Burnout 5

I innocentedly rented Burnout 3 a couple years ago. I think I read on Penny Arcade that it was fun.

Something inside me changed that day. I became a firm believer in not only crashing cars but also that Xbox Live is awesome. Burnout Revenge was even better, and even though I hated the DS entry, I still looked forward to a next Burnout. The pilot episode of Powet.TV was me gushing for over 20 minutes about Revenge. Don’t look for it, I wisely never posted it. I’m a Burnout fan and when I meet people who are not Burnout fans I can only assume its because they’ve not played the game and therefore are unaware of the awesome they are missing. Or, it’s because they are stupid.

1up has a preview of Burnout 5 on PS3 and Xbox 360. The game promises to use the Revenge feature from the last game and implement it into the multiplayer in a much bigger way and also into the single player. Oh yeah, Burnout is going for an open world this time. I don’t know if I like that, but as long as the races are nuts and the crash courses are deep and I can still use non-racer traffic like ballistics, I’ll be happy. Oh, they’re also bringing back all the goofy cars and trucks from Burnout 3 instead of focusing on just race cars.

Theres very little to show from the game now, but considering how good the previous games looked on PS2, theres little doubt they’ll blow away Motorstorm. And the new physics engine controlling everything (not just your car) definitely should yeild some more interesting crashes. Release date is set for summer, which is just the kind of excuse I need to stay inside when the weather is actually hospitable in Wisconsin.

Oh, and the series will continue on PSP and PS2 since that console still has some life left in it. Burnout: Dominator will be out in March. Dominator is being developed in house by EA and not the series creators Criterion Games, so it’s hard to say if it will offer any innovation or just more tracks. Either way, anyone who didn’t make the next-gen jump will have a pretty good game to play.