Burnout Crash!

The boss of Criterion Games has indicated the studio is moving away from racing games.

Which angle to go for? The one about you being able to buy a Burnout Crash chicken, cheerleader or karate suit signed by David Hasselhoff? Or the one about you spending a bit of money this Christmas to help the GamesAid charity that helps disabled or disadvantaged young people in the UK? Appeal to the kleptomaniac or tug on the heartstrings?

Criterion has taken full control of the Need for Speed and Burnout franchises.

Sometimes a game gets almost everything right, then smashes into the wrong platform at 100mph. Burnout Crash was first released on PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade, and a TV and a pad don't do it justice. The simple touch-screen, whether phone or tablet, reinvigorates it.

Burnout Crash isn't a racing game in any sense. Each level begins with your diddy vehicle zooming towards an intersection, and you're able to steer left and right to choose an approach and ensure you smack right into a piece of traffic (a red-faced miss means a restart). After this initial crash, the name of the game is destruction: multiplier-led, feature-unlocking destruction that sounds like a pinball machine and plays snippets from cheesy hits while an even cheesier yankee comments from the sidelines.

Big money, big prizes - I love it! The production of Burnout Crash is inseparable from the game underneath, and as you'd expect from Criterion it's polished to a shine. The game loads as a Tonka-style car careers from left to right, finally crashing into the title screen, before The Primitives' irresistible Crash (and not the crap '95 remix either) starts up. Bang into the gold car on each stage and you get a few seconds of Spandau Ballet's Gold, trigger a money-laden bank truck and it's Dame Shirley Bassey herself belting out Hey Big Spender. There are many more, and every time they're magic.

Read more

Burnout Crash!, the downloadable Burnout spin-off from Criterion Games that launched on Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network last year, releases on iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch this month, EA has announced.

It has three game modes, 54 events, six themed locations, and the same top down smash 'em up gameplay as the home console version.

To coincide with the announcement, EA released a video of the game running on an iPad held by David Hasselhoff. Yes. It's below.

Read more

Read more

Third party behemoth EA has discounted dozens of games and game add-ons this week on Xbox Live.

Burnout Crash! launches on iPad, iPad 2 and iPhone 4 this holiday season, EA has announced.

Gears of War 3 has failed to usurp perennial chart hog Call of Duty: Black Ops as the most played title on Xbox Live.

Baywatch hunk brings the pain.

Judging from the levels of vitriol online, the staff at Criterion have been personally touring the country, slaughtering the beloved pets and urinating in the milk of every Burnout fan that ever lived. In actual fact, their great crime is nothing more than making a game with Burnout in the title that doesn't look like people expected it to. The monsters.

Of course, this is the internet, where people apparently spend their time looking for things to get furious about, but the irony is that Burnout Crash is a disappointment. It's just not for the reasons the kneejerk detractors have so vocally identified. The problems here are structural rather than conceptual.

In concept, it's fine. Taking the popular Crash mode and turning it into a top-down casual game may raise the blood pressure of the hardcore, but in gameplay terms, it can be a revelation. Criterion has taken the visceral punch of their evergreen driving series and transplanted it into the sort of ruthlessly insidious puzzle game format that PopCap does so well. It's Death Proof crossed with Peggle.

Read more

This week's PlayStation Store update is headlined by GameCube classic Resident Evil 4. The version on offer here is an upscaled model of the original with PS2 and Wii extras intact.

It's a pound more expensive on PSN than XBLA, but PlayStation Plus owners get it half price.

Plus gamers also have 50 per cent off overlooked aquatic adventure The Undergarden.

Read more

It's here, the Eurogamer Expo 2011, our fourth and biggest year so far. We've taken all your feedback from the past three years, and our experience, and come up with a show we want to go to. Tickets have basically gone (there are scraps so be quick), and we're all wibbly-wobbly at the knees to see first hordes trample through the doors. You'll get extra marks for spotting me at the show and I may even kiss you.

Top-down pile-up sim Burnout Crash! hurtles onto PlayStation Network Xbox Live Arcade on 20th September, developer Criterion has announced.

According to 1Up, the downloadable Burnout spin-off will set you back 800 Microsoft Points or your local equivalent of $9.99.

Want more info? Our recent Burnout Crash! preview has all the details.

Read more

Top-down destruction from Criterion.

EA's Summer Showcase is a very American affair. In the collegiate atmosphere of Redwood Shores, the company's sprawling San Francisco campus HQ, the word “awesome” echoes throughout presentations for the upcoming EA Sports roster, as producers and spokespersons in smart jeans and shiny shoes form a choir of well-rehearsed brand management. It feels very modern, very corporate and more than a little sterile.

Wondered why 2008 racing game Burnout Paradise didn't have the series' popular Crash mode?

EA has made official Burnout Crash!, first leaked by a ratings board earlier this year.

Burnout Crash will be an action game that offers points for creating traffic pileups, according to US age-rater ESRB.

In a departure from series norms, Crash's "cartoony vehicles" are controlled "from a top-down perspective".

"Each level is accompanied by crashing sounds, small explosions, and vocal encouragement like "cool" and "maximum carnage", just like on Fox News.

Read more

A few new scraps of information have appeared regarding EA's rumoured Burnout Crash project.

According to the Australian Classification Board's product description, as reported by Joystiq, it's "an action arcade style game set in the fictional world of Crash City. The aim of the game is to cause as much damage as possible to traffic and buildings by crashing a car into them."

That would tally nicely with prior speculation that the game is the Crash Mode-specific PSN/XBLA title that developer Criterion Games has apparently been toying with since the 2008 release of Burnout Paradise.

Read more

The Australian ratings board has outed a game called Burnout Crash.