  The smash 'em, crash 'em carnage of 'Burnout Legends'. |
If you’re looking for a great racing game on the PSP, I can guarantee you won’t have to look very far. In a genre already crowded with amazing titles such as 'Ridge Racer', 'Midnight Club 3' and 'Wipeout Pure', Criterion Games has created a portable version of its universally popular high-speed and crash-heavy racer, 'Burnout'. 'Burnout Legends' for the PSP was released concurrently with 'Burnout Revenge', however unlike its home console counterpart, 'Legends' is not a true sequel. Instead, 'Burnout Legends' is more of a compilation, taking the best parts of 'Burnout' 1, 2 and 3 and combining them into an all new racing experience.
The 'Burnout' series’ claim to fame has always been its incredibly high speed racing, as well as its focus on over-the-top crashes and aggressive arcade style driving. None of what made the previous games so great has been lost in its transition onto the PSP. 'Legends' provides almost the exact same sense of speed and mayhem that can be found on either the Xbox or PS2 versions. While some of the graphical quality and effects had to be toned down for release on the less powerful PSP, at over 200mph it can be very hard to tell the difference.
'Legends' provides a standard set of game modes, allowing you to run a quick single event, challenge your friends in multiplayer, or work your way through a series of events and unlock new vehicles in the World Tour mode. The events in Legends are split into two distinct categories, race mode and crash mode. In crash mode players are directed towards an intersection full of traffic and tasked with causing the most mayhem possible by crashing into anything and everything and tallying a damage total. While the game provides an impressive 100 levels for you to try, crash mode is not the most fun to be had in 'Legends'. Moderate load times for each level inhibit the fun in a event which often takes less than 15 seconds to complete. Crash mode is best left to just letting your friends fool around with.
Race mode, which is further broken down into different race types, is by far the more robust gameplay experience. Your options for racing are running a single car one-lap time trial, a standard four car sprint to the finish line, an elimination-style event where after each lap the last place racer is retired, as well as the takedown oriented Road Rage and Pursuit modes. In Road Rage and Pursuit, your goal is no longer making it to the finish line as fast as possible, but instead attempting to crash or ‘takedown’ opponent cars within a time limit. In Road Rage you ‘race’ against 3 opponents and try to take them down as many times as possible, with goals as high as 25 takedowns in a 3 minute race. In Pursuit mode you must take down a single target car that is usually much more resilient and resourceful than a standard opponent.
What separates the Burnout from the rest its racing kin is its unparalleled sense of speed. No other game manages to convey the sheer terror of tearing through traffic at 200mph. Wipeout Pure and Ridge Racer, no slouches in the realm of speed, appear to stand still in comparison. Even the lowliest of cars feels like a rocket when racing in Legends. Unfortunately all that speed can be a lot for the PSP to handle at times, as a few sections of track can elicit a noticeable frame rate drop, and many tracks have texture seams that are quite noticeable, especially when racing in slower classes.
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The music in 'Legends' does a nice job of keeping the tempo up and inspiring an urge for speed. Twenty-one tracks are provided on the soundtrack, which features alt-rock bands such as Billy Talent, MXPX and Pennywise. As usual, your tastes will determine if the selections made by EA were good ones. At first I found the tracks to be a little too rock-heavy for my taste, but after a few hours of playing they started to grow on me and I quickly found myself singing along while playing.
The multiplayer experience in Legends is also-top notch, with one exception. Being one of only a handful of games that supports the Gameshare feature, I was very eager to try it out. I was disappointed to find that it was almost unplayable. Transferring data before races took upwards of two minutes, which dramatically cuts the playability. However, if you have friends that own their own copies of Burnout Legends then you are good to go. The gameplay stands up well in ad hoc multiplayer, and provides the same white-knuckle experience of single player, except with 3 of your closest friends.
Even if you already own one of the multitudes of racing games for the PSP, 'Burnout' Legends is definitely a title which you need to add to your collection. With its wide variety of vehicles, numerous tracks and racing modes and its undeniably addictive sense of speed, Burnout Legends is by far the best racing experience to be had on the PSP.
WHAM! Rating: |
9 out of 10 |
ESRB Rating: |
E 10+ (Everyone 10+) |
Official Web Site: |
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