This is my favorite racing game to date, a must-play.
The graphics in this game are amazing, you really can see a lot of detail, even though you are traveling at 200+ miles an hour, crashing into cars, walls, and traffic. It's amazing how well Criterion has presented this game.
The rating system is cool, there are five ranks you can get in a race, ranging from OK to Perfect. The highest rank you can finish a race with is Awesome, and if you get a gold medal, that Awesome turns into a perfect rating. To improve your rating during a race, just take as many risks as possible, like scoring Takedowns, Checking Traffic, Boosting, Drifting, and catching huge Air. These will increase both your boost meter and you rank.
The modes are amazing too. There are 6 modes, Burning Lap, Crash, Elimination, Traffic Attack, Road Rage, and Grand Prix. Oh yeah, there are also Preview events where you can preview events with special rules, like races with crashbreakers in them. Burning Lap is the standard Beat-the-Clock gameplay, you just have to complete a lap to win. But be careful, the harder ones require an almost flawless performance to get a gold. Elimination is another basic event. Every 30 seconds the player in last place is eliminated from the race. Just stay ahead of the game and you'll be fine. Traffic Attack is a really fun aspect of the game. It speaks for itself, just attack as much traffic as possible by slamming into it, causing enough damage to earn the money for a gold medal. Be careful though, not all traffic can be attacked. You can only check smaller cars and same-way traffic, you'll have to get creative to check the rest. Road Rage is another fun event. Just score as many Takedowns as you can without damaging your car too much. When you see the Damage Critical warning, you can only crash one more time. Grand Prix is a compilation of 3 or more races. The better you do in each race, the more points you get, and at the end of the Grand Prix, you get a medal if you did better than the other racers. Crash mode is definitely my favorite mode in the game. You pick a car, and use the cars to create the biggest pileup possible. For every car that crashes, your crashbreaker meter fills up. When it reaches 100%, tap R2 as fast as you can, and your car will explode, depending on how much juice is in your meter. That is the best, just blowing up all of the cars surrounding you in a fiery explosion.
Well, those are the events of the game, another fun task is the Signature Takedown Album. Score Takedowns in specific places on the courses to score a Signature Takedown. There are 3 in each course. Also, there are Challenge Sheets for each course. Complete all 8 events to win a very nice car.
Well, I loved this game, and I hope you do too, multiplayer is also really fun!
Happy Crashes,
Tatersalad927