Burnout Dominator Review

By Dave McCarthy Published 1 May, 2007

The burnout's back.

Version tested: PSP

Once upon a time, Burnout games were about driving fast and close to the edge. They were literally about the burnout: successive speed boosts triggered by following a racing line that steered perilously close to the path of danger for far longer than was sensible. With the third game in the series, the focus shifted away from this knife-edge racing line and towards a brash blend of bumper-car takedowns and slo-mo vehicular violence. It didn't make the games any less enjoyable, but it certainly made them different. Burnout Dominator, however, turns the clock back a little. While it does take some of the design sensibilities from Takedown, it blends them with the return of the burnout to create a game that's not half bad.

The complete removal of the Crash mode will no doubt annoy some people, and it does make Dominator feel a bit stripped down by comparison with the last couple of games. In many respects, though, it affords the game a greater focus. In any case, the dodgem style mentality is still there, since you can still perform takedowns, and you can still apply a bit of aftertouch after crashing to steer yourself into your rivals. But the emphasis here has definitely shifted back to burnout-assisted racing, and the ensuing sense of speed is probably the fastest that the PSP's ever seen.

Combined with the tail-out racing style of something like OutRun, and a comprehensive World Tour mode that breaks the game up into a series of brilliantly entertaining challenges, the result is surprisingly good for something that was presumably conceived of as nothing more than an amuse bouche before the meatier delights of Burnout 5 are dished up later in the year.

'Burnout Dominator' Screenshot 2

Crashes are no longer the main focus of the game, but there's still plenty of scrunched up metal for auto-eroticists.

The World Tour is divided across seven different classes of vehicle. You unlock each of these in turn by completing successive challenges, and these challenges range from regular races to specific objectives like taking down a certain number of rivals, or racking up points by near-misses (or by drifting, or whatever). These successive challenges are unlocked in some sort of order that presumably has an underlying logic, but if it does, it's obscured to this grandaddy of gaming by a menu system and interface that's clearly geared towards the sugar-heightened, internet-addicted sensibilities of today's teenagers.

That interface is a bit bewildering in the same way as all these games aimed at the youths of today. EA Trax boxouts pop up all over the place to tell you about the latest Avril Lavigne or shouty metal track that's playing in the background (and to obscure any menu choices or information that might be underneath them). There's loads of stuff whizzing round the screen and lots of sudden messages telling you about things you can unlock or what you'll be doing next. You can unlock various achievements over the normal course of the game, which might eventually add up to a trophy, for example. Or you might unlock a preview event. Except I don't fully understand what exactly that means, even though I've managed to unlock about umpteen of them. To judge from my miserably inadequate attempts to ace them, they're probably something to do with unlocking higher-powered cars before you're ready for them.

'Burnout Dominator' Screenshot 3

Edging your opponents off the road at the right time can unlock shortcuts.

Which calls my skills as a reviewer into question in several different ways, but there's no question about the quality of the racing underlying all the audio-visual histrionics of the menus. From a technical perspective, Dominator is only adequate, but while the cars are fairly blocky, the sense of speed is unparalleled and the race tracks are uniformly impressive. It's in the handling, and the demands made on your driving skills, that the game excels though - largely because of the return of the burnout. Driving dangerously - dodging in and out of traffic, taking out other racers, drifting round corners - will slowly fill up a meter. If you wait until that meter's completely full, and then use it to trigger a boost of speed, and then continue to drive dangerously while boosting - dodging in and out of traffic, taking out other racers, drifting round corners - you'll be able to continue boosting for as long as you drive dangerously.

It's perfectly pitched between the frustration of failure and the high-speed, adrenaline-fuelled euphoria of success, and it's a welcome return to a more old-school Burnout formula. The only minor gripe is that the game lacks an online multiplayer mode, but it still rises to ad hoc multiplayer, a pass-the-PSP party play mode and downloadable content. And so apart from minor quibbles, it encapsulates exactly what the Burnout series has always been about. Perfectly.

8 / 10

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Comments (32) Latest comment 4 years ago

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  • quantumsheep #1 5 years ago

    oooooooooh!

    Still not getting my PSP out for this though. I may have to re-visit the homebrew thread to get my interest up again! :o

  • some1 #2 5 years ago

    Thanks for that incredibly interesting comment!

  • Aretak #3 5 years ago

    Hmm... bit tired of Burnout now to be honest. Burnout 2 is still the best of the series in my opinion.

  • yegon #4 5 years ago

    ^^^Agreed.

    Been downhill ever since.

  • Putty-Man #5 5 years ago

    Yip Burnout 2 easily the best, but judging by the review the series may be heading back to its roots. Not enough to dust off the PSP I agree, but hopefully iy bodes well for Burnout 5 on PS3/360.

