70%Emulated

Burnout Takedown is a game I slightly prefer over the previous entry and currently my favorite racing game, albeit similar problems that made me take so long for it to beat considering I started this game around late May.

To kick things off, stages having shortcuts makes races feel refreshing, especially with the amount you can take to switch up your paths to race in which you'll either be driving on roofs, driving off bridges, taking a dirt path rather than a road, or a simple ramp jump to put you ahead, even with reverse maps. The stages have more variety from a forest, a Tokyo-like nighttime city, an LA-like area, a China-like area, or a Mountain area like Switzerland.

There are also new takedowns from vertical takedown by driving off a high-point and landing on a vehicle and crashing a regular car into a racer like a pool shot, which can create some pretty cool experiences, and satisfaction of crashing other vehicles. Burnout Takedown also changes a mechanic where crashing vehicles on their rear will not make you crash, but rather YOU push through them. You get a sense of power, when going full speed through a line of traffic and watching vehicles fly, bonus if one of the vehicles hits a racer. It may sound like it loses some challenge, but it's balanced by having large vehicles like trucks or buses crashing you if you drive into them, or the other lane being dangerous, but worthy to drive through if you want some boost. Besides, driving into cars recklessly can lead you to unexpected crashes from a large vehicle. It can be annoying to deal with, but it something to be aware of.

The game also gives you an explosion mechanic after you crash, which is really great lifesaver to prevent others from catching and listening to the noise it makes when you blow up multiple racers is like music to the ears.

The sense of speed feels really good here with the way the screen shakes as you boost to high speed, and the cars feel really good to drive, especially when you get to the endgame ones. Eliminator races are improved with having a timer so that they end quicker and not just have it be a race where you drive around the same lap until you're the last one.

Now onto some problems. It gets really tiring playing the same game modes over and over again. I started getting fatigued around rank 6 or 7 from all the crash breakers, eliminators, road rage, that I felt as if needs more variation, or at least, tone down the levels. I do give praise to the stages for adding shortcuts, but around rank 4 from what I recall, they pretty much give you every location, and from there on, it also gets boring when driving the same location. Again, the shortcuts help at least, but more areas would've been nice or throw in the existing ones later when you rank up late in game so that you get a sense of progression.

The same problem with 3's distracting takedown camera is still the same, though I stupidly discovered that you could turn it off so I recommend once you've gotten used to it for a while, because it will lead you to stuff like spawning against an obstacle, you're stuck in that you have to reverse, or crashing into one.

Overall, still a fine racing game even with its flaws, albeit, pacing issues mostly.

75%PlayStation 2

Fun Game that doesn't require much thinking to play.

70%Emulated

I am going to be honest and say the following, I do enjoy Burnout Revenge and it mechanically it's even better than Burnout 3 and the latter game was already hard to top but playing this game reminds me that racing game even with great mechanics just wear me out after playing them for longer than 8 hours.

This transitions me to the next part, I am not even sure what even counts as a "completion" regarding this game and racing games with no traditional story mode or plot in general. You need to technically reach Rank 10 and complete all the Grand Prixes to count as a "beat" but I feel like if I played this game more than the 10 hours, it then I would start to strongly dislike BR. There is no story and there isn't even a final boss in the tradtional sense and apparently to get the credits you need to get Gold Medals on all the events and no way am I going to do that. There's so much crash mode, elimination, traditional races, takedown centered modes, time attacks, crashing into cars I can take before I call it quits. Do this for 20 hours and I would just start to get super annoyed and maybe even dislike the game.

With that out of the way, I'll talk about what the game does well, mechanically like I said before is even better than Burnout 3. You got the risk reward system from the latter system which is great, but now you got stuff like crashing into cars, avoiding on coming traffic, avoiding bigger vehicles, as well as takedowns being easier to perform, leading cars into on coming traffic as well as using the traffic to destroy other cars. AI is more dynamic too where they can even be taken out during races and thanks to all this the whole game has a fast paced over the top dynamic feel to it that not a lot of racing games and it's predessor can even match. Races in general feel more epic and dynamic in Revenge since getting boost is easier to pull off so if I crash and fail, it doesn't feel like the end of the world compared to 3. Burnout Revenge might not be a "reinvention" of the series but I feel this is an "expansion" sequel done right, at least in terms of mechanics and game feel.

If I have to choose between playing Burnout 3 or Revenge, I choose the latter, I even think the progression system is better but I wish there was an actual story mode in these games since rank progression can start to feel like a boring grind by the time I reached Rank 8.

I do like Burnout Revenge but I feel burned out every time I play it and B3. This might be the best racing game ever made in terms of mechanics but at the same time, without context for the races and a geniune sense of escalating stakes, even nothing but mechanical depth can start to bore me. If you don't mind this stuff then this game is a must play, it's just not 100% my kind of game.

70%PlayStation 2

Burnout Revenge is good, but not different from Burnout 3. from someone played the prequel, I was bored, though it was a fun game. I think if I hadn't played Burnout 3, I would have enjoyed

85%PlayStation 2

This game would be more as an "expansion/DLC" for Burnout 3, save some changes in the gameplay. It's still pretty awesome but not as much as Burnout 3 was. The new Traffic Attack gamemode is very fun but it gets old soon. Also, the changes in traffic behavior might reward aggressive behavior, but at the same time it trivializes one of the main challenges of Burnout series (Racing through heavy traffic).

80%PlayStation 2

Pros
Thrill of taking down your opponents
Driving fast cars (200+ mph), especially with nitro
Different events the game offers

Cons
Had to turn off the Takedown camera after a few hours because it broke my concentration on the race
After getting Takedown’ed, the game takes awhile for you to spawn again
Most of the time, when you spawned after getting Takedown’ed, you get takedown’ed again from a big vehicle (eg. truck) or on-coming traffic since you’re trying to catch up to the 1st place car

70%PlayStation 2

Pretty good from what i played, just didn't get far before dropping it for something else.

80%Xbox 360

8.4/10

80%Xbox

One of the best arcade racers

80%Xbox

85/100

80%Xbox 360

Crashing is the best part.

90%No Platform Specified

Burnout Revenge is a game ahead of its time and, as such, belongs here in the next generation. EA loses a few points because this title was released last year on current-gen consoles and doesn't add much in the innovation category. But Burnout Revenge proves you can successfully take a current-gen game and port it into a great next-generation experience. This is, of course, something we don't want to see made into a trend, and it's still difficult to recommend a purchase to anyone that already owns the current-gen title. But for everyone else, Burnout Revenge is the first white-knuckle racer on the 360. Solid single-player mode and excellent online and multiplayer modes will keep you coming back for a long while.