Burnout 3: Takedown

September 15,2004 -

First, EA acquainted you to the series with Burnout. Then, in 2002, they introduced the highly acclaimed Crash mode packaged with many other features that could be found in Burnout 2: Point of Impact, and finally, they crash us back into the asphalt with Burnout 3: Takedown, which sports all the great features of its predecessor and so much more. This ultimately shapes Takedown into being one of, if not the best, of all racing games this year. After the acquisition of the franchise by Electronic Arts, Takedown began racing down the production line and with each new bit of information, it seemed that EA and developer Criterion Games were delivering everything fans of the series had hoped and wished for.

Burnout 3: Takedown, as its title suggests, focuses on the newly introduced, aggressive way to handle your competitors' eagerness to overtake you in a race. Takedowns require you to smash, slam, and bash your rivals into any and all obstacles on the race track, from guardrails to pillars and even to other cars on the road. One game mode that fully makes use of this feature is Road Rage, which will be touched upon later. However, it doesn't end there; Criterion added yet another new way to cause unbridled havoc on the road: Aftertouch. After you crash, if you activate Aftertouch, you slow down time and enter 'impact time' in which you can guide your wreck into your other rivals, causing an Aftertouch Takedown. Successfully executing these moves will result in you being awarded boost for your car. However, you can also fill your boost bar by driving through oncoming traffic, experiencing near-collisions, drifting, or catching air. There are even Signature Takedowns which are specific to each race track, such as the Pillar Driver or the Avalanche which you will be awarded with a photo of in return. One thing that must be noted and remembered while playing Takedown is the unforgiving AI. Criterion has created some of the most ruthless NPCs known in arcade racing history. In some games you may not feel that going all out will be necessary, but bringing that attitude into Burnout 3 would be your first and last mistake as your car is shattered between a rival and track obstacle. However, once you receive your first Takedown, courtesy of the cutthroat AI, you will attain a certain sense of blood thirst and every Takedown you acquire will feel like an accomplishment worth sharing with the world.

Takedown offers players to try their hand at slew of different game modes that span from single race events to the game's career mode, which takes you across three different continents: the US, Europe, and the Far East. In the career mode, which is entitled 'Burnout 3 World Tour,' you use the 'Crash Nav' event map which allows you to choose an event to take part in within that zone. The events that you can take part in are races, grand prix, eliminator, face off, road rage, burning lap, and special events. Races are self explanatory and simply require you to come in first; Grand Prix is a series of races in which you are awarded GP points. At the end of the tournament your points are totaled and the person with the highest number of GP points is the winner; eliminator is similar to Need For Speed Underground's lap knockout in which the person in last place at the end of each lap is eliminated, and with a max of six racers, you do the math; Face Off pits you one-on-one against a computer controlled challenger in an attempt to win their car, which will then be unlocked to use in all game modes; Road Rage challenges you to Takedown a set number of rival racers within a certain time period; Burning Lap is essentially time attack in which you are given a car and must complete the race within a given time, the later the finish time, the further less chance you have at winning gold, silver, or even bronze; and finally, Special Events are presented to you when you are awarded enough gold medals to be invited to one.

As aforementioned, a few of these game modes extend to the game's single race events, such as Race, Time Attack, Road Rage, and the popular Crash mode. The Crash mode has actually gotten a few new additions, like the icon pickups that range from instant boost, cash bonuses, cash multipliers, Heartbreakers, which cut your final crash dollar total in half, and a Crashbreaker which instantly bursts your car into flames and scores you a few extra crash dollars.

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