I have been resampling the delights of Burnout 2 now that its been released on Xbox and I have to say that this game is the culmination of the arcade racer genre at this moment in time.
It takes everything thats good in the genre and pushes it forward in a package that it is next to perfection - Graphics to die for, sensation of speed which many of its rivals can't hope to match (unlock some of the better vehicles and then use your Boost ---- whoooosh), handling that is both instinctive and tight enough to throw your car drifting around corners --- all in all i can't see one negative aspect of this game
The soundtrack can be a bit bleh - but the addition of the Xbox HDD and custom soundtracks makes this point redundant, once again i have been playing an Xbox racer to the soundtrack of Outrun (still the best racing OST yet released) - whats especially pleasing is that even custom soundtracks increase in volume/bass etc when you use your Boost.
The tracks are long enough to give interesting races, varied enough to never get boring and there is a multitude of them (something which some other arcade racers lack). they all look stunning and the locales are as good as anything you will see in both arcade and the more sim minded racers out there.
Traffic is included (lots of it) and the cpu AI is spot on - feels even better than the PS2 version which suffered from rubber-band AI the further you got into the game. For some reason i much more prefer to actually race against other cars rather than start at the back of the pack and work my way to first position - games which make you do this to me are little better than time trails, you know that if you do Lap A at XXXX time you will be in X position etc, whereas games in which you actually race against an AI which will do all it can to not only beat you but to beat the other AI drivers is truly a joy to behold.
everything runs at a rock solid 60fps - even in split screen mode
All in all Burnout 2 is a title which has dismantled the competition - no other arcade racer can currently match it for speed, adrenaline, excitement (blah blah blah)
camps
It takes everything thats good in the genre and pushes it forward in a package that it is next to perfection - Graphics to die for, sensation of speed which many of its rivals can't hope to match (unlock some of the better vehicles and then use your Boost ---- whoooosh), handling that is both instinctive and tight enough to throw your car drifting around corners --- all in all i can't see one negative aspect of this game
The soundtrack can be a bit bleh - but the addition of the Xbox HDD and custom soundtracks makes this point redundant, once again i have been playing an Xbox racer to the soundtrack of Outrun (still the best racing OST yet released) - whats especially pleasing is that even custom soundtracks increase in volume/bass etc when you use your Boost.
The tracks are long enough to give interesting races, varied enough to never get boring and there is a multitude of them (something which some other arcade racers lack). they all look stunning and the locales are as good as anything you will see in both arcade and the more sim minded racers out there.
Traffic is included (lots of it) and the cpu AI is spot on - feels even better than the PS2 version which suffered from rubber-band AI the further you got into the game. For some reason i much more prefer to actually race against other cars rather than start at the back of the pack and work my way to first position - games which make you do this to me are little better than time trails, you know that if you do Lap A at XXXX time you will be in X position etc, whereas games in which you actually race against an AI which will do all it can to not only beat you but to beat the other AI drivers is truly a joy to behold.
everything runs at a rock solid 60fps - even in split screen mode
All in all Burnout 2 is a title which has dismantled the competition - no other arcade racer can currently match it for speed, adrenaline, excitement (blah blah blah)
camps
Even though the online scoreboards are not proper online racing it still think it adds a lot to the game especially for the crash mode. I saw someone in my friends list had done 60 million damage on one of them so off i went big grin on my face for an hour trying beat it, great fun!
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