Burnout 3

[Ginza]

I actually damned cant wait for this game. Its highly frustrating aswell because the game comes out the day before im meant to go to Uni so i doubt its going to get much play time.

Bollocks.

[PeteJ]

Yes, go into the option screen and turn it off.

Game of the year so far for me, absolute driving perfection. Can't wait until Friday

[RLench]

I thought the US date was 7th September? How are people playing this so soon...or can't you say?

[Ginza]

It will probably be the YARR!! version. Bloody pirates.

[Mayhem]

That and the fact that it is already out in Australia and a few other places...

[RLench]

Apart from Australia, where else is it (legally) available?

[Concept]

RLench - Independants across the UK will most likely start selling it early next week if you look out.

I've got both Burnout 3 and Outrun 2 demos sitting here. I haven't tried them out yet.

Hopefully they'll be as good as all you lot are making them out to be. The racing genre is certainly going to be in fine form over the coming months.

[AllYourBase]

Yes, go into the option screen and turn it off.

Game of the year so far for me, absolute driving perfection. Can't wait until Friday

Helpful that wasn't it? No worries have found it now, typical bloke can't see what he wants even thou it's right in front of him!!

I am liking this game, I think it's gonna be a grower, I am very used to Burnout 2 having played it to death and unlocked just about everything in it, this new change of gameplay mechanics makes it feel like an entirely different game..... criterion have done it again!!

[AHL]

Is the best way to play B3 with the third-person perspective? I always played B2 with the first-person view but I can imagine that's not ideal for doing takedowns.

[AllYourBase]

I just can't play racing games in third person, I find doing takedowns just fine in first person as I am either shunting into the back of cars or slamming the sides.... perhaps it's trickier to know when a car is coming up on your butt but overall third person just will not do for me! urgh

[Concept]

I just can't play racing games in third person, I find doing takedowns just fine in first person as I am either shunting into the back of cars or slamming the sides.... perhaps it's trickier to know when a car is coming up on your butt but overall third person just will not do for me! urgh

I'm the same. I always find the camera is positioned too closely near the car and it's difficult to properly gauge the exact distance I'm away from something accurately. Hence the reason I use first person.

I've been that way ever since Ridge Racer.

Coming back to Burnout 3 - The demo was impressive if a little too scant for my liking. But I suppose in leaving me wanting more... It's done it's job.

[nonny]

Ok update. I am 50% complete now after a mental session yesterday.

All I can say is, best arcade racing game of this gen. Hands down. I havent played OutRun2 yet (have it preordered) but I cannot see it beating this as there is just a diverse amount of fun to be had here both online and offline.

Some things I have noticed in my playtime:

- Crash mode money acrrued both online/offline or in multiplayer all goes to your total for unlocking the bigger crash mode vehicles

- Ive unlocked all cars in the first 4 classes and it get incrementally faster. The cars in each class though seem all very similar and there is no one unfairly faster car in each class either so if the host locks it to a particular class online you can compete right from the bat for the most part.

- Road rage mode is surprisingly great fun. I am more into the pure racing mode but here you split into teams and Red team has to take Blue team down before they reach a certain distance (think its 6 miles)... whats nice is you can have un-even teams. Played 4 against 2 in this and it was insane! Red team can also be assigned unlimited boost from the outset... ouch. Its off by default.

- Even at the highest speeds its possible to race perfect laps if you are hardcore enough. I have used a few of the cars with maxed out top speed (which appears to be 210-219mph btw) and while it is definitely nose-bleed stuff it is possible to navigate all traffic (just) and not crash... tends to be alot of wall-riding happening and its quite forgiving but it is definitely controllable...

- Crash mode is a welcome distraction (got 40 of 100 levels in this atm) but prefer playing it offline to online at the moment. Racing and Road Rage seem most popular online

- There is a glitch/bug in the lobby menu. Sometimes you enter a server and get booted because "Cannot communicate with all players in the lobby". Seems to happen intermittently and cannot actually pinpoint the issue but it could be related to some users not setting up their routers correctly for port forwarding etc... as this was an issue in other titles like Rallisport Challenge2... have also noted not being able to hear some people in the game.

- I have said this before but will say again. Takedown camera and aftertouch is disabled online.


I hosted yesterday for the full six players and it was excellent. I have a 512/512 ADSL connection and it didnt lag at all. Heard from one player that has 512/128 and he said he host for 4 people the night before without issue so the network code seems well optimised.

