. I helped make my team win by taking him out after i was already eliminated. fun stuff.

the 2 player split screen multiplayer is great, there are so many tracks, so much to do, its insane. I haven't had so much fun with my sister/friends since burnout 2 came out.

out of everything in this game the only complaint i have about it is the lack of the ability to see the race replays, i liked this in burnout 2, but it being missing, makes me miss out on cool things the other players did, although there are no race replays, the game is still jam-packed with replayability, this game will last long in my collection.

Burnout has been one of the most suprising video game series ever since the release of the original Burnout nearly 3 years ago. The combination of high-speed racing and the ability to create some serious havoc when you crash has made both Burnout and Burnout 2: Point of Impact suprise hits. Now that the duties of the Burnout series have been passed down from the now-defunct Acclaim Games to the hands of EA (Electronic Arts)Games, the question of what would happen with future volumes in the series is answered with Burnout 3: Takedown.

Takedown takes a few old things that have been Burnout standards and adds a few lovely new twists.

One such is the Boost Meter, which fills whenever you make smart and slick driving moves during the race like nearly missing other cars, drifting (taking a curve or turn without gas/braking and leting your momentum carry you through it), driving in oncoming traffic, catching air off huge hills, and causing other racers to crash, which is now referred to as a Takedown. Now the meter is available to use all race long as long as you make sure that you fill it, whereas in the previous games you had to fill it completely to use it.

Another new twist is called Aftertouch, which is like Bullet Time for a crash. The instant you crash, you can go into a slow-mo crash mode and use the analog stick to direct your wreck to hit any other racer's car, causing a Takedown. The only downside is that if you take a racer down, that racer is going to go gunning for you to take YOU down.

Several new modes are added to the experience as well, including Road Rage (use your car to commit as many Takedowns as possible within a time limit), Eliminator races (Racers in last place is eliminated, natch), A fun new Crash Mode (try to create huge pile-ups and score serious cash), Special Event Races, Face-Off races to win new cars, Grand Prix races and more.

And some of the crashes you cause (or get caught in) are lovely to see (I had one where I literally made a car crash into the top of a very tall streetlight)and the graphics show that EA definitely took the ball and ran for a touchdown (or should I say Takedown) with it. If you want to have a little fun or release a little road rage while waiting for Gran Turismo 4, then get ready for a little Takedown!

It's difficult to talk about Burnout 3 using words. My initial plan was to compose this review entirely out of emoticons, using a lot of D and XD and that would be the most efficient (also the most annoying) way to get across how much fun this game is to play. Even not playing Burnout 3 is more fun than playing most games; I'm sitting here trying to write while my coworker is alternating between Road Rage and Crash Mode, and let me tell you, you ought to consider the mere existence of this writeup as me doing you a favor. Such is the hypnotic power of Burnout 3. It's the rare racing game these days, in fact, that's so good that you don't have to like racing games at all to enjoy it -- I don't. If you are a racing buff, then you can derive some amusement from knowing what all the fake cars are modeled after, but that's the least fun to be had here. All that's important is that they move fast and look real nice when crashing. Actually, "real nice" isn't nearly strong praise enough to describe how good this game looks. The car models are a little lumpen, and obviously low-poly when compared to the next crop of hyper-realistic games, but Burnout 3 smokes those titles in other, cooler ways. Holding down R1 to activate slow-motion after you've taken a spill is a great way to bask in every single spark, dust cloud, and chunk of car flying around. They're all present in normal speed, too, but you'll be too busy ramming cars and trying not to be rammed to notice much. The increased offensive focus comes from the system that Burnout 3's subtitle is taken from. In past Burnout games, the way to replenish your turbo "Boost" meter was to drive recklessly -- in the wrong lane through incoming traffic, or drifting as far as possible, or catching lots of air as you went over hills. In Burnout 3, though, by far the best way to earn Boost is to take out other cars. You can nudge them from behind so that they spin off into an oncoming truck's way, or force them into the wall hard enough to flip them over -- you can even take them out during your own crashes by guiding your own flight trajectory in the slow-motion Impact Time. The Takedown system is what makes the already pretty good Burnout series amazing. The most outrageously fun mode in the game, Road Rage, revolves entirely around takedowns -- you get what amounts to an unlimited amount of Boost as you go on a crusade to takedown as many cars as you can before your own vehicle is totaled or time runs out, whichever comes first. Other modes such as 1-on-1 races and Crash mode are enhanced in various ways by the new features; guiding your flaming wreck through the air so that it manages to pick up the quadruple multiplier is an incredibly satisfying feeling, as is being secure in the knowledge that taking down the only other driver in a race, and then using that extra Boost to outdistance him even further, gives you a pretty solid lead. At least for a little while, anyway. Burnout 3 does have a couple of noticeable flaws which prevent it from reaching perfection: the rubberband AI is fixed more obviously than a Tammany Hall election, and we challenge you not to snicker when you are simultaneously told that you're "5 seconds ahead" of your foe, who is also "right on your tail." More glaringly, though, are the times when the game forgets itself and lapses into comparatively boring racing game tropes. The 1-on-1 races don't really belong in a game that rewards offensive driving this much, and the "beat the best lap time" courses are almost entirely incompatible with what makes Burnout 3 fun. But with over 170 individual events in the World Tour mode, there's so much to do that you can pretty much ignore what bores you, and once you've exhausted the single-player tour there's still a multiplayer mode, both online and off. Burnout 3 delivers the purest hit of awesome so far this year, and by way of thanking Criterion for the game I'd just like to say.

Burnout 3 is highly better than the previous two particularly because EA games did this one and they are one of the greatest game industries. The objects of this game are 1) to win races and earn medals across the world. 2) To take out your opponents by ramming them off the road. 3) To make the biggest crash you possibly can and see how much $ damage you've caused. The cars are standard: compact, coupe, sports, super; and the graphics are dazzling, especially the special effects like when you're going fast and the screen gets blurry. The all-new Impact Time is one of the sweetest features in the game; you get to navigate your crash and steer your car, great for aftertouch takedowns. I've searched and searched and can find absolutely no flaws in this game. It's overall a greating racing/crashing game that's very fun and addicting. Enjoy! :)