Last year’s Burnout 3 was a very popular game; it even showed up on many reviewers "best game" lists. It was the first Burnout game published by EA and from the EA Trax setting the stage to the still fantastic Xbox Live Crash mode, I continue to play the game to this day.

If you’re new to Burnout, let’s go over the basics. Burnout is a racing game that rewards aggressive driving. Crashing into other drivers is strongly encouraged. In addition to your speedy vehicle, you have a boost bar which is filled in many ways: by tailgating other cars, having ‘near misses’ with other vehicles, driving into oncoming traffic, getting ‘big air’ and by taking out other drivers. Each time you take out another driver your boost bar gets much larger. When you get taken out by another car, you lose boost.

The developers have added some new wrinkles to the game: first, traffic that is going in the same direction as you can be used as a weapon. That’s right – instead of an accident you will now bump these cars and send them flying – which makes for useful weapons if you have drivers ahead of you. I should caution you that only regular cars can be used --- if you try to bump a bus, you crash.

Next, during every event you play, you are now given a rating based your racing and crashing skill. Ratings can go from "OK" to "Perfect" depending on how you play and whether or not you pick up a medal. (You earn medals be hitting certain thresholds in the event – such as # of points, number of takedowns, etc). Each rating that you receive helps boost your ‘revenge rank’ – think of it as a skill level for Burnout. Every time you achieve a new rank, more things are unlocked.

Crashbreakers are now available during some race events. This can make races much more interesting – as if you’re in first and crash, you can explode your vehicle and hopefully take out some of your fellow competitors. I like this new feature quite a bit, however there is a problem: no one else has this ability but you. For example, if you’re in 4th place and #2 and #3 are trading paint and #2 gets taken out, #2 can’t use a crashbreaker on you. You still have to get out of the car’s way, but a crashbreaker can give you an unfair advantage on the other cars. Of course, it’s to your benefit, but still, it’s not really fair, is it?

There are also vertical takedowns – now you’ll be able to take jumps and attempt to land on your competitors. Now that is some fun stuff.

New Race events have been added to the game, such as a "test drive" and one of my new favorites, "Traffic Attack." During traffic attack, you start with a limited amount of time to take out vehicles. You earn cash and more time with each accident created. This mode is a blast.

Doesn’t this game sound just totally awesome? Well it is an excellent game but there is one area where the game has gone down a notch in the fun factor and that’s the crash mode. For some bizarre reason, your brake and accelerator in this mode have been replaced with a ‘launch bar.’ This launch bar is very similar to a three click golf swing meter. If you ‘over-rev’ at launch, you’ll blow your engine. If you don’t hit the green area on the bottom of the meter, you may stall your car. It’s rather useless in single player mode because you just replay the level again. Criterion has also removed the power up icons in this mode…so no more double or quadruple cash options are available.

World Tour mode now has seven different modes: race, traffic attack, burning lap, road rage, eliminator, preview, and grand prix. The AI drivers feel more competitive to me than before. They will try to take you out and they’ll be declared as 'rivals' during the game. You get extra boost when you take out a rival – after all, this is Burnout Revenge.

Gameplay hasn’t changed much in the regular modes. The sense of speed in this game is surreal. In many racing games, your speedometer shows 170 mph, but you sure don’t get that feeling of speed. That’s not a problem in Burnout 3: the way the cities go by you and the response of the vehicles really makes it feel like you’re going that fast. A subtle turn of the wheel at those speeds makes a huge difference while you’re racing. Yes, I love the sense of speed in this game.