For a year after this game came out, this was my go-to game for online play.  To this day, it's the best Burnout game.  Burnout Revenge just had too many obstacles that made completing a lap without crashing into an amazing feat.  Burnout Paradise is good, but not for actual racing.  The open world nature of it makes any wrong turn (and wrong turns are easy) fatal.  Sure there are multiple paths, but there is always one path that takes you to the goal twice as fast as any other.  Accidentally deviating from that path means stopping, turning around, and getting back on the right track.  By the time you do that, you're already so far behind that you've lost.  Burnout 3 was far and away the best of the series and it makes me very sad to see it go.

Burnout 3 was the first game I ever played on Xbox Live, and I was in the Top 20 UK players on the leaderboards for a good year. Also sad to see it go, I'm going to try and connect online now to see if there is a group saying goodbye...

What a fucking classic game. Easily the best in the series with one of the best licensed soundtracks of all time.

I have it on PS2, but it still applies. I spent many a day playing that one.

Burnout Paradise isn't going offline, is it?

I do love Takedown, but I love Revenge even more and considering that was released on the 360 as well, I'm covered.

" What a fucking classic game. Easily the best in the series with one of the best licensed soundtracks of all time. "

" What a fucking classic game. Easily the best in the series with one of the best licensed soundtracks of all time. "  

*hides in the corner* I never had burnout 3 :'( 
Had the first one and then sort of ignored the series until revenge.

I want another Burnout game like that one. I hated what they did to Burnout: Revenge, "let's take out the takedowns, and have people bump into each other like bumper cars." And while Burnout Paradise was good, it being an open world -- a brown open world -- really takes away from the racing itself. Just give me a plain linear race track, and I'll buy it day one.

Burnout 3 had the best blend of proper, pure racing skill and blowing things up. Whilst blowing stuff up was somewat key to large success, skill on the track mattered a lot as well. Burnout Paradise went right off into the 'blowing shit up' category, which appealed to a great deal of customers, but it wouldn't have the same immersion as Burnout 3. It's sad to see it go.

Nah gonna disagree on that, I played a ton of Burnout 3 but Paradise is the best Burnout game ever, seriously
 
Both are excellent games though

This is one of my most favourite games of all time.

" What a fucking classic game. Easily the best in the series with one of the best licensed soundtracks of all time. "

This may never start
 
It'll tear us apart

" @HandsomeDead said:

" What a fucking classic game. Easily the best in the series with one of the best licensed soundtracks of all time. "

That part was sarcastic, right?   Right??  Dude... I always thought Burnout 3 had the worst soundtrack I've probably ever heard. I ended up turning off all the songs but about 4 of them.Great game, though. But I'll be busy playing Halo 2 instead. "

Great. I now have Sugarcult stuck in my head.

" What a fucking classic game. Easily the best in the series with one of the best licensed soundtracks of all time. "

Best Burnout game.

I loved the soundtrack too, thought it was very fitting. Burnout 3 is definitely my favourite Burnout game to this day. 
 
I investigated and I saw a few people online but didn't manage to get any races done. Checked the leaderboards and I was still near the top 1000 after all these years. :)

Burnout 3: Takedown was the game that completely took me away from all other racing games. I quickly abandoned racing games like Gran Turismo, Ridge Racer and Sega GT because of it. I played the previous Burnouts and enjoyed them both. Just the tutorial video alone in Burnout 3 took me by surprise and eager to play. Another girlfriend breakup later, this game tested positive for awesome.