Burnout Legends

Written by Adam Woolcott  on September 30, 2005

Review: Just as long as you don't recreate Road Rage on real streets, it's all good.

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It was inevitable that Burnout would finally make an appearance on portable consoles, seeing that the PSP finally brought the power to render the experience without major sacrifices (though the game is coming to the Nintendo DS in less pretty form). However, instead of merely porting a version of Burnout Revenge, or even Burnout 3, Criterion apparently was headed for the Ridge Racer route and designing the game, christened Burnout Legends, as a 'greatest hits' of sorts, mixing in tracks, modes, and cars from each of the original trio of racers Ц or at least, that's what was expected when the game first saw the light of day. Combined with Burnout Revenge, it was effectively going to be the majority of Criterion's work inside a pair of games, finally brought to fans of the series who didn't play much of the Acclaim-published originals but got hooked on Takedown once EA took the publishing reigns.

Instead, what you're getting with Burnout Legends is a slightly reworked (but not a direct port, mind you) Burnout 3 rather than something all-new, with a handful of the courses and cars from Burnout and Burnout 2 added to the fray, with minimal fanfare. This certainly doesn't discount that a portable Burnout 3 is not a bad thing Ц after all, it was one of the most critically acclaimed titles of 2004, racing game or not. Some corners were slightly cut, the graphics and other technical aspects have moments of failure, and the heavy emphasis on Burnout 3 might annoy older fans of the series who hoped to see things from Takedown applied en masse to Burnout and Burnout 2, but you're still getting a great racing game, even if it's on a handheld system loaded with racing games. With loads of variety and replay however, Burnout Legends could last PSP owners a long, long time before getting the holy grail of 100% completion.

Like the most recent console renditions of Burnout, Legends features a massive World Tour single player campaign, with exactly 175 different events. It's split into a pair of ladders Ц race events and Crash events, both of which function independently of each other. The race events (split into classes that you progress through) are made up of the usual Burnout trademarks Ц basic races, Road Rage, Eliminator, Burning Laps, and returning from Burnout 2, Pursuit. Most of the events work the same way as Burnout 3, with the exception being Road Rage which now contains a clock counting down time, so not only do you have to get enough takedowns for a medal before getting wiped out yourself, you've gotta do it quickly. Pursuit has the same basic idea of taking out an opposing car with your custom law enforcement vehicle, but this time you have to get a takedown on the car to win, something impossible in Burnout 2 because the concept of takedowns weren't implemented yet. Most of these events take place on Burnout 3 tracks, as just a handful of the 'legends' courses have made the cut. Considering most of these weren't designed for the style of play that Burnout 3 brought, this isn't really a surprise.

Furthering the Burnout 3 conspiracy, Crash events not only work the same way as Burnout 3, they're basically the exact same ones from that game, with maybe a couple new junctions Ц none of which use the classic tracks. The only difference is the multipliers are gone, with just the cash and crashbreaker pickups remaining. This actually makes some of the junctions much trickier since there's no way to make up for some mistakes with a 4x multiplier, but at the same time there's no fear of ending up with one of those damned heartbreakers. Unfortunately, after experiencing the new Crash events in Burnout Revenge, this recycled batch of junctions feels old and busted sometimes, lacking much of the strategy and mass chaos that you get in Revenge's revamped version. It doesn't help that Criterion didn't bother to make any new junctions based on the older tracks; not even the ones from Burnout 2 where the whole Crash concept was first given life. Even the Single Event options don't allow for a customized Crash junction Ц something I really hope makes it into next-generation versions of the game.

Also like Takedown, there's a pretty large amount of rewards to unlock, such as Takedown Trophies, Crash Headlines, Signature Takedowns, and of course, lots of cars for reaching score goals. Not to sound like a broken record, but again, Legends merely recycles all these from Burnout 3, and there's nothing new created for the older tracks. As with Takedown, you can achieve these goals and unlock the rewards not only in World Tour events, but also by playing Single Events Ц it was a nice touch then and it still is. Multiplayer consists of basic Ad Hoc multiplayer, with no actual online. A disappointment, but Criterion did at least make playing the Ad Hoc multiplayer worthwhile. If you have a friend with one of the Wi-Fi only special cars, you can race them, and then beat them to take the car for yourself. There's still tons upon tons of cars to unlock on your own, so these aren't required, but it's nice to actually earn something from playing something other than 1 player things. In addition, Burnout Legends contains game sharing, letting you 'beam' a demo of the game to a friend, or merely let them race against you even if they don't own a copy of the game, but still own a PSP.

Obviously, the biggest challenge of Burnout Legends was bringing the same experience you can find on the PS2 (or Xbox) without sacrificing the stuff that makes Burnout what it is. For the most part, this goal was achieved, and Legends has been pulled off very well. All the same rules apply Ц traffic is the enemy, and hitting any of it results in a spectacular crash. This fear of crashing is used by Criterion in all the ways you'd expect Ц intersections with buses coming through, racing around corners to find a bunch of cars in your face, or climbing a hill only to ram into the trunk of an innocent bystander. And that's before dealing with the AI cars that are looking to pull all kinds of crap in order to slam you into walls, traffic, whatever is nearby. Burnout has always been a game where every aspect of the game is an enemy or opponent that must be dealt with. Where things got interesting was the inclusion of takedowns, which put a more direct emphasis on your opponents, and adding another wrinkle to dealing with traffic. For the first time you could logically use traffic as a weapon, by slamming cars into them. Not only that, but you could slam cars around into walls, barriers, buildings, medians...pretty much anywhere on the track.

Legends functions the same exact way. Not only do you have to deal with the constant fear of traffic getting in the way (nothing like rounding the last corner only to slam into a bus and lose the race), the opponent AI would like nothing more than taking you out by any means necessary, and at times you'll probably work the same way, looking to wipe out any opponent, human or AI, that gets past you or threatens to pass, if only for the necessary boost so you can fly by at higher speeds to put some distance between yourself and opponents. Legends does seem to have less traffic than in Takedown Ц either that or I've been playing Revenge so much that the abundance of traffic in that game makes it look much more deserted. Speaking of, Legends doesn't carry the traffic checking of Revenge, which actually makes the standard races and eliminator events challenging again, since there's no using traffic as a weapon to get rid of pesky AI or human opponents. It's probably the only aspect of Legends that's superior to Revenge, since it's taken straight from Burnout 3. Speaking of the AI, it functions similarly to Burnout 3 (duh), so get ready for some difficult races thanks to the rubberband tactics. Thankfully, one good aspect is the AI never runs an event perfectly, and actually it's quite enjoyable to watch them make crazy errors and fly 20 feet into the air after hitting a median.