Acclaim picks up Burnout for the PS2

Acclaim has announced that it has secured the worldwide publishing rights to Criterion Games' PS2 driving title Burnout. The publisher also released new screenshots from the game. Burnout brings racing to a variety of densely populated city streets, much like Midtown Madness or Midnight Club Street Racing. Interestingly, the game features a heart monitor for the driver, which rewards the player with sudden bursts of speed as the driver's pulse rate increases.

"Criterion possesses the technologies to harness the power of the PlayStation 2 computer entertainment system and deliver an immersive driving game that is poised to take the genre to a new level," said Evan Stein, vice president of brand development at Acclaim. "With its high-speed action and dramatic crash sequences, Burnout will be a must have this holiday season for racing game enthusiasts."

"We set out to create an exciting, rewarding, and intuitive arcade racing game that would appeal to the masses," added Fiona Sperry, studio head and vice president of Criterion Games Limited. "Burnout has already generated excitement among the European media and was well received at E3, where we demonstrated the product behind closed doors."

Burnout will feature 16 courses based in real-world locations based in North American, Europe, and Asia. The roads will be teeming with traffic. In fact, according to the developer, there will be more than 300 vehicles on each track. Real-time car damage and massive crashes are also part of the game. Additionally, the game will let two players compete head-to-head in a split-screen perspective. Burnout will be released this November for the PS2.