The developers at Criterion Games are obviously very proud of their physics engine and its amazing ability to realistically simulate twenty-car pile-ups. While watching the replays, it's very easy to imagine these events happening on a highway near you. Tires and bumpers fly, windows smash, and eighteen-wheelers T-bone in super-detailed slow motion often resulting in huge piles of smashed steel. Impressive stuff - the first twenty times you see it.

Single-player gameplay comes in two forms, Championship and Crash Mode. Championship is basic circuit racing on multiple tracks each filled with plentiful pedestrian traffic. The action is extremely fast-paced, largely due to the paint-peeling turbo you can unleash when your meter is full. You fill the meter by performing all the techniques you perfected playing Crazy Taxi. If you've spent any time driving Sega's yellow cab, the idea of passing as close as possible to oncoming traffic will come naturally here.

Sounds fun right? Well it would be if the game didn't cut to a non-interactive crash sequence every time you bump into something with a bit of force. Not only are you unable to skip these sequences, you're forced to sit there and watch the residual effects as cars that tried to get out of the way cause their own accidents. Then, all of a sudden, your car is back on the track and it's time go accelerate to ludicrous speed once again. It's a jolting effect that steals all sense of immersion. Just when you start to get in a groove and the racing gets intense, you're pulled out of the action to watch a slow motion crash sequence that can last as long as ten seconds. By the time you get back to the racing all adrenaline is gone.

It wouldn't be so bad if this only happened during a full-fledged accident, but that's not the case. This game takes full advantage of every possible chance to cut to a crash scene. During one particularly tight race, I had to veer around a pedestrian vehicle in order to advance upon the leader. Overeager to get close, we bumped sides and my back end kicked out slightly. Instead of giving me the opportunity to brake or counter-steer to regain control of my vehicle, the game cut to a crash scene in which I got to helplessly watch my car slide fifty feet into a concrete wall.

I know I could have gotten out of that predicament without crashing, but the fact is the game never game me the opportunity to try. The control was taken out of my hands in order to remind me once again that Criterion Games has the capability to simulate one hell of a crash. Sadly this happens way too often, resulting in nothing but frustration. This is the fatal flaw with Burnout 2: style over substance. If I wanted to watch a car crash, I'd pop in a movie. Since this is a game, I want control over my vehicle at all times! That shouldn't be too much to ask.

The other single-player game, Crash Mode, is yet another excuse to force you to watch crash replays. At least in this mode it makes sense. You enter a course with the goal of quickly gaining speed and causing as much damage as possible in a single crash. This is fun for a bit, but you'll soon realize that the levels aren't very cleverly designed. If they were set up to truly optimize crashing possibilities, they would hold much longer lasting appeal. As it is, they are just small sections of normal tracks, making the whole experience seem a bit uninspired.

As for the audio/visual elements, the game definitely holds its own. It features attractively modeled and textured environments and vehicles. Rainy nighttime courses display impressive reflections and weather effects. More importantly, the game maintains a rock-solid frame rate while delivering a powerful sense of speed. Crash scenes are rendered with a blur filter, probably to hide some of the lower resolution roadside textures which aren't apparent at high speeds. Sound effects are quite realistic as glass shatters and tires squeal. The music ranges from techno to pop-metal, but it's always rather generic. Overall, it's an appealing package that never manages to be outright impressive.

Even so, in the long run it's hard to get past the fact that Burnout 2 is a game built solely upon a gimmick. This game is all about the crashes. Once you tire of that gimmick, and you will, what's remaining just isn't enough to warrant extended play. Burnout 2 is a great demonstration for the capabilities of the cross-platform Renderware middleware, but as a full-fledged racing game it falls flat.

· · · PBMaX