Burnout Dominator Hands-On Preview

Even as we've fully transitioned into the now current generation of consoles, Sony's PlayStation 2--the oldest of the post-Dreamcast last generation machines--has remained remarkably strong both in hardware and software sales, with the machine generally keeping towards the top of the hardware charts month after month. It is then little surprise that developers have continued to support the machine (and its 100+ million owners) far more than its comparitively quickly dropped competitors. Multiplatform publisher Electronic Arts is of course no exception. Despite having a full new sequel to Criterion's Burnout series of destruction-laced racers in the works for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, the company is letting EA UK take a bit of a detour to do one final lap on the platform where the series made its start, as well as on its portable cousin, the PSP. During a recent EA press event I had the opportunity to go hands on with the PS2 version of game and speak with EA rep Bryce Baer about some of Burnout Dominator's details and how it fits into the Burnout series. Burnout Dominator isn't a full fledged new series entry, it's in some ways a glance back at an earlier point in the franchise's evolution before Burnout the franchise's main evolution continues with Burnout 5, in whatever form that may be. "If you've played past Burnout games, you know that particularly from [Burnout] 2 to [Burnout] Revenge, the destruction element had been continually ratcheted up," explained Baer, but Criterion wanted to try and get back to an approach where crashing is more deadly and the game is focused on maintaining those ridiculous Burnout speeds as long as possible. "They wanted to return to a a more pure racing game," he said. To that end, traffic checking has been removed. Added in between Burnout 3: Takedown and Burnout Revenge, traffic checking allowed players to quickly fill their boost meter by fairly indiscriminately plowing into other traffic. After having gotten extremely accustomed to trying to be the most reckless and maniacal driver on the road in Revenge, it did feel somewhat odd to be a little more defensive in Dominator. The move is likely to have a strong contingent

of supporters who felt that the feature's initial addition harmed the franchise in the first place. Criterion wanted to return more to the dynamic of Burnout 3, in which blazing through traffic at ludicrous speeds means players have their adrenaline rushing because of the close calls, not because they're easily smacking everything else on the road around. Continuing the theme, there is no longer a Crash mode, a series mainstay since Burnout 2: Point of Impact that had players drive straight into a crash situation in an attempt to cause the most impressive pileup and rack up the most damage money. That said, takedowns are still a major part of the game, and the takedown-centric Road Rage mode returns, challenging players to achieve a certain set number of takedowns before any of their competitors can. It is definitely stil possible to be very aggressive with your takedowns. You'll also still be building up boost in the rest of the normal ways, including by performing those takedowns, driving on the wrong side of the road, having very close calls with opposing traffic, maintaining big air, and so on. Plus, with Dominator's particular focus, boost is even more crucial than in more recent games, and so the series' namesake move, the Burnout, is coming back. Burnouts are achieved when you manage to blow through a fully stocked boost meter, without interruption. These methods are highlighted in the new-to-Dominator Maniac mode, which has players attempting to receive a set number of points in a limited amount of time by chaining as many driving award combos and Burnouts together as possible, to demonstrate raw driving skill. Since now you'll need to use up your existing supply of boost before you can earn more--rather than simply be constantly refuelling it at nearly all times--it becomes more precious than ever. Somewhat surprisingly, Burnout Dominator features both new tracks and new cars. As with the rest of the games in the series, the cars are all fictional, but they do look quite nice as usual. It must be noted that the Renderware-powered game is surprisingly attractive on the aging PlayStation 2 hardware.

Years of experience have given many developers a hefty bag of tricks to keep squeezing just a bit more graphical fidelity out of the modest black box, but Criterion's tech is pretty close to the top of the heap in that department. Everything looks very crisp--and, when it comes to the finish on the cars, shiny--and runs at a consistently smooth framerate. Commenting on further reasons for the game ending up on PS2, beyond the obvious market-related factors, Baer pointed out, "They know the hardware inside and out, and they thought it still had a [Burnout] game left in it." As for the PSP version, I did not get any firsthand playtime. The PlayStation 2 version of Burnout Dominator unfortunately does not feature any kind of online functionality, though it does of course support local split-screen as well as hot seat play. The PSP version of the game will go online with its "Score Sync" feature--essentially online score leaderboards--and will also support local wireless multiplayer for up to six simultaneous players. Burnout Dominator doesn't really come off as an essential-to-all entry in the series, as it comes between two major "numbered" entries (pretend "Revenge" means "4" because otherwise "Burnout 5" doesn't make any sense). That said, unlike many such apparent stopgap games, it does feel like it has a very clearly defined reason for existing, and is likely to appeal to many fans of the series that were dismayed with the crash-heavy direction the series has gone over its last few entries. Those who don't need a full generational leap but are pining for a more fundamentally racing-oriented Burnout experience are likely to be more than happy with Dominator when it ships this March. Electronic Arts plans to ship EA UK's Burnout Dominator in North America on March 6, 2007.