The Burnout series is one of those countless of PS2 classics that i didnt get the chance to play back in the day and everyone recommends it, so how it holds up without nostalgia blinding my big head? Spoiler alert! Is trash. At least the first one, which interestingly enough seems that it was forgotten by the Burnout community itself as no one talks about the first entry! Thats honestly never a good sign.
Well, i would be lying if i say i never never played a Burnout game. I played it a bit the PSP Legends one but it was so quick in the past and just played it for curiosity when i wasnt even thinking of becoming a dedicated reviewer. All i remember it that it was an ok game, maybe a bit repetitive at times, but since in that era i was only interested in Patapon 2 and Locoroco 2, two of the greatest games ever made even outside the PSP (fight me), i didnt give it a chance, so i say now: Lets give the entire series a fair chance starting from the first game.
While technically you couldnt criticize the first Burnout series for this, its funny how the series had evolve so much over the years that the first one feels so outdated and different in comparison. No takedowns, no weight stats, no crashing mode, nothing, just pure racing avoiding traffic. In fact i think this game is basically a carbon copy of a Konami game called "Thrill Drive", and they didnt even attempt to hide it (even the UI is similar). This wouldnt be bad if there would be enough differences between the two and they polished the experience a bit.... but no, its somehow much much worse.
First of all, the controls. Im never was really a fan of Brake2drift physics in racing games, part of that its not because its easier to drive like most people said but because i ironically found it very clunky, especialy in this game where the car doesnt start to drift inmediately but it seems it has an specific spot where it has to make contact to start drifting, so there is a bit of delay. Its so awkard! The turning radius is also very unpredictable as the car opens a lot and the chances to crash with a traffic car when you are drifting are so high that i would have better chances to drive perfectly while being drunk in real life. And speaking of traffic crashes it is ridiculous, remember how i complained in Stunts about how you could destroy your car by just scratching the wall at high speed? That was annoying. Now imagine destroying your car by scratching it at the lowest speed possible. And the hit detection is all over the place, sometimes the game says you take a hit even if you were a few inches at the side of a car or wall. And of course not terrible racing game would be save from having one of the worst rubberbanding AIs i ever seen, we are talking about miles worse than Underground 1 or Hot Pursuit 2, thats how bad it is. Did i also mention a ridiculous low time limit? All of this did make me to restart the first level.... a lot...... THE FIRST LEVEL.
Speaking of other game modes, they are certainly hit or miss, we have face off which is honestly.... not too bad, rubberbanding isnt as atrocious and i like how in two or three races the opponent uses so big cars like a Bus... and yeah, this is certainly one of the highlights of the game, probably the best thing of the game. It is so funny how you could race with so big cars that could take almost all of the road at the side of those small mosquitoes. Its really a shame that there is no weight stat, since even this cars gets crashed by a single low speed hit, so they are more for casual rounds with your friends in split screen or time attack mode. I also like how when cars crash you could sometimes make a barrier with the traffic cars and caught in the accident at the rest of opponents. That certainly makes the gameplay addictive, though it is still more frustrating than fun. Later we have Survival which is honestly terrible. Having to do 3 laps without crashing once? That clash with the entire game mechanics and is just impossible, even in the first tracks driving at snail pace.
Completing 100% unlocks just a single race mode without traffic which should be available from the beginning.... and thats it. This game is way too short thankfully, because i wouldnt gonna want to play it anymore.
Lets talk about other things like the visuals, they are good for its time, and they managed to make the game run at 60 fps constantly with dozens and dozens of traffic cars on screen at once, thats kind of impressive. There is also enough detail on the textures and a decent draw distance to make the game still appealing in my eyes. But what takes the cake on the visuals is that this game is one of the very very few early sixth gen games to support true widescreen. Yeah. Most early PS2 games just supported the -vert variant or what i would like to call, fake widescreen, because.... whats even the point of a "wide-screen" when you see less on screen? It should be called "narrowscreen" or "tunnelscreen" or "assscreen".... or "imdumbforsayingthisscreen".
I also like the soundtrack and the main menu aesthetics, it kind of reminds me to an early flash game... in a good way.
But other than that there is nothing more to say about this game, its just not good enough to compensate all of the bad and on top of that it still somehow resembles too much of Thrill Drive so even if it ended up being good it would still be ironically bad, but between the frustrating controls, frustrating AI and frustrating everything they really advertised well this game in the boxart, in fact, i think this is one of the best games of all time in that regard. This game would seriously give you a burnout to the point you would want to destroy the box with the disc inside! This Burnout game at least its nowhere near as close to be a Playstation 2 classic.
