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[Lakitu]

I haven't got time to type out the whole review for you but here is the verdict:

"Uppers:

>Best at speed
>Best at spectacle
>Best at crashes
>Best at style

Downers:

>Real cars would've been nice
>Indie rock may annoy
>Smug DJ certainly will
>Just buy it, okay?

Graphics: You've never seen such gorgeousness | 10
Sounds: Scintillating crash sounds are second to none | 9
Gameplay: The best arcade racer on PS2 to date | 10

OVERALL SCORE

Just when we're swamped with tasty looking car games, along comes Burnout 3 to raise the bar so damn high, we can't see any of them catching up. Sell your liver for £40, limp to the shops and buy it.

10"

Also a cool quote from it, "Burnout 3 is better than Jesus and faster than God. It's more beautiful than your wife and more precious than your children. It's quite simply the best racing game we've ever played."

BTW, is it illegal to post a link to the UK scans? I won't do so for now, so if you want a link to 'em, then by all means PM me, although I'll need to be dashing off soon.

 

[Matlock]

Has to be a moneyhat!

Spoiler

Gonna wait until Christmas to play this bad boy.

 

[Wario64]

EA is paying off UK reviewers I see

 

[shuri]

Gameplay: The best arcade racer on PS2 to date | 10

Enter the Gran Turismo fanatics!

 

[Wario64]

Enter the Gran Turismo fanatics!

Gran Turismo isn't an arcade racer

 

[Solid]

What other games has got a 10 at PSW? Formula One 2001 is the only one I know of.

 

[Matlock]

Nor is it the best racer.

 

[shuri]

You screwed everything up! damn you

 

[Solid]

Official gamesite: http://burnout3.ea.com/

 

[Defensor]

Nor is it the best racer.

Because Forza will be.

 

[Dekajelly]

What other games has got a 10 at PSW? Formula One 2001 is the only one I know of.

Burnout 2 I'm calling money hats

Also:

Gran Turismo 3
Pro Evolution Soccer 2
Medal Of Honor: Frontline
Devil May Cry
Soul Calibur 2
Grand Theft Auto Vice City

These are out of issue 44.

 

[Doom_Bringer]

They call themsevles the PS2 experts and they screw us over with this ea trax bullshit! Why doesn't the PS2 version have custom mp3 support? Now i will have to play without music

 

[atomsk]

Official gamesite: http://burnout3.ea.com/

"full site coming soon" BOO

i want wallpapers

 

[Solid]

"full site coming soon" BOO

i want wallpapers

Just choose UK and the real site is there.

 

[chespace]

best arcade racer ever, worst soundtrack ever. and no, having one franz ferdinand and one ramones song doesn't make it better.

you can't rip your own soundtrack on xbox, so be prepared to play sans music.

edit: also, i finally got my copy of outrun 2 yesterday. after about 2 weeks of non-stop burnout, i have to say outrun 2 plays pitiful in comparison, both in terms of speed, and intensity.

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http://chespace.1up.com

 

[Matlock]

Because Forza will be.

No, Burnout 3.

best arcade racer ever, worst soundtrack ever. and no, having one franz ferdinand and one ramones song doesn't make it better.

you can't rip your own soundtrack on xbox, so be prepared to play sans music.

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http://chespace.1up.com

What the hell? I thought they just said the title had custom soundtracks not more than a week ago!

 

[Black_Mamba]

The Burnout hype is out of control.

 

[Rodriguez]

you can't rip your own soundtrack on xbox, so be prepared to play sans music.

WTF? That's bullshit.

 

[teepo]

does the ps2 version support the new gt wheel?

 

[IJoel]

best arcade racer ever, worst soundtrack ever. and no, having one franz ferdinand and one ramones song doesn't make it better.

you can't rip your own soundtrack on xbox, so be prepared to play sans music.

edit: also, i finally got my copy of outrun 2 yesterday. after about 2 weeks of non-stop burnout, i have to say outrun 2 plays pitiful in comparison, both in terms of speed, and intensity.

