After making an
uneventful entry into the driving genre with the futuristic
X-Car: Experimental Racing, it seemed that Bethesda Softworks
would be a one-time only entry in the competitive field of motor
sports simulations. But with the help of the folks at Hot Rod
Magazine, Bethesda is back with a sophomore effort putting the
hammer down with Burnout: Championship Drag Racing -- a
simulation based on the world of sportsman class drag racing. Yep,
you heard right, drag racing. Ordinarily, we’d ask our readers to be
open-minded about such things, but there’s simply no point beating
around the bush on this one: if you think drag racing is about as
much fun as watching paint dry, Burnout will do little to
change your mind. However, if you’re one of the thousands of the
hopeless shade-tree mechanics in the world who dream of hopping up
the daily driver and taking it out to the local drag strip for a few
sub-seven second runs, Burnout should be right up your alley.
Much like
real-world drag racing, the core gameplay of Burnout is based
on two simple ideas: tooling down the track at insane speeds and
building and fine-tuning a race-worthy car. In both respects,
Burnout delivers without a hitch. While most modern racing
games allow you to tinker with settings through a predefined range,
in Burnout, you’re given free reign to customize every aspect
of your car through an intuitive interface comprised of pull-down
menus and graphs. There are literally hundreds of things to
consider: engine size, number of cylinders, intake and exhaust valve
size, compression ratios, timing, tire size, exhaust diameter... you
get the idea. Muscle car aficionados will also appreciate the detail
that’s gone into making sure all the parts and pieces are accurate
-- all the classic big block and small block motors are in, as are
popular transmissions and rear-end ratios.
Once you’ve
built a car, Burnout keeps pace with believable results on
the track. Both the software-rendered and the 3Dfx-enhanced graphics
do a great job of showing off the power and performance of these
cars with lots of subtle visual effects: Tires distort, sparks fly,
and smoke chokes the track during pre-race burnouts. Under hardware
acceleration the art and graphics are not quite up to par compared
to most 3Dfx-enabled games, but chances are you’ll rarely have time
to notice. Drag racing is a fast and demanding sport that requires
total concentration, and keeping these powerful beasts on the
straight and narrow isn’t nearly as easy as it might seems. As you
apply more horses to your car, its characteristics can change subtly
or dramatically, leading to unpredictable results on the track. The
result is a constant give and take between tweaking and refining
your car and testing it on the track in quick, adrenaline-pumping
runs.
While you’ll get
the most out of the game if you buy into the concept of constantly
tweaking and refining your car to compete against cars of the same
class, it’s possible to bypass the garage and head straight for the
track by entering bracket racing competitions. In bracket racing,
you select an estimated time based on your practice runs, and
attempt to meet that time -- usually within a few hundredths of a
second -- without going under. This style of race allows cars like
dragsters and funny cars to race against slower street rods. But
it’s also much trickier than it sounds. If you’ve padded your
estimated time with a few 10ths of a second, you’ll have to be
careful not to outrun your E.T., or you’ll lose by default. If
there’s a tie, the win goes to the player who was fastest off the
light.
Additionally,
you can set the game for a quick race against a random car, or
engage in a complete season against up to 64 computer-controlled
cars. While the computer cars are good for honing your performance
off the line, the best way to play Burnout is against
like-minded grease monkeys online via the built-in modem, LAN, and
Internet support. Though Mplayer support was still under
construction at the time of this review (though it should be up by
the time you read this), there’s already an official Burnout
racing league at www.armageddon-gaming.com/SHRA/ planning scheduled
races.
While the
concept of drag racing on your PC is a bit ridiculous if you think
about it for too long, Bethesda has made a very strong case in its
defense. If you’re the least bit interested in drag racing and don’t
mind getting your hands dirty under the hood, Burnout is a
surprisingly solid and enjoyable game that will stay on your hard
drive for some time to come. |
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