Burnout Revenge returns on the 360, but will be familar to those that played it before.
GAME PLAY
The game play is mostly the same from the original Xbox version, and that’s a good thing. There are a wide variety of races in several different locals. By winning races, and getting gold medals, you can unlock new cars to use. Most of these cars are just more powerful versions of cars you already have. The real prizes are the elite cars won by completing the challenge sheets for each level.
The controls are slick, and responsive. This allows you to control virtually every car the same, but you will find minor control differences. By taking out other cars, and driving dangerously, you will gain the ability to use a nitrous boost to blast by the other drivers. The levels are well designed, and feature a ton of short cuts to make the racing that much more interesting. The crash events are perhaps one of the best modes, and they got rid of that annoying “boost meter” from the Xbox version. Now you always get the best possible start.
GRAPHICS
The graphics are well done, but you can tell it’s a port of an older game to the 360. The textures are very detailed, and there are a lot of shiny reflective surfaces. But the polygon count is low for the 360. The crashes do look better with some nice spark and smoke effects. The cars also shatter much more realistically, and you’ll see even more parts fly off the cars. But like most 360 games, you need an HDTV to take full advantage of graphics.
SOUND
Surprisingly, nearly everything about the sound was changed for the 360. New music tracks have been added, and they fit the theme of the game very well. They also gave the sound effects a complete overhaul. Even going so far as to change the sound effects that are used for everything from crashes to medal rewards. It’s all very refreshing, and sounds much better than on the Xbox.
VALUE
If you played the previous version on one of the current-gen systems, you wont find much new here. There are some nice stats tracking in the online races, and you can even upload crash replays to Xbox Live. There's also a ton of unlockables and achivements to do. But there are only a couple new cars, and no new levels or race types. Some additional content would have been nice, but the bottom line is that if you played this game before, you wont find much new.
Burnout Revenge is a fantastic game, and any racing fan owes it to themselves to try it out. If you played it before on another system, I’d rent it first because there isn’t a whole lot that’s new. But if you haven’t played Burnout before, this is the game to play. It does so much right, that’s easily one of the best arcade racers I have ever played.