  • magicpocket #6 5 years ago

    ^ +1

  • Hog-lumps #7 5 years ago

    Hmm... bit tired of Burnout now to be honest. Burnout 2 is still the best of the series in my opinion.

    This sounds like a return to the Bunout 2 style of gameplay - so isn't it worth a try before dismissing it?

  • peterfll #8 5 years ago

    I've enjoyed each successive game more than the previous. Yes, that's right. I prefer Burnout Revenge to Burnout 1, 2 or 3.

    Woo-hoo! for having an unpopular opinion.

  • Hughes. #9 5 years ago

    My play of Legends has been almost entirely focussed on getting Gold on all the crash junctions, I've barely done any races at all. Quite strange for a racer. Maybe this will force me into actually racing.

  • nickthegun #10 5 years ago

    It should also be noted that the AI is absolutely pathetic. It pre-determines the placings of your AI rivals and uses the worst elastic AI ive seen in ages.

    You can literally race a whole race without pressing the turbo button and still be second with first place in view. Then, unsurprisingly, the minute you press turbo, all the AI cars press it and you more or less maintain the same distance between you, the only difference is you are more likely to crash. At times the AI actively makes you not turbo for the first few laps as it makes virtually no difference to your race standings and simply makes a head on collision more probable.

    You never feel like you have genuinely won a race or thrashed the other cars, only that the AI have decided to let you win one.
    Edited by 1 at 01/05/07 @ 15:19

  • quantumsheep #11 5 years ago

    @frod

    Ridge Racer???

    On some of the Ridge Racer series you end up so far ahead in first place that it gets kinda lonely!

    ;)

  • quedex #12 5 years ago

    Can the technical wizards at EG please find a way of grabbing real screenshots from a game instead of relying on crappy fake PR shots. Is "only adequate" really that bad, or does the reviewer just have unrealistic expectations? I've got no idea about how good this game looks, or how well it compares to Legends even.

  • nickthegun #13 5 years ago

    Im well aware of rubber band AI, but this is just appalling. Like I said, if you dont turbo, non of the other cars do until you do, which, on a tricky course just makes you pootle round, trying not to crash until the last few corners, when you unleash your boost in a final gambit.

    Which obviously not the way the game was intended to be played.

    Im not saying I can invent a paradigm shifting reimagination of Arcade Racing AI. Im just saying that, in this game, its shit. With a captial S.

  • LOLLERS #14 5 years ago

    "why on earth do people expect something different."

    Because it's lazy and unfair? Most racing games have rubberbanding to some extent but I always felt like the game was cheating in Burnouts implementation, you can spend the whole race in 1st place without crashing and be beaten on the line by a car out of nowhere. They even took split times out because they became irrelevant due to the constant AI cheating.

    Thats not racing in my opinion.
    Edited by 1 at 01/05/07 @ 15:37

  • krudster #15 5 years ago

    Indeed, death to cheating, lazy elastic AI. The worst offenders I've encountered were on the Midnight Club and NFSU games. Truly annoying when you end up racing 10 seconds better than any previous attempt, and get beaten on the line as described.

  • PearOfAnguish #16 5 years ago

    So they removed the crash events completely?
    Would have made more sense just to put them in as an optional extra, shurely.

  • quantumsheep #17 5 years ago

    "I said good racers, not particular shit episodes of RR. :>"

    Take that back! TAKE THAT BACK!!!

    /cries

  • LOLLERS #18 5 years ago

    "Arcade Racing is practically defined by the excitement generated from rubberband AI."

    I know what you mean, but it's still cheap and nasty. And I don't find being beaten after driving a faultless race exciting. And I don't like AI that cheats.

    They had that one mode in revenge where you just had to take down the AI, and they would just respawn in front of you if you drove too fast. That was exciting. but having terrible rubberband AI in a Race just defeats the point, because it ends up not being a race as other people have pointed out.

  • nickthegun #19 5 years ago

    pfft, cry me a river, failures.

    Arcade Racing is practically defined by the excitement generated from rubberband AI. Without the close racing element, it is nothing, you might as well be playing a rally game.

    Well, ive played plenty of arcade racers and this is the first one in absolutely ages ive ever felt that the AI was close to breaking the game. Outrun, as mentioned was fine.

    If only I was an internet hardman, maybe I could cope with it, but as it stands, actually having played the game it pisses me off no end.

    As DOA4 was criticised for, when you win, you dont actually feel like you have achieved it through skill, but because the AI chose to cut you some slack, which takes away all the 'excitement generated from rubberband AI'.

  • el_pollo_diablo #20 5 years ago

    Burnout 2 and 3 were both excellent, albeit in slightly different ways (2 for racing, 3 for causing mayhem).

    I really didn't like the one where you were invulnerable to any car that was going the same way as you - was that 4?