Well, i would be lying if i say i never never played a Burnout game. I played it a bit the PSP Legends one but it was so quick in the past and just played it for curiosity when i wasnt even thinking of becoming a dedicated reviewer. All i remember it that it was an ok game, maybe a bit repetitive at times, but since in that era i was only interested in Patapon 2 and Locoroco 2, two of the greatest games ever made even outside the PSP (fight me), i didnt give it a chance, so i say now: Lets give the entire series a fair chance starting from the first game.
While technically you couldnt criticize the first Burnout series for this, its funny how the series had evolve so much over the years that the first one feels so outdated and different in comparison. No takedowns, no weight stats, no crashing mode, nothing, just pure racing avoiding traffic. In fact i think this game is basically a carbon copy of a Konami game called "Thrill Drive", and they didnt even attempt to hide it (even the UI is similar). This wouldnt be bad if there would be enough differences between the two and they polished the experience a bit.... but no, its somehow much much worse.
First of all, the controls. Im never was really a fan of Brake2drift physics in racing games, part of that its not because its easier to drive like most people said but because i ironically found it very clunky, especialy in this game where the car doesnt start to drift inmediately but it seems it has an specific spot where it has to make contact to start drifting, so there is a bit of delay. Its so awkard! The turning radius is also very unpredictable as the car opens a lot and the chances to crash with a traffic car when you are drifting are so high that i would have better chances to drive perfectly while being drunk in real life. And speaking of traffic crashes it is ridiculous, remember how i complained in Stunts about how you could destroy your car by just scratching the wall at high speed? That was annoying. Now imagine destroying your car by scratching it at the lowest speed possible. And the hit detection is all over the place, sometimes the game says you take a hit even if you were a few inches at the side of a car or wall. And of course not terrible racing game would be save from having one of the worst rubberbanding AIs i ever seen, we are talking about miles worse than Underground 1 or Hot Pursuit 2, thats how bad it is. Did i also mention a ridiculous low time limit? All of this did make me to restart the first level.... a lot...... THE FIRST LEVEL.
Speaking of other game modes, they are certainly hit or miss, we have face off which is honestly.... not too bad, rubberbanding isnt as atrocious and i like how in two or three races the opponent uses so big cars like a Bus... and yeah, this is certainly one of the highlights of the game, probably the best thing of the game. It is so funny how you could race with so big cars that could take almost all of the road at the side of those small mosquitoes. Its really a shame that there is no weight stat, since even this cars gets crashed by a single low speed hit, so they are more for casual rounds with your friends in split screen or time attack mode. I also like how when cars crash you could sometimes make a barrier with the traffic cars and caught in the accident at the rest of opponents. That certainly makes the gameplay addictive, though it is still more frustrating than fun. Later we have Survival which is honestly terrible. Having to do 3 laps without crashing once? That clash with the entire game mechanics and is just impossible, even in the first tracks driving at snail pace.
Completing 100% unlocks just a single race mode without traffic which should be available from the beginning.... and thats it. This game is way too short thankfully, because i wouldnt gonna want to play it anymore.
Lets talk about other things like the visuals, they are good for its time, and they managed to make the game run at 60 fps constantly with dozens and dozens of traffic cars on screen at once, thats kind of impressive. There is also enough detail on the textures and a decent draw distance to make the game still appealing in my eyes. But what takes the cake on the visuals is that this game is one of the very very few early sixth gen games to support true widescreen. Yeah. Most early PS2 games just supported the -vert variant or what i would like to call, fake widescreen, because.... whats even the point of a "wide-screen" when you see less on screen? It should be called "narrowscreen" or "tunnelscreen" or "assscreen".... or "imdumbforsayingthisscreen".
I also like the soundtrack and the main menu aesthetics, it kind of reminds me to an early flash game... in a good way.
But other than that there is nothing more to say about this game, its just not good enough to compensate all of the bad and on top of that it still somehow resembles too much of Thrill Drive so even if it ended up being good it would still be ironically bad, but between the frustrating controls, frustrating AI and frustrating everything they really advertised well this game in the boxart, in fact, i think this is one of the best games of all time in that regard. This game would seriously give you a burnout to the point you would want to destroy the box with the disc inside! This Burnout game at least its nowhere near as close to be a Playstation 2 classic.
