Burnout Legends crashes onto the PSP with this faithful port
Over the past two years, the Burnout games have quickly become the epitome of what the arcade racing experience is; fast racing and insane crashes. Now that experience is on the PSP with Burnout Legends. Just like Ridge Racer for the PSP, Legends is essentially a best of title that includes a variety of the tracks and vehicles from the first three Burnout titles. The game has the flavor and feel of the Burnout series but that’s not to say there aren’t a few bumps in the road.
Burnout Legends is basically modeled after Burnout 3. The menus are the same and you have your typical modes which include tour, single event, and wireless play. The tour mode is just like Burnout 3 in that you compete in different events ranging from traditional races, road rage, rival races and crash events. These events are held in the same three countries featured in Burnout 3 which were America, Europe and Asia. Like the previous titles the player can fulfill objectives during the race to win awards. These objectives range from performing a set number of crashes or doing a unique crash. Crashing your opponents is encouraged since it gives you ‘boost’. Boost is basically nitro and can make your car go faster when you press down the R1 button. You can also gain boost by driving on the opposite side of the road or narrowly escaping collisions. As you progress through the tour you can unlock new vehicles. These vehicles may just be souped up versions of the cars you already have or they could be themed cars, such as a grand prix car or a white 1930’s gangster car.
The tour mode is where the bulk of the gameplay is and it doesn’t disappoint. The amount of races for each city and country are handled effectively. You never feel like you’ve spent too much time in one country so the game stays fresh. The game does get a bit more difficult as you progress but it doesn’t reach the same insane difficulty that Burnout 3 reached during its latter stages. You will constantly feel a sense of achievement due to all the cars and courses you unlock as you progress. Pursuit Mode which was last seen in Burnout 2 makes a comeback. Pursuit Mode has you playing a police officer as they try to take down a criminal. This mode basically plays a lot like Road Rage since the goal is to take enemies out in a time limit. The Road Rage event suffers from the same issues that plagued Burnout 3. The courses in Road Rage are sometimes a bit too wide, which makes trying to get to your opponents harder than it should be. Another issue is that it takes some time to generate the opponents after you’ve crashed them. The fact that Criterion didn’t fix the course design for the Road Rage events is odd since it was one of the most criticized elements in Burnout 3.
One of the main attractions of the Burnout series has been the crash mode. In this mode you’re given the simple task of crashing your car into traffic to cause as much damage as possible. There are 100 total crash junctions in the game. These junctions are taken from certain parts of the courses from the tour mode. To change things up the junctions have various ramps littered throughout. Also along the courses are various icons. These icons range from 2x and 4x multipliers and Crashbreaker icons. The 2x and 4x icons will multiply your score while the Crashbreaker icon will blow your car up. A key element of the crash mode is using Aftertouch. By holding down the R1 button your car will slow down and you can direct it into the path of other vehicles. Aftertouch is integral because its one of the best ways to rack up points. It would have been nice if Burnout Revenge’s crash mode was in the game since it included better game mechanics.
Several gameplay elements that were featured in Burnout Revenge are sadly missing in action. The ability to traffic check vehicles is gone, which can be seen as both a good and bad thing. The lack of traffic checking raises the tension since you can’t be as wreckless with your driving. However there are times where the slightest hit against a car will send you crashing which will leave you frustrated. The rivals system from Revenge is in the game but it doesn’t have that same flair as its console counterpart. The vertical takedowns from Revenge are also absent. If gamers have been playing a lot of Revenge and then go to Legends they will probably have to readapt themselves to the differences in gameplay.
Legends also support GameSharing so you can wirelessly load a demo to your friends PSP and play against him in a quick match. This feature however does take awhile to load and may not be worth the time. Legends supports AdHoc play but not Infrastructure so you can’t play online. It would have been if the game supported downloadable content like Wipeout Pure but I guess that’ll be in the sequel. Each copy of the game has five cars that are only available on that UMD. The point of this is to have players play against each other with their unique cars and whoever wins gets the losers car. This is an interesting concept but would have been better implemented on the console version.
The control in the game is quite tight on the PSP. Whether you’re using the analog nub or d-pad, controlling your car is easy. Pulling off drifts is easy but sometimes pulling out of them is a bit difficult. Drifting in Legends just feels a lot looser compared to Takedown and Revenge. Using Aftertouch is easy sometimes but in a few instances my few of the oncoming vehicles was completely obscured. Aside from the sometimes loose drifting the controls for Legends are spot on.
The graphics in Legends are quite good but they don’t reach the same level as found in Ridge Racer or Wipeout Pure. Car models are detailed nicely but feature aliasing. There are also quite noticeable texture stitching found through the courses as well. At times the game will slightly freeze for a second and then continue. This will not deter you from your experience. The courses themselves are done well and there is hardly any pop-up noticeable. The crashes are nicely detailed and cars will rip apart with a nice amount of detail. However, the explosion effects found on the crash mode are a bit lackluster and leave a bit more to be desired. You don’t feel the same impact from the explosions in Legends as you do in Revenge. The physics are also quite floaty as cars will literally be flying after crashing. There are also several glitches in the game which will often the cars levitating after a crash
Audio is one of the aspects that the Burnout games excel in and Legends does an admirable job. While not as visceral as Revenge, the audio in Legends quite effectively conveys the intensity of the crashes and the sense of speed. However there is and odd glitch in the game in which typically after a crash the audio will go down a lot or at times there will be no audio. I often found myself boosting my car so that the audio went back up. The game features EA Trax so you can expect the same soundtrack that was featured in Revenge. The same annoying track listing pops up in the left corner of the screen. The constant pop up is quite bothersome since it takes up a good portion of the bottom left corner.
Burnout Legends does an admirable job of trying to replicate the Burnout experience on a handheld but it could have used some more polish. While the game doesn’t feel sloppily put together like other PSP games (e.g. SSX On Tour), it just could have used some new features since a good portion of the game comes from Burnout 3. It may be good for those wanting the Burnout experience on their PSP but if you unlocked everything and had 100% gold in Burnout 3 it would be best just to rent Legends. It’s disappointing that Legends doesn’t have the gameplay and visual flair of Revenge but that can be forgiven.
