There's Something Artistic and Beautiful about a Car Crash
Crash Nav mode is where most players will be spending the bulk of their time, and it consists of over one hundred and seventy events spread across three continents. While the game starts in the USA, players will eventually be able to move to Europe and Asia. Though there aren't any exact replicas of real-world places, there are plenty of familiar locales and landmarks. For instance, there's a French Riviera area, a Swiss city in Europe, and a giant Buddha statue near a temple complex in Asia.
The game looks surprisingly good, though the fact that you'll never be moving slow enough to notice problems such as bad textures might play a part in Takedown's graphical clarity. That's doubtful though, because even while driving at breakneck speeds there are many readily visible details, and textures are definitely not a problem. The environments are also so picturesque that it can be hard to keep both eyes on the road. Draw distance is exceptional, so cars are almost always visible long before hitting them and they never just appear out of thin air. In the faster cars though, it's still hard to take in everything quick enough and surviving requires a finely honed set of twitch reflexes. What's more impressive than how good the game looks is how well it runs. The game is stable and even when blazing through a course at two hundred miles an hour, with cars crashing into traffic and debris flying everywhere, it never misses a frame.
Crash Nav can be broken up into two types of gameplay – actual racing and Crash mode. Races include the typical circuits and eliminator events, along with time trials. Road Rage races are also included and these require the player to wreck as many other cars as possible within the time limit or before their own ride is destroyed.
These Road Rage races end up exemplifying the Burnout philosophy of risk versus reward. Like its predecessors, boost is an integral component of racing in Takedown and it is gained by driving as insanely as possible. This entails driving on the wrong side of the road, getting as close to traffic as possible, drifting through turns and generally behaving like a drunken hooligan. The franchise has always put an emphasis on crashing, but now it has finally been implemented in such a way that it is necessary. Taking out an opponent (referred to as a Takedown) will immediately fill your entire boost gauge, and even extend it.
However it's not all fun and games, because the opponent AI is the vengeful sort. After you take one racer down, they will do everything in their power to return the favor. In the event that you are taken down, even the resultant wreck can serve as a weapon with which to cause more chaos. The Aftertouch is a new feature for Takedown, and it allows players to take control of a car after it has been wrecked. By pressing a button, players can guide their twisted wreck into anyone unlucky enough to be around when the crash happened. Though it can be hard to use, and typically comes down to more luck than skill, it is hilarious when you can wipe out the rest of the pack with your own wrecked car. As an added bonus, once the car respawns it will have a full boost gauge, unlike a regular crash in which boost is taken away.
It should go without saying that the physics of Burnout are arcadey in the extreme. Cars can conceivably burn through an entire track without ever letting up on the gas and corners are not meant to be turned into but drifted through. The only acceptable reason to ever let off the gas is when you're battling an opponent and trying to hit their backend to send them careening into a wall.
The new Crash mode is where many people are likely to fall in love. One the surface, Crash mode is exactly what it sounds like. Players are put into a car and given a set amount of monetary damage to inflict on traffic vehicles by any means necessary. But far from simply being a wild foray into orchestrated chaos (though that is a big part of the fun) crashing requires a bit of foresight, planning and tight driving to really get the big scores.
Each event takes place on a small section of a larger track, and involves set traffic patterns. The goal is to crash your car into traffic (or whatever other obstacle might present itself) thereby creating a chain reaction of destruction. Once a certain number of cars have crashed, players will be able to trigger a "crashbreaker", which causes the car to explode. Crashbreakers cause massive amounts of damage to everything in their vicinity, so it's wise to delay using them until there are numerous vehicles close by. However, a crashbreaker can also be used to maneuver the car after it has already been trashed, since it comes off the ground, which allows the player to steer it for a short distance. This can be used to pick up many of the helpful items on the track.
Speaking of which, there are all sorts of pickups that help players get a good final score. Nitrous is on all tracks and is always necessary to gain enough speed for a mayhem inducing crash. There are also cash bonuses and score multipliers that drastically impact the end score. Then there are crashbreaker icons, which explode the car on impact and are separate from the player triggered crashbreaker. The one thing to avoid is the heartbreaker, an aptly named pickup that halves the final score.
Though all the destruction in the game is certainly enough to get most anyone's blood pumping, the impressive crash modeling is really the icing on the cake. Even after playing Burnout Paradise on next-gen consoles, it's still impressive to see how cars crumple and tear apart here. There is an impressive number of ways for a car to be destroyed, with windshields shattering, body panels flying off, wheels popping loose and debris generally being tossed everywhere. In extreme crashes, say a nitrous fueled head on collision with a bus, the car can actually explode. Or, if you aim for the proper thing (a tanker truck, perhaps) it's even possible to get that to explode. These crashes also display the games great particle effects. Sparks fly like a Fourth of July sparkler and pieces of glass look like little diamonds as they shatter on impact with a wall. All the destruction is truly a beautiful thing, almost worthy of poetry.
Takedown also gets the distinction of having one of the best EA soundtracks ever. Unlike their other games, where songs are seemingly chosen at random without having any relation to the subject matter, the music largely consists of fast-paced alt-metal and punk rock, which fits the frantic nature of the game perfectly. The one old-school track by the Ramones "I Wanna Be Sedated" is probably the best example of what players can expect to hear and, in all honestly, would have made a better theme song than the F-Ups "Lazy Generation". There are a few minor annoyances; there's the DJ, who periodically comes on the radio during a song to spout off some useless info nobody needs (thankfully, he can be turned off and I'd suggest doing so ASAP) and the cars sound all sound similar.
THE VERDICT
In the end Burnout 3 is as close to perfection in a racer as you're likely to find. Not only is it loads of fun, it has staying power and offers something for nearly everyone. The breakneck arcade racing is perfect for the legions of disillusioned Need for Speed fans and the wanton chaos will appeal to those with a destructive streak. Crash mode will probably amuse those looking for a subtle twist on the puzzle genre, and for those who aren't, it still provides an action packed thrill. All in all, Takedown is one of the defining racers for the PS2 generation.