Yet again, a PSP racing game reshapes the genre on portables.
While this might make some gamers shy away from this game due to its recycled content, they should most definitely avoid the preconception: As far as portable racing games go, Burnout Legends has set a new standard that'll be hard to beat.
Graphics: 10/10
Legends' graphics are simply jaw dropping. It's hard to not be floored by the smooth, cursive and colorful graphics of this game. Every detail of the cars is perfectly rendered on the PSP with PS2 quality texturing and complexity. The damage model is also equally as impeccable as it was in the console versions making for some of the most insane crashes you've ever seen in a game: Particles are blow apart, cars explode, sparks fly, etc.
Despite the intense action Burnout Legends keeps a rock solid framerate which is probably one of its greatest achievements. Even when all of the lighting effects, cars and crashes are on screen, at one time, the game never skips a beat. Rarely, if ever, have I seen the framerate actually falter and when it does, it's not really that detrimental to gameplay (which seems to be a trend in all PSP EA games).
All of the courses are rich with detail and feature a huge variety of tilesets from tropical jungles to busy metropolises. The roads in Burnout Legends are filled with other cars as well as other opponents and the camera angles are fairly varied and cover just about every type of draw distance imaginable. Needless to say, the resolution is astounding while there is little to no blurring and all of the "speed effects" from the console games are transferred to the PSP perfectly, giving off a satisfying sensation of speed.
Sound: 8/10
The crashes, car engines and police sirens all sound amazing in Burnout Legends. The realism with which all of these components are treated means that your ears will be "assaulted" by an orchestra of bending metal, screeching wheels and roaring engines that's unparalleled in other PSP games. Burnout also features plenty of sound channels so that no sounds overlap each other and the quality of the recording is as impeccable as the quality of the sounds themselves.
While the sound effects in Legends are very much praise-worthy, the music is a major let down. I don't know how many times I've repeated this in an EA-game-review but I'll say it one more time: STOP WITH THE PUNK ROCK! The soundtrack never actually fits the action on screen, it's totally tasteless and it features bands no one has ever heard about other than punk rock fanatics. Why exactly does EA keep doing this is beyond me as I'm fairly certain licensing this costs more than putting some by-the-numbers metal in here which would fit the action infinitely better. To EA's credit however, this music is probably the best, qualitatively, to be displayed in a PSP game.
Gameplay: 8/10
Burnout's gameplay can easily be split up in two categories: Those who will hate it because it's basically the same thing and those who will do the exact opposite. Make no mistake: Burnout Legends is a compilation of some of the best moments in the series all thrown together in a tidy little package made to be portable. However, it's a shame if the recycled content will be the deciding factor in not buying this game because this is not only the best "compilation" ever made but it's also the best PSP racer out to date.
However, let's not start on a bad note. For those of you who don't know the basic premise of a Burnout game it's quite simple: Crash the finish line first. Jokes aside, Burnout's gameplay is a combination of insane racing mechanics mixed together with some of the best crashes ever seen in a video game. Burnout's main mode, which acts like a career mode, is basically an excuse to put you through a series of races ranging from Crash Mode to pure racing.
Pure racing is what you'll mostly do in Burnout. A few race types are available to try out one's skills including tournament races and pursuit races. During pursuit races one must use a cop car and "incapacitate" a street racer by either smashing him/her into every wall or taking them down via a "takedown". Takedowns are the bread and butter of most of Burnouts' unique racing system as they allow you to take down your opponents in brutal ways, by smashing them against walls, each other, or oncoming traffic. Some of the more "interesting" takedowns are put together to form an album of your mischievous deeds and are usually achieved by slamming and opponent against a local monument or landmark. Aside from the takedowns, Burnout also features a boost meter, which does exactly what it sounds like. It gives you a speed boost, and as long as you keep taking things down, slide around corners or plow into oncoming traffic you get to keep the boost. Together with takedowns this makes Burnout’s racing model very addictive, despite the crash-heavy nature that the game might give off.
