Curiously, many of the things that made Burnout 2 such a great experience are missing from this sequel.
First of all, this game introduces possibly the worst gameplay alteration since.. Well frankly I can't think of anything. Anyway, if someone tries to use skills to actually drive past you, you can always smash his car into oblivion in a new stupid gameplay twist called Takedowns. This isn't your normal kind of push-people-into-traffic kind of thing either, it's a full on whack-your-opponent-off-the-bloody-track kind of thing. And it's frustrating too, mind.
I don't normally object to stuff that makes for a more aggressive driving experience, in most cases that just makes it more fun. With Burnout however, which is basically all about being able to avoid traffic, working up your boost meter (which is also broken now, more on that later) and beating people because you're simply better than they are at the game, it does nothing besides diluting an otherwise utterly pure experience.
Onto the new and "improved" Burnout meter (Burnout lingo for boost meter). You gain more boost for driving in oncoming traffic, drifting, performing takedowns, et cetera. However, whereas in past Burnout games you could only use the burnout meter when the gauge was full, offering an incentive to wait for the right moment to use it, this game lets you use whatever burnout you've gathered whenever you like. What this means in practice is that once you've crashed (and takedowns assure that you will. A lot.), you can just quickly head out in oncoming traffic and almost instantly be boosting with the rest of your opponents, successfully thwarting any kind of strategy the other games in the series had going for them.
I recognize why this kind of thing was needed, why they felt that it was necessary to alter the way the burnout meter worked, once the Takedowns were in there. In order to make this new "spectacular" addition to gameplay work, they had to reduce the penalty for actually crashing. Hey, once upon a time this game was about NOT crashing. Starting to see my point? To add insult to injury, Burnout 2 had a magnificent combo system that let you multiply your score each time you'd successfully filled the burnout meter DURING a burnout. I was hoping they'd flesh that out even more in this game, but along with some other expectations I had, that one was crushed also.
The music was another huge let down for me. Burnout 2's soundtrack consisted of some pretty generic but decidedly video game'ish rock tunes, a few of which were actually rather catchy and perfect for the game. The thing that was really great about it, though, was how they'd be playing a watered down version of the song while driving normally, and then when you used your burnout, they'd add the final layers of the song and up the volume. It made for a fantastic adrenaline-inducing effect.
Enter Burnout 3, with a bunch of licensed tracks, all of which you'll probably love if you're half my age. Sadly, I'm a full two halves of my age.
A similar effect to Burnout 2 is attempted by stopping the music when you crash. The only effect this has, at least on me, is sheer unadulterated rage. Few games make me wanna rig my Xbox with explosives and take cover. This does. Sometimes.
The progression through the single player game is also quite messed up. No longer can you skip the crashes and go straight for the racing goodness. Instead you're forced to play all of the crash modes and boring "special races" with F1 cars you can barely control. It's not that they're particularly difficult to get to grips with, it's just that they're extremely fast and extremely dull. Since you're all alone racing against time you're likely to just lose interest after crashing for the fiftieth time, and not be bothered. Should you be one of the lucky few who enjoy every single game mode in the game, this won't detract from the fun at all, but it's still an obvious step back from how Burnout 2 handled things.
All things considered, this is by no means a bad game, it's just continually disappointing when compared to its predecessor. The technical wonder at display here can't be ignored, as the game truly looks amazing while maintaining an insane sense of speed with no noticeable frame loss. The crashes are more extreme than ever, and at least the first twenty times, they'll make you go "aaah!" way more than "aaargh!". The online mode is probably the main incentive to buy this game instead of picking up the budget version of 2, even though it's marred by EA's lobby system that leaves a lot to be desired and basically kicks you right out in the menu half of the time.
When it works, it's an absolute blast, and it's easy to forget all about the flaws and just enjoy the fast paced action. Because in the end, it's still largely Burnout, and that is always a good thing.