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Platform: Xbox Genre: Racing Publisher: Acclaim Developer: Criterion Games ESRB: E (Everyone) Released: Q2 2003 Support AE! Buy Games Here:
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Burnout 2: Point of
Impact - Developer’s Cut
Score: 8.9 / 10 |
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Pros: -
Worth getting just for crash mode -
Xbox Live ranking increases replay value -
Turbo boost more than satisfies need for speed
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Cons: -
Generic, unlicensed cars -
Relatively non-challenging championship mode - Lousy soundtrack
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Related Links: Review: Burnout 2: Point of Impact (GC) Review: Midtown Madness 3 (XB)
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"Hell-bent on destruction psycho drivers finally get a game to meet their rubbernecking tendencies full throttle."
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The
usual formula for capturing the checkered flag in racing video games is
simple: apply effective braking and acceleration techniques and above
all else, avoid crashing into anything. Well, in the newest arcade
racer, Burnout 2: Point of Impact: Developer’s Cut (PoI) for the Xbox,
that formula takes a totally twisted U-turn. Flying in the face of
racing game convention, PoI’s Crash mode actually encourages crunching
metal mayhem. The goal? Create the biggest and most spectacular car
pileup possible by speeding no-fear into traffic patterns. The more cars
you can get to crash, the bigger score you will get. Even better, the
online leaderboard ranking through Xbox Live lets you see how your best
crashes stack up against the world of PoI players.
An
unique and fantastic Crash mode really saves PoI from being just another
average arcade racer, because the Championship mode is nothing more than
ordinary with a slight challenge level and doesn’t even have any kind
of car licensing that nearly every racing game has nowadays. With a
varied track selection filled with plenty of hazardous intersection
crossings chock-full of traffic, simple-to-master driving controls, and
a thrilling amount of velocity via the burnout turbo boost, PoI more
than makes up for its lack of a serious challenge and other minor
shortcomings. Again,
on the surface, PoI is nothing more than the average arcade racer that
gives you a handful of vehicles on the game’s 30 track levels pitted
against competition in a quest for driving supremacy and a gold medal or
two along the way in the Championship mode. There’s also the usual
Time Attack mode. Ho hum. Ho hum.
Even
worse, there’s nary a real vehicle to be found in PoI, which doesn’t
have a official car or truck license to its credit, although a few of
the vehicles have a sneaky resemblance to actual manufacturer creations,
including a Dodge Viper clone. That lack of license also applies to an
incredibly bad and non-descript soundtrack, which doesn’t feature even
one song heard on a radio station playlist. But at least that issue can
be rectified by taking advantage of the Xbox’s custom soundtrack
feature, and I strongly recommend ripping some good driving tunes to
your Xbox to get your gaming motor running. PoI
is supposed to feature Xbox-enhanced visuals, and although the graphical
presentation is up to snuff, it doesn’t come near the quality seen in
such Xbox racers as Project Gotham Racing and RalliSport Challenge. A
Pursuit Race, which involves a chase in a police car of a
breaking-the-law speeder brings some of the better “racing” seen in
PoI, but again, it has been done already a couple of times over. Other
Xbox-only goodies include 21 additional car skins and more crash
junctions for car carnage. After
that, the comparison to the average arcade racer start to end and PoI
kicks into high gear, beginning with Offensive Driving 101 and carrying
over to the Crash mode. Offensive Driving 101 instructs you how to be a
driver with reckless abandon and teaches the finer points of scoring in
the game and how to build up a turbo boost. A
burnout, the inspiration for the game’s name, is done by driving
within near-miss proximity to not only traffic in the right-of-way, but
also highly encouraged against the grain of opposing traffic flow. Once
you start the turbo, you’ll be thrown into a thrilling speed boost.
You get credit for a burnout if you are able to drive for the entire
temporary time limit of the burnout staying on the road without
colliding with any other vehicle or road hazard. If you can keep totally
free of any type of devastation, you will keep the burnout going. With
all the many vehicular hazards, it’s not as easy as it sounds. The
highest string of burnouts I’ve been able to accumulate is three.
There’s also an Xbox Live leaderboard for total burnouts in a row. Once
the basics of offending driving is mastered in an undertaking similar to
Gran Turismo’s license mode, you will unlock the Crash mode. Without
question, Crash mode is the highlight of PoI as death-defying driving
reaches new heights. The premise is easy: drive into a heavy traffic
pattern and cause a major smash-up. The bigger the crash, the bigger
your score will be. There’s a gold/silver/bronze medal award system
based on the point total. Your scores in the Crash mode can be uploaded
onto the online leaderboard with Xbox Live, so even if you have a
big-scoring crash, there’s always an incentive to try and do better if
someone out there has a better score on a particular junction.
When
you first initiate a crash, PoI goes into a slow-motion camera mode that
follows the disastrous automobile destruction you’ve produced in the
great crash animations. PoI features an impressive physics engine, so
all the smashing, bending, twisting, and crunching happen in an
extremely realistic manner. Glass, tires, and various other car parts
explode every which way. (Kind of reminds me of the scene in the
original Blues Brothers movie when there’s that huge pileup of police
vehicles on the highway.) This is an E-rated game, though, so it
doesn’t get too graphically violent. Don’t expect driver’s body
parts to come hurtling through windshields and splatter on the roadway. This
may sound a little crazy, but as much as I enjoy smashing cars in the
Crash mode, I’m a little disappointed that the crashes aren’t more
explosive. There are big rigs that get caught in the mayhem including
those pulling loads of recently cut logs and even gasoline tankers. But
the logs never spill off the trailer and the tankers never explode. Now
that would have made for some serious crashing chaos. Those
slow-motion crash animations in the championship mode can get
distracting. Every time you hit something you’re not supposed to such
as other vehicles or objects, a slow-motion crash animation showing your
vehicle being destroyed kicks in. But you will quickly adjust to its
occurrence and with a quick re-spawning with your car miraculously
Christine-fixed, it doesn’t really interfere with your gameplay. Helping
complete the ease of driving of PoI is the game’s control setup.
Accelerating, braking, drifting through sharp curves, and igniting the
burnout all are a summer breeze. Not having to worry about PoI’s
driving mechanics means you can concentrate on enjoying the sensational
smashing fun of the game. Hell-bent
on destruction psycho drivers finally get a game to meet their
rubbernecking tendencies full throttle. PoI’s Crash mode is a
high-revving great ride, and having an Xbox Live ranking system in place
gives PoI a huge amount of replayability. If arcade racing in the
tradition of the Need for Speed series is what gets your motor running,
then burn, baby, burn an asphalt inferno with PoI. -
Lee Cieniawa (June 29, 2003)
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