    A bit like Tony Hawk, I got a little fed up with the Burnouts. Perhaps I'll give this one a try.

    Hmmm...

  • PearOfAnguish #21 5 years ago

    "I really didn't like the one where you were invulnerable to any car that was going the same way as you - was that 4? "

    Yes, that was stupid. You could just keep your finger on the accelerator and smash everything out the way, like you were driving a block of granite. The horrible colour palette didn't help either, it was a blurry mess. Terrible game, never understood how it got such good reviews.

  • DUFFKING #22 5 years ago

    Christ, just because you liked the earlier games better doesn't forbid you from playing the new ones, they're still good fun.

  • SeesThroughAll #23 5 years ago

    Hmmm...

    I'm betting most people would find Burnout Legends better value for their money, TBH.

  • andromeda #24 5 years ago

    "This sounds like a return to the Bunout 2 style of gameplay - so isn't it worth a try before dismissing it?"

    so how is it progression when it returns to how it originally was? It's like "well, thats not going down too well, let's just do another burnout 2- but with some new cars and tracks "

    if it's going back to burnout 2 style gameplay, then save some money and play burnout 2.

    Burnt - out methinks

  • SomaticSense #25 5 years ago

    I'm with Nickthegun on this one. Rubberband AI is one thing, but the rubberband AI in the recent Burnout games completely break the gameplay.
    The whole point is to work hard pulling of dangerous driving actions to raise your 'burnout' meter to gain access to a turbo which is supposed to reward you for your hard work by firing you further ahead. When this 'reward' is rendered not only useless, but actually makes the game harder to play without crashing means the game is officially broken.

    It's why ever Burnout game I've bought as ended up straight back in the shops a week later out of sheer frustration.

    Exciting? Anyone who remembers the rubberband AI in the bonus stage of the first Earthworm Jim knows that it doesn't make a game - arcade racer or not - more exciting. It's cheating, no two ways about that. It's not exciting, it's frustrating. It's like saying it's 'exciting' running a 100 metre sprint, when you are the only one with a bungie cord atttached to your back, where everytime you are pulled back yet again you are ready to punch someone.
    Edited by 1 at 01/05/07 @ 18:15

  • Bluetooth #26 5 years ago

    Which is this now, the 21st in the series?

  • YourMessageHere #27 5 years ago

    you speak as if no other Burnout game has had the "get boost, use boost, drive like psychopath to maintain boost" mechanic. In every Burnout I've played, this has been possible most of the time.

  • Scientist #28 5 years ago

    "so how is it progression when it returns to how it originally was? It's like "well, thats not going down too well, let's just do another burnout 2- but with some new cars and tracks " "

    You use the word originally. Was Burnout 2 the original game in the series?

    Poor comment - methinks

  • makaveli789 #29 5 years ago

    Great stuff. I'll be picking this up after my exams at the end of May. Can someone who has played it answer a few questions for me:

    -Is the pursuit mode from burnout2 in dominator?
    -When you press the boost button, does the music go fast like in B2?
    -Bit wishful thinking, but are there any music tracks from B2 in there?

  • JYM60 #30 5 years ago

    Frod wrote:'you sound like you want a sim racer, not an arcade racer.'

    Thats exactlly what I want. Give us GT4 on psp NOW!!11!

  • ctrl-k #31 5 years ago

    I bought this yesterday and I am sorely disappointed. Loved legends, which is why I expected this to if not be better, but at least more of the same.

    My main annoyances are art direction, presentation and design. In no particular order:
    - The interface screens are uniformly shit
    - The presentation of information is unlcear and very uninspired and subsequently uninspiring
    - Load times are ++long, and sometimes feel useless (why did we just load a prerendered movie just to use as backdrop for saving to memorystick?)
    - There are lots of load times
    - Unskippable movie sequences
    - Modelling and layout has focused on detail, not clarity, resulting in very crowded visuals (making it sometimes hard to see what is going on, and definitely not v pretty)
    - soundtrack, while nicely selected (if you are into this kind of music) is badly presented as well, with new tracks starting with new screens (for instance after having loaded a FMVto tell you you unlocked a car)
    - view angle when playing is IMHO rubbish, as in several instances car and GUI visuals will cover the road and your vanishing point (fucking schoolboy error)

    ...there's plenty more, but noone reads these rants, do they? :)

    K.

  • SeesThroughAll #32 5 years ago

    Yeah, it's far from an improvement, as I guessed. Legends was and is just right. It still satisfies Burnout fans needs nowadays...

  • Bant78 #33 4 years ago

    I bought this the other day, on the strength of this review and to be honest I want my money back, it feels limp and lifeless, licensed music and stunning graphics do not a great game make.

    Nothing within the game makes me want to go back and play it again.

    I'm really fucked off that I have it now, anyone want to swap?