I have not seen ANY lag or slowdown in this game online at all. No cars warping or glitching slightly, nothing. I have seen someone reset after a crash and going sideways but that is because they got re-hit whilst being reset on the track and it cured itself in a split second. Other than that it seems to be excellent.

Also can I just say witnessing a huge pileup AND NOT being involved is probably the biggest draw of this game for me online. It pains me that there are no replays as I have seen some amazing things whilst racing closely with others. I saw my best mate get completely totalled by not one but two big-rig trucks that exploded some 100m in front of me and I drove through the wreckage with it sailing some 15m above my car...

I actually laughed so hard I crashed further down the road.

Seriously I have seen people levelling some criticism against this game already (most who havent played it) such as the lack of manual gears... yep there isnt any but you dont have time to use them anyway.

The lack of nighttime and weather effects. There are some dusk-ish levels with darker clouds and lower sun and one european track set in either Germany or Prague with trams that has snow covered areas... plus asia has some nice off-road tropical dirt track sections.

All up it matters not one bit. The underlying fundamentals of this game is pure arcade twitch racing. The small niggling issues people have are just minor aesthetics and insignificant in the big picture.

[NeilMcRae]

Nonny,
Is the PAL release multiregion do you know?

Folks - keep your eyes open for retailers breaking the Friday release date !

Neil.

[YOUWIN]

YARRR YARRR - (just for Ginza )

have played this quite a lot over the weekend am at about 25%
as some of you would say it's absolutely aces, but i do have some niggles, and one major complaint, but i'll get to them later.

I love the sense of speed, the whole takedown idea works wonderfully well, makes each and every race so much more exciting than BO2, and i loved that game also. Oh and it looks fantastic.
The advertising i've hardly noticed at all thb probably because i play in 1st person so that doesn't bother me.

Thanks to nonny for insights on the online side of things, it sounds a right larf, i can't wait for my legit copy to turn up (come on Gamplay get it here early please.)

Nonny howd you get on with the preview lap in USA - the one that you use the blue sporty, sporty, fast as **** car, lap time 1:03 to beat to get gold?
I spent about 2 hours before eventually getting it, i found that getting the perfect run is so difficult going at those speeds, very rewarding once done, and once perfect i ended up with 1:00:36. Just wondered if im crap or it was a hard bugger to do.

Anyway onto the niggles:
Am not overly keen on the new crash mode, having to pick up the icons almost forces you on a predetermined path, with little scope for variety. The camera is poo too at times making hard to inch your way towards the icons you really need after a crashbreaker, such as a 4x. I am enjoying it but not as much as in BO2. Also when playing a single event the scores needed for medals aren't shown, im guessing because its all interwoven into the main game. I prefered it when the crash mode was totally seperate ala BO2, and was looking forward to working my way through 100 crash zones sequentially(sp) without having to unlock the ****ers from the main game!

Crash headlines info is not specific enough, when viewing in the rewards section for example, one on them requires you to get 850,000 in the vinyard, but the vinyard covers several crash zones, it should state which zone exactly you need to perform this on. It's important to do all these so as to be able to race online with a a fire truck, let the madness commence,

There seems to be a little less traffic on the roads, than in BO2, not a great deal less but i guess it makes takedowns much more impotant, as theres less "near miss" opportunitys.

The music is ****e, thank **** for custom soundtracks, however every time you load the game up, you have to set custom soundtracks up in the menus, even if you then save you profile, this part does not save, so each and every time you switch on you have to go through it all again, which is a pain in the arse.

But my major complaint and one that's makeing my blood boil even as i type, is that the game does not support the memory card, which for many of you may not be of any relevance, but to me it means all my progress is stuck on one xbox, i like to/have to switch what xbox i'm playing on depending where i am. It also means i've gotta use a chipped machine online when i have a unmodded stock crystal just sitting there for online pal games, and no way of transfering my data to it. Not impressed at all - just seems lazy, especially as the profile info is only about 6 blocks. ft:

It sounds like i'm having a right ol' moan but i gotta say despite the niggles, they come miles behind compared to the importance scale of pure knuckle whitening, speed shattering, takedown crunching, enjoyment from playing BO3.
Except the memory card **** up
Right back to it then........

[Pij]

Im sold on this for online play, as i never buy PAL games, wheres the best place to preorder it so i get it for the weekend, or shall i just pop into the local game on Friday?