That Burning Feeling

Everyone kept going on and on about how great the Burnout series of games is, but I just kept looking at them and seeing a racing game. Not being a gearhead, I could never get into traditional racers. I needed something with a variation, like Wipeout or whatever. But having played Burnout Legends for the PSP, I have to admit that I now know what all the damn fuss was about.

Apparently, this title combines elements from the first three games in the Burnout series, but like I said, I ain't played 'em, so I couldn't tell you how they translated into portable form. The game is a series of races, moving up through the classes of cars, but the twist is that the best way to get yourself into first place is to plow into the competition and send them flying into some seriously awesome crashes. Amazingly, each time you score one of these "takedowns," the game switches into slow motion so you can really appreciate it, but somehow, there's no confusion when you return to normal. I never felt like it disrupted my game. Weird. On the other hand, it's kind of annoying that you can only crash the opponents. Smashing into any of the other cars only crashes yourself. Pisses me off. Also, the problem with the racing is that I hit a wall (pun intended) and couldn't get any further because of one particular track that made it impossible for me to complete those missions to move on. Who the hell creates a game that forces you to put the pedal to the metal and crash into things, then makes you race in a track so full of 90-degree turns that you hit more walls than cars?

Luckily, there's a whole other mode to the game that was so entertaining I pretty much ignored the racing and played it instead: Crash Mode. It's sort of like a puzzle game where you are presented with a series of roads strewn with power-ups and sometimes ramps where the goal is to drive into traffic and create the most spectacular pile-up you can possibly manage. The more cars you can add to the mass of twisted metal, the higher your score. The slow motion collisions are totally awesome, and great fun to watch. There are 100 different events, and now that I've unlocked them all, I'm working towards getting the gold medal high score in each. (It's sometimes trickier than it looks finding the right path)

Since it's from EA, presentation is spot-on. Menus are snazzy, the soundtrack is decent indie rock verging on metal, the sound effects are satisfying, and the graphics are impressive. The small PSP screen does make it hard to distinguish the race path at such high speeds sometimes, but only sometimes. Loading times can be a bit harsh, but I've seen worse. Hell, after Untold Legends, I can't imagine another PSP title being slower!