Ahh, and speaking of crashes, Burnout has more than a few modes dedicated to solely crashing. The most famous of these modes is the Crash Mode which isn't anything else than a way of encouraging you to cause as much mayhem and destruction as possible by running at full speed into a busy intersection. As long as a specific number of cars are affected by the crash you get to use a "crash breaker" which makes you car EXPLODE! During this sequence, as well as during any other time when you crash, you can maneuver the husk of the car in such a way in which to take down as many players/cars as possible. This is called aftertouch control. And, speaking of players, Legends' second mode dedicated solely to crashing is called Road Rage. The point of this mode is to take down as many opponents as possible in a given amount of time. Stringing together as many takedowns as possible, along with performing some special takedowns (like aftertouch takedowns) gets you special brownie points and different types of trophies such as the Beginner’s Takedown Trophy.
Other races that haven't been especially addressed are the hot lap races, which by comparison with the rest of the game are quite boring. Despite the fact that your boost meter fills up faster (and it starts out at its maximum length) these races are just very boring as they can quickly bog down and they sometimes take forever to beat with the highest of honors.
Speaking of honors, Burnout's career mode is the place where you unlock most of the cars in the game as well as most of the tracks. The mode is HUGE, there are over 175 races to wade through. Each race has 3 levels of "proficiency": Gold, silver and bronze medals. Depending on how good one performs during these races the corresponding medal is awarded. The more gold medals, the bigger the rewards by the end of the game. Players can also receive points based on how many takedowns they acquire or how much damage they do throughout the course of the game, which unlocks a special car in each league.
The game is split up in a few different leagues ranging from muscle cars to super cars. Obviously enough, at the begging neither of the above mentioned leagues are available as we're stuck with the average crappy Golf-look-a-likes and generally poorly performing cars. As the game progresses however, more cars become available until, by the end of the game, you'll be racing F1s. One thing I've noticed about Burnout's sense of speed is that, beyond the fact that it's probably the most accurate representation of speed in gaming history, it's not only restricted to the super-powerful cars. Burnout simply absorbs you into the game with its insane sense of speed and pacing. The combination of arcade-like controls, the amazing sound and the competent graphical effects give off an incomparable sense of speed that's worth the price of admissions all on its own.
Burnout's tracks are very varied, ranging from every type of tileset imaginable. Steamy jungles, tropical paradises, busy cities, winter wonderlands, just about everything you can think of in terms of tracks is here. The design is also second to none, as the game uses the tracks to improve to help the sense of speed. In order to achieve this, the producers took care of throwing turn after turn at you in close succession or small straight-aways just after a huge turns to challenge the senses. The AI is equally as capable, never too easy but never so overbearingly hard that it beats the living crap out of you.
So what else is there to say? Great sense of speed, very addictive, and featuring huge amounts of content, is there anything wrong with this game? Well, unfortunately yes and it's quite a big problem: The game can get boring. It's addictive yes, but after the 300th time of passing through the same race track (as, despite the variety, the number of tracks is quite limited) and the 40th time hitting the retry button just to try to get perfect timing during a Time Trial, the game can get quite boring. Personally, I would also like to see more licensed cars the next time around. All of these cars are unlicensed and they can't be modified or upgraded; a little bit of both wouldn't hurt.
Finally, we have to be very sincere here: You've seen all of this before. There is nothing especially new about Burnout. I'm lucky to not be a long time fan (the first games were really more for die-hard arcade racing fans only) so most of this is new for me, but there's certainly an air of "used" looming around. Even if it's only done with the best intent.
Multiplayer: 7/10
No online mode... yet again. It boggles my mind that game companies like Sony, Sega and Nintendo keep releasing online capable systems yet they NEVER use the online features. What's the point?
That being said, Burnout has a plethora of racing modes available via Ad-Hoc for up to six players. Racing is fun with others but the usefulness of multiplayer is extremely limited. Finding ONE player to play with you is hard but 3 or more is nearly impossible. For now, it's quite clear that multiplayer games are still solely reserved for PCs or consoles.
Overall: 9/10
Burnout Legends isn't a game without flaws. While the multiplayer is severely underplayed and the game is slightly rehashed this doesn't stop it from being one of the best games ever made for portable consoles.
Beyond that, Burnout Legends is, certainly, EA's best PSP game to date and the PSP's best racer ever... not that it's lacking in that department.