The game is still Burnout, which means that it still kicks the ass out of every single racing game made in the same year, but they seemed to take off a lot of what made the original Burnout games great: the light-hearted, kill-everyone-while-an-oblivious-DJ-talks-about-construction mood it gave off (I don't care what ANYONE says, I still love the DJ in Burnout 3).
What I'm talking about doesn't only span over the graphics, but the entire feel of the game. Yes, the graphics play a major part in this: everything has a very shady, dark tone to it, every single building (even in major cities) somehow gives off a vibe that it fell into decay, and the cars all look like a good washing and another coat of paint wouldn't exactly hurt them.
But that's not entirely it; the menus themselves all look very grunge-like and underground, like what I'm doing is even less legal then crashing into traffic and other cars at incredibly high speeds on public roads would normally be. The tutorial in the beginning is voiced by a very sly-voiced female announcer, that sounds like she both looks anorexic, yet could still kill you with her thumb, in a very drag-racing type of style.
There's a new feature: Traffic Attack! The name implies exactly what it sounds like - you get to kill people in an even more efficient manner then before, by ramming into small same-way traffic. The feature is a kind of mix from me... it feels as suitably kick-ass as it should when you're flying at 170+mph, but when you just crashed, you have no boost, you're going 10, and the second you tap the back of an SUV, it goes flying off in some direction, it can feel overly cheap and childish.
Still, aside from all that, the game accomplishes what every Burnout game is designed to be: Pure high-speed carnage. They still nailed the speed aspect of it, and nailed the awesomeness of takeouts so much they practically crucified it (in the good way)!
The game, and all future and previous Burnout games, is super-highly-recommended in my book.
