| Burnout Legends review |
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Another day, another franchise. Sony’s PSP console has seen a flood of big-name licenses over the past year – games like Ridge Racer, Virtua Tennis, Grand Theft Auto and Winning Eleven, as well as many others, have all found their way onto the portable marvel (with varying degrees of success, it should be noted). Now it’s the turn of everyone’s favourite 32-bit smash-a-thon: Burnout. 'Legends', as the title suggests, is all about celebrating the glorious past rather than looking to the future, and in that respect follows the lead of Namco’s Ridge Racers by basically being a ‘greatest hits’ release - a compilation of the best bits of Criterion’s premier series rather than a brand new game.
The gameplay is based around dangerous and often violent driving. The player’s weapon is their car, which when loaded with copious levels of nitrous becomes akin to a guided missile, begging to be aimed at rival cars in order to send them to a fiery oblivion. The boost meter is replenished by driving against (or close to) traffic, performing extreme drifts and by causing other drivers to crash. The ‘takedowns’ remain the focal point of the gameplay. They range from simply forcing other drivers into other traffic or scenery (like concrete pillars, for example) to shunting them off the road at high speed. The most satisfying method is to sandwich the rival car against a wall, sending them cascading through the air in a shower of sparks and bodywork in exactly the same way a car shouldn’t. But then Burnout has never been about realism.
The game has taken quite a visual hit when compared to the home console versions. There’s still an impressive level of detail on both the cars and the trackside, but at times it all looks a bit on the messy side, with texture gaps on the road (which result in a rather unsightly ‘speckle’ effect when traveling at high speed), texture warping and some poor draw distances. There are numerous collision bugs which make themselves known during some of the more heated bumper-to-bumper duels. The trademark motion blur when using boost is also gone, presumably to save on processor power, which lessens the experience slightly. However, the game still moves at a fair old pace and the impression of speed is still at least partially intact, as is the depiction of utter carnage as bodywork grinds against wall in a hail of sparks and cars wrap themselves around solid trackside obstacles. Compared to the lush visuals of Ridge Racers, Legends looks pretty grubby, but it has to be remembered that there’s a lot more going on in Criterion’s game, with deformable vehicles and streams of CPU-controlled civilian traffic. In fact there’s probably a little too much going on for the PSP, as Criterion have been forced to slash the number of racers from six (in the home console versions) to four. However, due to the 'rubber-band' difficulty level employed, all of the cars are usually packed together pretty tightly so it’s hardly noticeable.
The trademark progression system, featuring a map screen with various event locations around the globe, makes a return. Anyone who has played any of the recent Burnout titles will instantly be at home here. Medals are awarded in each event and completion unlocks other competitions and locations, as well as bonus cars. The modes that we’ve come to know and love are all present and correct and the basic game play is close to that found in Burnout 3 (rather than the more recent home console version, Burnout 4: Revenge). The usual ‘Race’, ‘Road Rage’, ‘Eliminator’ and (of course) ‘Crash’ modes are here, as well as the Chase HQ-inspired ‘Pursuit’ mode (last seen in Burnout 2: Point of Impact), which sees the player behind the wheel of a police car frantically trying to run a criminal off the road. This mode does a commendable job of updating Taito’s concept for the next generation, but deviates from the basic Burnout rulebook. The enemy car has an energy bar which must be chipped away in order to successfully bring them to a halt – although this is close to the structure found in Taito's classic arcade game, it is totally at odds with the swift and uncompromising ‘takedown’ system in Burnout. This serves to erode the cohesion of the game a little, and much of the time spent in Pursuit mode is devoted to simply keeping the car on the road – the tracks selected for use are a little too winding and complex.
Musical accompaniment is provided by EA’s ‘Trax’ system, and features a predictable ensemble of American ‘punk’ bands you’ve never heard of playing fast and loud. Whatever your musical taste, it’s hard to deny that the cuts selected fit the game perfectly, although the quality isn’t quite up to the excellent standard set by Burnout 3 (causing havoc on the roads to the sound of ‘Over the Counter Culture’ by the Ordinary Boys will never, ever get boring). The PSP’s tiny speakers aren’t really up to the task of conveying the carnage occurring on-screen and as is the case with many titles on Sony’s handheld, the optimum audio experience is only obtained when using a pair of decent headphones.
It’s already been established that Legends is a ‘Best of’ rather than a fully-fledged sequel. Therein lies its greatest failing – in fundamental terms it offers nothing more than ‘Burnout on the go’. There is nothing here that will keep you away from the home console versions should you have the option of playing both. But then it could be argued that this was Criterion’s intention from the start – to create a portable version of their treasured series whilst keeping the gloriously anarchic ideals that made it such a success in the first place. They’ve succeeded in this, but one can’t help but feel that the short development time and unfamiliarity with the new hardware have resulted in what is essentially a compromise. There will be other PSP Burnouts, and hopefully they will create a distinct identity for themselves rather than slavishly aping the home console versions.
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System: Sony PlayStation Portable
Genre: Racing
Developer: Criterion Studios
Publisher: EA
Players: 1-8
Version: European
Reviewed: Dec 2005
Writer: Damien McFerran
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Pros:
- Burnout on the go
- Impressively detailed
- Fun factor
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Cons:
- Nothing new
- Inconsistent visuals
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Burnout Legends Video: 4.1MB
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