NOW PLAYING: BURNOUT 3: TAKEDOWN

Note from 716: Since I’m running later this month than Britney Spears’ period (would that be a \"Speariod\"?), I\'m turning over the honors of \"Player One\" status to my highly unstable co-conspirator, Das Bork. Do me proud, you lunatic, while I try to figure out when the hell my deadline is. I\'ll be back later.

Player One: The Letter \"Bork\"

EA Games proves once again to be a reliable game company with the release of Burnout 3: Takedown. This is one fiercely intense, action-packed, blisteringly high-speed racing game. Phew!

Now, allow me to declare this game\'s awesomeness....

For me, racing games are sometimes hard to get into. They have the habit of pissing me off, due to the fact that they can be extremely difficult and highly competitive. Burnout 3, however, offers that competitiveness, but gives players many different ways that they can win, so that it\'s not frustrating. For one thing, there are many different types of racing games to choose from, such as: Race, Road Rage, Face-Off, Elimination, and Crash.

My favorite is Road Rage! Dear, sweet cadets of carnage, Road Rage is freaking amazing! You drive your car of fury against countless competitors and the whole point is to run as many of these assholes off the road before time runs out! This mode offers plenty of stress relief if you have been playing more difficult game modes like Face-Off.

Not only is this game fun to play, but it also looks godly! The graphics are as good as Grand Turismo\'s. So much detail... And the blur effects are beautiful! It\'s hard to pull off blurs without them becoming annoying. Plus, this game\'s good looks show off its main feature: the realistic crashes. When you crash, you can hit the R1 button to slow down time and watch shrapnel and parts fly out past the camera. Also, while you do that, you can direct where you car moves through space with the D-pad, allowing you to land your car onto rivals and take them out! Crashing your own car can actually be a benefit to you!

Lastly, I have to mention Crash Mode. This is this game\'s claim to fame. This game mode\'s whole point is to launch you car at Mach 5 into oncoming traffic and cause as much damage as possible! There are a hundred different maps of these! Damn! My only criticism is that they happen so quickly that the loading time becomes a pain in the ass when you want to keep trying it over again.

I wasn\'t really all that stoked about this game when I got it, but from playing it, I have found it will give me many hours of destruction, love, death, sadness, joy, pain, lust, sausages, children, and, uhh, fun, too.

Player Two: Late Member #716

Wow, Bork. That was an informative and insightful review. You feeling okay?

After spending about a half-hour with this game, I was getting ready to give it a bad review. Like The Bork said above, Burnout 3\'s graphics are nothing short of sublime. But it seemed like the developers were too in love with their own visuals, making the game stop and spin around in slow-motion anytime any of the beautifully-rendered crashes occurred. Sure, it\'s cool to watch yourself crash in slow-mo, since by that point you\'ve already fucked up and it doesn\'t matter that you can\'t see the road ahead. But having the camera whip around to showcase the crash of a rival car that you\'ve aggressively forced into a guardrail only makes you lose your bearings, so that you\'re not prepared for that sharp turn twenty feet ahead when the camera finally pans back around to your position.

Fortunately, the developers had the foresight to include the slow-mo \"Disorient-O-Cam\" as an option you can switch off if you\'re so inclined. And once you do that, this game has to be the undisputed best racer I\'ve played. Burnout 3 perfectly illustrates why extremely detailed option menus should be a requirement in every game, and not just an added bonus. Not having to deal with the confusing camera has saved my ass too many times to count.

Seriously, this game is so fast, you simply can\'t afford the momentary distraction the slow-mo provides. Hell, this is one of the few games where you can’t afford to have someone walk between you and the TV! Once you start weaving through oncoming traffic (which fuels your boost meter, making you go even faster), all coherent thought evaporates, and the game becomes an exercise of the reflexes. You don\'t have time to marvel at slowly-spinning chunks of shrapnel. You can’t look away from the screen for even a fraction of a second. Blinking becomes a luxury saved only for straightaways. It\'s intense.

And the different game modes are a welcome shot of variety in what could have been just a straightforward get-to-the-finish-line-first type of game. I definitely have to put in my two cents about Crash Mode, in which you try to cause the biggest and most expensive wreck possible. It really becomes a puzzle game at that point; finding the precise spot to put your car (in order to start a chain of pile-ups) plays almost like a 230-mph game of Tetris, and can often leave you pondering how to reach the required dollar amount.

If you’re even remotely interested in racing games, cars, or watching shit blow up, Burnout 3 deserves to be at the top of your short list of ones to buy. Nothing else is even close.