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http://chespace.1up.com

You sure of that? Hil from IGN confirmed the game has custom soundtracks.

 

[Wario64]

I don't know man, I wouldn't believe IGN....everyone else has said no custom soundtracks

Unless it was just recent, then I don't know

I'm not following the Burnout 3 hype

 

[Red Dolphin]

Dissapointing news about the music. Burnout 1 had pretty bad music anyway and didn't stop me from enjoying it. Burnout 2 had pretty generic rock music but I quite enjoyed how the music got really intense and loud as your were using a burnout. Does Burnout 3 have the music volume increase as you use a burnout? That made a huge difference imo. I also liked the effect they used in the first game where the music was muted and it sounded like a heart beat or pulse.

Man I can't wait to play this.

 

[atomsk]

no custom soundtracks?

HULK SMASH!!!!!!!!!

FUCK YOU EA! FUCK YOU!

and those wallpapers are pretty ass compared to the BO2 ones

 

[WasabiKing]

They call themsevles the PS2 experts and they screw us over with this ea trax bullshit! Why doesn't the PS2 version have custom mp3 support? Now i will have to play without music

I'd put the blame squarely on SCEA for not pushing HDD support, or developing a middleware tool that all companies can use...

 

[Lazy8s]

chespace:

after about 2 weeks of non-stop burnout, i have to say outrun 2 plays pitiful in comparison, both in terms of speed, and intensity.

OutRun 2 doesn't build its intensity through the same crash-em-up mechanics. Rather, it's all about using great drifting and acceleration to slice through traffic, cutting it as close as possible for extra bonus, while crossing the world from seasides to deserts.

 

[Ninja Scooter]

chespace:

Rather, it's all about using great drifting and acceleration to slice through traffic, cutting it as close as possible for extra bonus,

call me crazy, but thats EXACTLY what Burnout's intensity in the gameplay comes from.

 

[ypo]

Lazy8s
Christ I'm Stupid III:

 

[D2M15]

you can't rip your own soundtrack on xbox, so be prepared to play sans music.

Yes, you can, but it's not particularly intuitive. Go to the music playlist, select "EA Trax", and then toggle to one of your pre-prepared custom soundtracks.

 

[seismologist]

Im still more interested in Outrun 2. I find the crashes in burnout to be annoying.

 

[jett]

Lazy8s
Christ I'm Stupid III

Indeed. Lazytard, just get out of threads you don't know shit about.

 

[Blimblim]

You sure of that? Hil from IGN confirmed the game has custom soundtracks.

No custom soundtracks in the copy I played either. Maybe it will be in the final game though.
And that stupid track name annoucement banner ON TOP of the burnout meter is just the worst idea ever. That and that horrible horrible DJ. No idea how annoying he is in english, but in french he's just the worst thing ever talking out of my sound system. Thankfully you can turn it off.
B3 is an amazing game, but the Electronic Arts "polish" (notice the "") is just wrong and stupid.

 

[Blimblim]

Yes, you can, but it's not particularly intuitive. Go to the music playlist, select "EA Trax", and then toggle to one of your pre-prepared custom soundtracks.

Hmmm, maybe I did not try that then.

 

[BeOnEdge]

XBOX does have custon soundtracks.

 

[bishoptl]

Who to believe? High falutin' game magazine industry insider or slightly anonymous internet guy?

oh decisions

I'll wait until one of you guys has the finished Xbox copy in your hands before I decide...

 

[Warm Machine]

One thing that EA is better at than Acclaim is actually pushing this game!

At least it is getting press and people are aware of it. Burnout 2 needed this kind of exposure!

 

[Blimblim]

Who to believe? High falutin' game magazine industry insider or slightly anonymous internet guy?

oh decisions

I'll wait until one of you guys has the finished Xbox copy in your hands before I decide...

