User Rating: 8.7 | Burnout 2: Point of Impact XBOX
I'm really close to beating Burnout 2. I don't know if it's possible to beat a racer, but I'm atleast a couple of gold medals away from having them all. The gameplay is perfect, but I don't know if that is a good thing or not. It's kinda like, it's so perfect, the game might be too "easy", yet it's still very arcade feeling. On the bad side, you can be going 150+mph straight at a semi and still get out of the way when your 2 feet away from smashing into it. On the awesome side, the game moves at such a fast pace that everytime you start a race, your going to end up moving your entire body (kinda like you did in the Doom days) because your going to feel every turn, near collision and crash that happens. Also, the game forces you to drive very close to oncoming cars because it adds boost to your car. I thought this was kinda lame at first, but after using the boost and realizing that every race is a close and dangerous adventure, I quickly enjoyed this game more than other simulation games that teaches you to drive like you do outside in the real world. It's definetly the perfect ARCADE racer. The graphics are smooth as silk. To start out, the racing environments are excellent, they actually look better than the cars do. The surprising thing is the amount of detail that went into the cars. They are very cartoony looking, and a little "rough around the edges." I'm probably just used to my PC graphics capabilities and using 8x AA and 8x Anisotropic filtering on most of my games. But, it still runs smoother than any game out there, which is my main concern. A very cool effect is when using boost. The screen makes the Fast and the Furious blur effect really nicely when you go into hyper speed. The sound is the best feature. I'm running it on a really nice theater setup over here so every crash and every boost makes me gitty. A really nice touch is when you go into the boost, the music gets louder and makes you really appreciate the soundtrack. I would of really liked a few eletronic tracks in there... there's just something to racing at 200mph with hard techno in the background. All in all, go buy the game if you interested in having fun again with a racer. It reminds me of the good ole' days when they were fun as hell to play, and every race wasn't a job, but a journey.
