One of the best, if not the best arcade racing game ever created.
The racing in Burnout 3 is just so fast its mind blowing. Right from the beggining even when your driving the lower class cars the racing is still faster than you'd expect from even the fastest cars in some other games, really its that fast. Now because the racing is so fun, just imagine how fun multi-player and online play is. yeah, a huge amount of fun even if you only have one or two friends over/online.
There is a huge new technique in Burnout 3: Takedown that you will have to master, its called a Taledown (hence the Take down in Burnout 3:Takedown). Basically, you'll have to ram an opponent into a wall with enough intensity for them to hit the wall and crash. This sounds very easy and well, it is. You can perform a couple diffrent types of Takedowns. There's signature Takedowns where you have to knock your opponent into certain things in parts of a level, such as knocking them over a bridge. Another type is after touch. Basically after you have been taken down you can change the direction in which your car would move after crashing,it may sound confusing but its actually a useful mechanic thats very easy to use. Also as you might expect, its actually very entertaining to see the cars crash.
Everytime you perfom a Takedown you get additional boost as well as another fragment of a full bar of boost. There are four fragments to a bar (duh) and when you get a full bar and full boost if you use it non-stop it will last maybe one minute or a bit more, which makes the racing a whole lot more fun, because it makes your cars go a lot faster than you'd expect. It could easily make your car go 35 MPH faster.
Burnout 3 includes all the modes from last year. Crash mode, which was introduced last year has been upgraded and this time around its really fun. In Burnout 2 basically you were just creating mindless destruction, this year this year you will have to use a little bit of stradegy to get the higher scores. The levels are a bit bigger so you'll have a bit mroe space to get higher speeds before you crash, plus there are item's that will really help you increase your score, such as the 2x and 4x multiplier. There is also another gameplay mechanic used in Crash mode called a crashbreaker, basically after you have crashed, if you have caused enough destruction you can magically explode, causing more destruction.
The graphics are in a word, spectacular (don't hear that word everyday). There are a ton of little effects in Burnout 3 that just really make it looks awsome. The things you will notice almost instantly is the blur effect which occurs when driving at high speeds (which is pretty much always) and all of the sparks flying everywhere when you crash. Just everything in the game looks smooth and detailed, especially the car models, the environments and the crashed also look very realistic.
The sound, though good is probably the worst thing in the game. The soundtrack isn't really that great, it does feature some good music, but most of it just doesn't match the fast paced racing. Which is where the customizable soundtrack for the Xbox really comes in handy. The host of the radio show featured in the game (Crash GFX i think its called) uses the same quotes over and oever again, which can be very annoying. But the actual noises the cars make are sharp and sound realistic.
Burnout 3: Takedown is easily the best if not one of the best racing games on the Xbox or PS2 or any console for that matter. The racing is fast, the cars look great, the sound, though it has a few problems is good and it will last you a good 40-50 hours. If your a racing game fan and you haven't already got this game, i urge you to get it, and to be honest when i got this game i wasn't really a fan of racing games, but it still turned out to be one of the funnest experiences i have had with a game. In saying that even if your not a racing game fan, i still urge you check this game out because overall Burnout 3: Takedown is the best if not one of the best racing games ever created.