Ok just asked my friend to check it, and it's indeed in there. Once in the EA Trax menu you have to press X to go to the next soundtrack and select the musics on your hard drive. Hardly intuitive but at least it's in there
Yeah I'm one of these anonymous internet guys, sorry

 

[IgeL]

I'm playing Xbox review code atm... and yes, the custom soundtrack is where it's described to be. Quite weird to hide it under EA Trax, though. (And I don't find the original music that bad either.)

The DJ is horrible though, and he has only a few lines. Why couldn't they have recorded like hundreds? :8

The absolute worst thing in Burnout 3 is the load times. I mean sure they aren't more than 3 seconds (Xbox), but when you're retrying Crash events, you'd really want to skip that stupid DJ "presentation" (it's good to watch once, because it shows the pick-ups). When a crash is finished, you have to 1) wait for the status screen (a few secs), 2) select Retry (not immediately responsive), 3) Select "yes", 4) Wait 3 secs (loading), 5) Press A to skip DJ presentation, 6) Wait 3 secs (loading), 7) Press A to "skip" award targets, 8) Wait for the 3 second countdown, 9) Burrrrrn.

I think that's 8 too many steps. Simply mindboggling why it has to be that way, especially since it would not bother anyone (i.e. casuals) if one button was assigned to quick restart (without losing scores, like you do if select "Restart" from the pause menu).

Other than that and some bugs (like Profile being messed up, and some smaller annoyances), Burnout 3 is fucking awesome. Takedown, baby.

 

[Blimblim]

IAWTP
I already complained somewhere else about these awful awful load times in crash mode. This already was one of my few complaints in B2 (especially in 4 players hot seat mode), and I was really hoping they would have done something about it. But noooooooooo they actually made it even worse !

 

[rastex]

D'oh... I knew I should have brought this up to the Criterion guys when I met them.

 

[Doom_Bringer]

I'd put the blame squarely on SCEA for not pushing HDD support, or developing a middleware tool that all companies can use...

God I hate SCEA! Die you mofos

 

[Prine]

Killer online app. Go Criterion

 

[Mrbob]

Custom tracks in, now I can buy this game.

Funny how one of the reasons Criterion partnered with EA was for the music selection. And it selection sucks ass. Anyway as long as I can put in my own music I'll be happy. This will be my first Burnout game (Played Burnout 2 for like 10 minutes once) so I hope its good!

 

[B E N K E]

BO3 certainly has a massive wow-factor. It's a bit like screwing a stupid but very beautiful woman. It's great but you tend to get bored and long for another one pretty soon. Out Run 2 is too faithful to the original imo. A bit too shallow and weird handling. Ahh well, I'm not too much into racing games anyway.

 

[TekunoRobby]

Goddamn atleast do some proper research before you announce any 'lack' of features that EA themselves say is in the game.

 

[Ronin]

Sahara Hotnights are on the soundtrack. Yay.

 

[D2M15]

Who to believe? High falutin' game magazine industry insider or slightly anonymous internet guy?

Man, I stop posting on the forum for a few months and my credibility just slips away. TEH HUMANITIES!!!!1

Sahara Hotnights are on the soundtrack.

Yay! But sadly it doesn't work well with the game - none of the tracks do, even the ones you think really should. I think it's the first time EA's spectacularly misjudged a sound treatment (DJ included).

 

[GaimeGuy]

Somehow, I doubt that Burnout 3 is faster than, say, F-Zero GX.

 

[skip]

Somehow, I doubt that Burnout 3 is faster than, say, F-Zero GX.

no, but within its own context, it's hard to tell the difference.

 

[Drexon]

Sahara Hotnights are on the soundtrack. Yay.

These gals actually don't live far from me, and I live far from everything. They're from the super sticks! Northern Northern Sweden. (village of ~4000).

 

[chespace]

hmm, i'll have to try the customized soundtrack thing when i get back to the office on monday. i could have -sworn- you couldn't use your own... but if it is indeed an interface so hidden and obscure, i'm sure most people wouldn't bother. i mean, i guess that is the point of EA Trax... they want people to listen to their tripe. thankfully, i didn't really have room to bitch about the soundtrack in my review.

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http://chespace.1up.com