Burnout Legends review

I’ll tell you right away; since I got Burnout Legends for my PSP, all other racing games have not entered the UMD-slot, not even TOCA 2, or Colin McRae. Criterion’s remix of the old Burnout games quite simply amounts to the best racing game that has seen the light of day on Sony’s handheld.

Yes, you may burn

Burnout Legends features about two-thirds Burnout 3 and one third Burnout 1 and 2. This means that you get all the cool game modes from Burnout 3 such as Road Rage for instance and on top of that you also get old favourites such as Pursuit. All game modes run at an incredible speed showing what the PSP is capable of.

We’ll just recap for the uninitiated: Burnout is about racing, oh yes, but it’s also about racing as recklessly and brutally as you can. You can opt for a single race or go right into World Tour, where you’ll gradually unlock all the goodies of the game. Overall the game offers two major attractions; normal racing and the crash events, where the goal is to wreck as many vehicles as possible in a major traffic crash.

World Tour contains a total of 175 races. You can complete each race with either a gold, silver or bronze medal and while it’s easy getting the gold in the first 10 or 20 races the difficulty increases quickly and you’ll feel the pressure soon enough.

And that concludes our theory session

Burnout Legends is a breeze to learn – you push the accelerator, you brake (once in while) and hit the booster when you have it. The more dirty you drive the more boost you get, but the real fun comes from forcing your opponents into barriers or oncoming traffic – a concept introduced in Burnout 3 and implemented here on the PSP. The game has numerous rewards for being extra nasty, such as pushing an opponent into a truck or making them crash at certain points on the tracks.

In the Road Rage races the goal is thrashing the other cars and in my opinion it’s by far the most entertaining of the different game modes.

Even though Burnout Legends can’t match Burnout 3 in terms of graphics and arcade simulation, it still delivers entertaining crashes that almost become pure art.

An insurance salesman’s dream

Even though the explosions aren’t so flashy – and this is certainly noticeable in Crash Mode, which manages to force the PSP to its knees, the Crash Mode is still very well suited for the portable since it’s perfect for that quick fix two minutes before you have to get off the bus.

In Crash Mode, you’ll be presented with a small portion of a track that is crowded with traffic. The object is to hit as many vehicles as possible. The bigger the crash the more money you earn. Criterion has removed some of the bonus items that were present in Burnout 3 which means that in Legends you only need to concentrate on hitting the other cars – not on being super accurate in order to hit some small icon hovering in the air.

This is definitely the way to go in terms of gameplay as it makes Crash Mode more fun and less frustrating. As in Road Rage, you can control your car after you’ve crashed it and thereby hit even more vehicles.

A lot of friends = a lot of cars

The biggest plus of Burnout Legends is that it’s a great multiplayer game. I never managed to find adequate opposition for Burnout 3 but with Legends you just need another gamer with a PSP and then use Game Share for a quick race. Unfortunately it takes a long time uploading a demo to another PSP, so patience is a must.

But if you’re fortunate enough to know others who also have Legends it’s no hassle to fire up a multiplayer game with up to six players. On top of that there’s the added bonus of collecting the cars of your opponents. Each game comes with five out of 20 collector’s cars. By beating others in multiplayer you can get more of these special cars.

Burnout Legends is possibly the best looking PSP racing game we’ve seen so far. The sense of speed is brilliant, though you need to get some of the faster cars to really experience this. Actually the game is almost TOO fast for the small screen of the PSP. You have to pay very close attention to see the oncoming traffic before it’s too late. The only major letdown are the surroundings which are often very primitive. This seems to be true for all racing games currently out on the PSP, so maybe that’s one of the console’s weaknesses.

The frame rate also drops in Crash Mode when the music changes track, leaving an annoying break lasting about one second.

The sound portion is what you would expect from EA Trax with the staple rock and hip-hop tunes. There are 21 songs which is an impressive number to have on an UMD disc. Nevertheless I always prefer to drive without music.

The right stuff

Burnout Legends doesn’t offer any new concepts but it IS also a greatest hits of earlier Burnout games. Fans of the old games and newcomers alike will have loads of fun with this one. World Tour is a big challenge that can be frustratingly hard at times, but it secures the longevity of the game. Legends is easy to get started with and the concept of quick aggressive races is perfect for the PSP.

The few annoying bits don’t cloud the fact that Burnout Legends is a great game that will easily make you miss your bus stop for that extra car crash.


Source: Boomtown DK
English version by: Julian Henlov (Progrock)