Burnout 3: Takedown (2004)

I swing around the corner a bit too wide, and before I have time to correct I hit the truck head on. There's a sudden cut to slow-mo, my dented car soars through the air, leaving a trail of paint fragments. It lands and skids with hundreds of sparks. I see another racer approaching, and I steer my wreckage, sliding into its path. Another collision, more fireworks of metal explode. Ding! Aftertouch takedown! There's lots to love about Burnout 3, the arcade racer underpinning everything else is excellent, but the real achievement is that it makes crashing fun.

The titular takedowns are also astonishing. There's the spectacle, obviously, but the cut to the car you've taken down also gives you this moment of respite. They function similarly to Doom's glory kills, as a bit of mechanical punctuation, just a second or two of non-interactivity to catch your breath, and which provide this sliver of contrast so the action doesn't become an adrenaline-fuelled mush, exciting but indistinct.

And it strikes the perfect tone, too, a sort of cheesy safe anarchy that's the result of corporate slickness, with the visuals and licenced soundtrack that affords, and a rebellious pop punk spirit that came through the culture and into games through THPS and SSX.

Timelessly brilliant, but still completely of its time; a classic.

Rating: ★★★★½ (Exceptional)

This game is super fun. I couldn't find a single flaw on the gameplay loop. Honorable mention to the soundtrack which is quite memorable and at this point I can't separate from the game itself.

I'm taking half a star due to the difficulty of some races (2 hours to beat World GP), some of the insane trophies (grinding is never good), and the amount of crash junction events (way more than race events but not nearly as fun).

Still, kudos to Criterion for managing to make such an amazing racing game.

It is often easy to criticize Electronic Arts as a publisher that buys up developers, chews them up, and spits them out. There are plenty of examples of devs coming under the EA banner and within a few years being shuttered due to them not making the goals EA set for them. It’s also easy to overlook the fact that EA often gave these devs the rope (via vast resources) to kill themselves with.

Criterion, who today, still exist as a shell of their former selves, kicked off their relationship with EA with a bang. Literally. Their first game for EA was the stylish shooter Black. But after Black they turned back to their racing baby, Burnout. While Burnout 2: Point of Impact represented a huge upgrade over the bare bones experience that the original Burnout game had, Burnout 3: Takedown evolves exponentially even more. In fact, the amount of content that Burnout 3 has dwarfs everything in both Burnout and Burnout 2 combined. And its not even close.

It’s easy to see that EA’s vast resources impacted the quality, style, and polish of the game. Burnout 3: Takedown was the best looking, best playing, best sounding, and most content packed Burnout game in the series to this point. EA’s vast licensing department gave Criterion access to EA Trax, which featured popular songs of the day to provide the soundtrack to the stylish racing.

While the core of the Burnout series started to gain footing in Burnout 2, Burnout 3 saw it blow everything out. With over 150 race and crash events, the game was packed to the brim with stuff to do and it’s model would become the basis for what Burnout would be until Paradise released in the next generation.

The racing was tweaked a little bit to provide a faster feeling experience. Boost was gained far faster and the introduction of takedowns, purposely forcing an opponent to crash, allowed for more frequent opportunities to expand your boost meter. It also upped the crash total to something absolutely fierce.

Takedowns also allowed for the introduction of a brand new mode, Road Rage. Road Rage is probably my favorite mode in the entire series and it requires racers to takedown a set number of opponents before the clock expires or their car blows up. It’s fast aggressive mayhem and an absolute blast to play.

In addition to Road Rage, Crash mode gets a complete overhaul from Burnout 2. While still the puzzle course requiring players to cause as much damage as possible. Burnout 3’s Crash mode adds in power ups and downs that can dramatically increase your damage total or decimate them. Getting the gold medal on all the Crash courses is a time suck but a fun one.

And that’s kind of the thing about Burnout 3: Takedown, with so much content, you can get seriously lost in the game for a long time but because the events are varied enough and the gameplay mechanics are so fun, you don’t even realize the hours slipping away. And that is the sign of an excellent game.