Burnout 3: Takedown

The Burnout series has always been about one thing: pushing your limits while driving in traffic with your engine spitting out nitro. This time around, it's about making your opponents crash. When you for example push an opponent to the front of a bus, "BUS TAKEDOWN" will pop up on your screen while you see your opponents car being smashed in slow-motion. However the camera will for a couple of seconds not concentrate on your car, but your opponents car. If you were to crash in a wall before the camera switched angle, your car would just park with its nose against the wall. This can also happen if you were heading straight to the front of a vehicle. But if you were going fast enough, the vehicle would take off on your hood as if you were a moving ramp. This is incredibly cool and definitely makes you feel extremely lucky.

But if you do crash, you can pull of a trick called "aftertouch". This means that you can steer your car in slow-motion by using your remaining nitro. If you then make an opponent crash into you, you've done an "Aftertouch Takedown". This can also save the section of nitro you'll normally lose, while adding to your total takedowns.

Your amount of nitro is increased by driving like an idiot. Driving in oncoming traffic, drifting, near-misses (barely dodging traffic) and tailing (drafting) are some of the things you can do to add nitro. When you do a takedown, your Nito "meters" limit of Nitro is doubled while filling it completely. You can continue this till it's 4 times the size you started with. When you crash you lose the last section of Nitro you gained(from 4x to 3x, 3x to 2x or 2x to 1x).

Being lucky is another thing. It's the main aspect of the game. how you can dodge several big vehicles while drifting in an corner, for example, or managing to press your car under a huge semi-trailer while crossing a junction because an opponent crashed in it before you so the semi-trailer lifted a couple of centimeters above ground. Stuff like that...

Another thing is the "Signature Takedowns". This is a normal takedown, but you must do it in a special way. If you send an opponent flying near luxury boats in the Vineyard, you'll get an Signature Takedown called "Berth Trauma". There's 20 Signature Takedowns in the game, and by doing all of these you'll unlock an NASCAR-looking car.

There's a total of 67 cars in the game. These are divided into different series. You'll start off with a Compact car. As you progress in the game you'll unlock more Compact cars and eventually unlock the next series. This continues until you've unlocked the Super cars and some of the Special cars. The special cars are cars that don't fit in a series. Two of these are taken from Burnout 2, three are F1 racers(although one has different design). and then there's the NASCAR-looking car. There's another series, but it's only for Crash events.

Crash events are even more crazy and fun then in Burnout and Burnout 2. In Burnout 3 there's several symbols you can collect. These range from Instant Boost to 2x Multiplier to Heartbreaker (your score is cut in half) to 4x Multiplier. Head into traffic and cause as much damage you can. Yet another thing is the "Chrashbreaker". When enough vehicles are impacted in the Crash, an single button will make a bomb go of in your car, causing damage to vehicles around you. The Crashbreaker is also an collectable symbol. There's a massive 100 Crash events in the game. Causing enough damage unlocks cars in the Heavyweight series. These cars range from a 4x4 to the extreme Fire Truck, which can be obtained by winning all the 10 headlines. Headlines are won by getting a such a massive score that you get on the frontpage in the local newspaper.

The coolest mode in Burnout 3 is the Road Rage mode. It's not about coming first, but about doing as many Takedowns you can until your car can't continue anymore. Your opponents boost when you boost, and do there best to stay close to you.

The Live functions are great and all you need for a good experience.

The worst thing about the game is the standard soundtrack. Although the Xbox version has Custom Soundtracks, the rest have no other choice but to like the punk music. Unless you like that kind of music, multiplatformers should choose the Xbox version.

The game is great for anyone who want instant fun, or a challenge for those who want to complete the game. It's not as easy as it sounds, but you can always take a brake and have fun in a Single Race. Racing games that claims to be fun, will have trouble beating this racer.