The Burnout series has many great games in its library, and Burnout Dominator can be added to that list. While Burnout fans are anxiously awaiting the release of Burnout 5 for the next generation systems, this Burnout entry will satisfy all fans.

The theme of Burnout is simple. Take your car and battle race on tracks found around the world. As soon as you put in the game you’ll be greeted by a nice rockin’ intro while a lady with a sultry voice explains how to perform certain moves while you race, from power boosting, to drifting, you’ll learn all the basic moves in this little tutorial. For some weird reason you cannot bypass this, so if you want to continue where you left off, you have to watch it over and over again.

There are three main modes in Burnout Dominator, World Tour, Record Breaker, and Multiplayer. In World Tour, you have to achieve certain medals, (bronze, silver, or gold) to advance onto and unlock the next race. Achieve a certain number of points, and you will unlock tracks and bonus cars. The first few stages of this mode, are practice races to allow you to get accustomed to the certain moves found in the game. In one race all you have to do is score a bunch of points by drifting. Pressing the square button while moving left to right will let you achieve this goal.

In the next race, you have to drive like a maniac and score a certain number of points to advance. How do you drive like a maniac? Just picture all of those car crashes and cop chases you’ve seen on TV and you’ll get the idea. Driving on the wrong side of the road, playing “chicken” (drive like you’re about to hit an oncoming car, and then quickly move out of the way), drifting, and pressing the R1 button for your power boost will allow you achieve the goals set out for you. You have a meter in the lower left hand corner of the screen. This meter reminds me of an NFL Blitz or NBA Street Game breaker meter. Perform certain moves while in the race and the meter will slowly fill up with fire. Once the meter is filled up it will turn blue, and the player presses the R1 button to perform a speed boost. If you are able to drive in oncoming traffic, without either hitting cars, or barriers, you will multiply your points by having the meter automatically recharge. This will allow for some crazy combos and a ton of points.

If you do crash, you will see a slow cut scene of your crash, and by pressing the R1 button and the left analog control you will be able to “After touch” your car in the direction you want it to face in, so you can hit oncoming cars to make then crash as well. After you have unlocked races, you will then face off against other computer opponents while having to perform certain tasks within the race to advance.

Other modes within the game are regular race mode where you have to finish in 1st, Burning Lap mode where you do whatever you can to finish the race, Eliminator mode where the last car in each race gets eliminated, Rival Challenge where you complete goals in certain locations and each challenge is one of the above, and Dominator Challenge, which is unlocked once all four rival challenges are completed.

Record Breaker mode allows you to pick a stage and type of race and then race it, with the record being set by the player. Then other players can try to break the record held for each race. Multiplayer allows you to set up a race, and type of obstacles within the race, and then go head to head against another player. For some weird reason for some of the races you both have to use the same controller, one after the other. I don’t know why this is, because at first I thought my controller was broken, and then I found out each race is different. Driver Details allows you to see your game completion progress, the events completed, your dominator points, and takedowns and near misses.