Revenge is so fast, destructive and mind-blowing that the game practically borders on next-gen gaming.
Now, Revenge isn't much different gameplay-wise from Takedown, which isn't a bad thing. You'll find that Takedowns, Crashbreakers and the Crash mode still remain some of the highlights of Burnout. Of course, what would a new Burnout game be without a few new gameplay mechanics and tweaks? One of the new modes/elements put into Revenge is Traffic Checking. This new mechanics allows you to ram into light traffic going the same direction as you without crashing. While you can rush through most cars with Traffic Check, ramming into buses and semi rigs will cause you to crash. Traffic Checking does make Revenge a rather easy game as you can use traffic as a weapon, but it also makes for some intense racing.
Crash mode, which had power-ups and power-downs in Takedown has gone back to its Point of Impact roots, only the Crashbreakers are still there. In the new Crash mode, you have to rev up your car to get a head-start towards crashing and you'll need to steer your car into the right areas to score big. The Crashbreakers from Takedown have been given a bigger emphasis, as you can create multiple Crashbreakers instead of just one. You get Crashbreakers by causing destruction, so if you want to keep blowing your car up you'd better wreck a lot of cars, and why wouldn't you want to anyway?
Speaking of Crashbreakers, they're also put into the regular racing, at least, if you're at a high enough rank. That's right, Revenge has a ranking meter for the World Tour Mode. You're rank is measured with stars, which you get from events in the World Tour. Depending on how well you race or crash, you'll get between one and four stars from racing. Then there's the medals, which also affect how many stars you'll get. If you get a gold medal you'll get one extra star, if you get silver you won't get any stars and if you get bronze you'll lose a star, so you'd better aim for reckless driving as well as that gold medal.
Now, part of what the Burnout series has been known for is excellent graphics and a smooth framerate. Well, Revenge is not only the best-looking and smoothest Burnout yet, but it's arguably the best-looking current-gen game out there. For one, the cars look very shiny and bright. Not only do they look great while you're racing, but it's also a joy as ever to watch them fall apart and blow up. As if the cars didn't look good enough, the environments and particle effects are even more incredible. Everything in the environments from the textures, to the lighting of the windows, to the streets and buildings look as realistic as a current-gen machine could handle. The framerate in Revenge is also excellent and runs at a smooth sixty frames-per-second, just like its predecessors. As great as the cars and environments may look, the sense of speed is the real treat of the graphics. Like other Burnout games, Revenge makes amazing use of motion and blur effects to help make Revenge the fastest racing game available on the Xbox and PS2.
Revenge also sounds amazing, audio-wise at least. The game literally has about every single sound effect that's needed to create incredible audio. You'll constantly hear metal shredding, nitrous blasts, big and loud explosions and the sound of car alarms and horns. And best of all, these sound effects are always in-sync with the racing and chaos and sounds remarkably authentic. However, Revenge doesn't handle so well with its soundtrack. Bands like Thrice, Unwritten Law, Fall Out Boy and Yellowcard are featured on the soundtrack, among other pop/punk mix bands. While the soundtrack has the mainstream artists and bands down, the music just doesn't fit the style of the game and there isn't much variety in the soundtrack to appeal to various tastes. This isn't to say that Revenge sounds bad, it's just that the soundtrack needed some work and a new selection of artists and bands to not only compliment the game, but to also appeal to various gamers.
Burnout Revenge isn't perfect, it isn't revolutionary, it isn't even the best racing game out there, but it is one hell of a ride. If you still haven't experience the thrilling and outrageous intensity of Burnout then this is as good a start as any for you. Not only does Revenge prove to be the best Burnout game yet, but it's also one of the fastest, most intense and breath-taking racers out there.