Burnout Legends for PSP Reviews & Ratings by IGN

Though Criterion and EA are launching the newest console version of the Burnout franchise this week as well in Burnout Revenge, the first PSP outing of the series isn't a port of Revenge but rather a "best of" of the series' past. Taking most of its gameplay elements from the excellent Burnout 3: Takedown and mixing in elements of the original Burnout and its sequel, Burnout 2: Point of Impact, Burnout Legends looks to offer a fresh experience for those who haven't played the series' previous titles while giving gamers a reason to pick up both Burnout Legends and Revenge.

Mix It Up

As mentioned, Burnout Legends relies heavily on the gameplay and driving style of Burnout 3: Takedown. The battling Takedown-based driving of BO3 makes up the core driving experience, Aftertouch and all, though the game features cars, tracks and even modes from the first two games in the series. For instance, Pursuit is back from Burnout 2 as are the cop cars that you'll unlock for beating them. Fans of the Cop Car from Burnout 2 will be pleased to know that there are not one but six black-and-white vehicles, including an F1-based cop car. Sirens never sounded as good as they do at 200 mph.

The mix of tracks, vehicles and modes from the original three games for the most part does well in putting a fresh coat of paint on what is largely Burnout 3: Takedown. We're fans of many of the tracks in Burnout 2, like Airport Terminal 1 & 2 and Big Surf Shores for example, so seeing those in Legends is great. These tracks work very well in adapting to Burnout 3's fast-as-lightning and violent-as-hell driving style as well, which is perfect. It's almost as if they were designed for Takedowns one game before that element was added to the series.

The Harbour Town course from the original Burnout doesn't fair so well, however. While the tracks from Burnout 2 and 3 were designed with the intent of flying around banks at high speeds without punishing you for keeping your foot on the gas at all times, Harbour Town is much less forgiving. We're not strictly complaining about the course's short and sharp 90-degree turns (what are brakes?), but rather a few other sections that seem to punish us for driving like the series has taught us to. For example, there's one straightaway that leads to the top of a hill, and if you're in the wrong place you'll literally go flying over a very short wall in the middle of the road and off the track. An even worse section is a railing that leads either into or out of a tunnel (depending upon which way you're racing). This railing looks to be smoothly curved, though racing along it to avoid traffic will actually cause you to crash.

Simply put, Harbour Town should not be in Burnout Legends. Sure, it's great that Criterion wanted to add a bit of the original Burnout into the mix, but there are two evident problems with this: Firstly, as mentioned, the racing style and track design is simply counter-intuitive to what we've come to expect from the series and essentially punishes you for racing as such. Secondly, the track doesn't look nearly as good as anything else in the game. Again, the track feels oddly out of place and probably should have either been left out altogether or at least tweaked.

Lost in Translation

As the Burnout series has always pushed consoles as much as Criterion could flex them, and with great results indeed, it was to be expected that Burnout Legends wouldn't be a 100% perfect rendition of its console brethren. Sure, the feel of the game is certainly there and it's a great title, but there were a few concessions taken to get the series portable.

For instance, races consist of only four Burners (including the player) rather than six, as on the consoles. While races still feel fairly intense, it makes races, and especially Eliminator races, that much easier to place in. Having to only finish a single Eliminator lap in order to place is more than a bit easy. In a race at least you need to put in three good laps to place, but even then you only need to beat one of the other races in order to advance. Granted, having only four racers is somewhat of a hardware limitation, though it's still a tad disappointing.

The game also suffers slightly from the PSP's lower resolution. With a game as fast as a Burnout title, and Legends can be just as fast as its console kin, being able to see everything off in the distance is of utmost importance. Criterion has made the smart decision to bloom the headlights and brake lights of other vehicles so they're easy to make out in the distance. The resolution problem actually comes into play with the tracks themselves. It can be hard to distinguish which direction a turn is heading until it's right up on you, so replaying the tracks a bunch of times to memorize their layout is important. Of course, if you've played the Burnout series through and through for hundreds of hours like any self-respecting gamer should have then this isn't a problem, though even for veterans such as ourselves the back section of Airport Terminal 1 & 2 can be a bitch on the PSP.

Aside from that, the series is largely intact. There are a few other minor things that don't detract from the fun at all, like the non-player cars in Crash not deforming (just a simple cracked window texture swap), but again none of it detracts from the overall gaming experience.

And as a whole Burnout Legends is as large a game as any of the console variants. It's maybe a tad shorter than some of the other games in the series, but it's a reasonably lengthy racing experience and certainly one playing through, even for longtime veterans of the series.

Fun for You and All Your Friends

Burnout Legends comes replete with some good PSP vs. PSP multiplayer options. Sadly, there is no Infrastructure (read: Internet) play, but there's some good local WiFi gaming to be had. Party Crash, Eliminator, Race, Road Rage and more are all present with support for up to six players and essentially work exactly as the single-player versions do, or as expected in some cases. For example, multiplayer Pursuit consists of one player being pursued and another essentially acting as the cop.

A sweet aspect of the multiplayer setup is that you're able to set up a series of different events to compete in, each adding to an overall point total. For example, you could start with a 3 lap race, then bust out some Road Rage and end with a Pursuit sequence. It works pretty well and is a good way to carry a competition across multiple event types. Sadly you can't add Crash as an event as that must be set up separately, but it's still cool.

Collector cars also play a part in multiplayer. Playing through the singleplayer game will allow you to unlock one of five collector cars in each of the five car types (Coupe Collector 3, for example). The only way to unlock the other collector cars is by finding other PSP Burners with the cars you need and racing them for their pink slips. Well, not pink slips so much as you don't lose anything if you lose a race, but it certainly gives you reason to hunt around for more gamers with a PSP and a copy of Burnout Legends.

Finally with regards to multiplayer, you can utilize Game Sharing to upload a single race demo to your buddies. They can then play that race over and over and over again until their battery dies or until they switch off their system. And your broke-ass friends can actually use their AC adapter and leave their system on forever, giving them 2% of Burnout for 0% of the cost. They'll love you forever.

Not Quite Perfect

Through our time with the game we ran into a few non-showstopper bugs. Cars that fall into the Matrix after suffering a Takedown, that sort of thing. On one of the more extreme occasions one of our editors was bumper-to-bumper with a rival when his opponent passed through another vehicle that he crashed into. This is one of the much rarer and more impacting bugs that we encountered, though for the most part anything we ran into were slight "tweaks" here and there. Most of them didn't impact the game or its fun, but it's certainly something that we feel is worth mentioning. Don't let this keep you from buying the game, but don't say we didn't mention it.

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