so there's this problem, right? it has to do with full auto. for a while, i was kinda psyched about the whole next gen car gun combat thing, ever since i first saw it at e3. then a few weeks later, i got to play it. the version was nowhere near final, infact it was a slightly updated version of the e3 demo that the g4 anchors were treated to live. i was not impressed, but that's definitely not rare for a game that isn't past beta. i saw more screens, and movies, and i got more and more amped about it. then i got my 360, and within a few months, oxm released the e3 demo.

this, i never got. why can't the game's producer's get a more recent build of the game out to demo when everyone is ready to decide whether or not to spend their money on it? 'board buzz can sell or kill a game based on a magazine's demo. the bad news was, it continually froze the 360, most times never getting past the initial rolling start animation. that made jim a very sad panda. so i popped it in once in a while, whenever i had nothing better to do than watch it freeze my system, until the newer demo was eventually released over the xbl marketplace. hoping that it would be a fixed version, maybe the same race but with a few bug fixes (framerate issues, freezing), i was let down. badly.

so it was the same buggy crapheap as before, only this time it was official. by this time, i was invited to play the newest build, a near final one, for a last peak at the game so i may give it the correct review come that time. the framerate was a constant 60fps, every rough edge was smooth and brilliantly shiny, and it didn't freeze once. it was just as i had imagined it. i expected nothing more. apparently, some people did.

those people, namely, include tom price, of official xbox magazine. his "review" if you want to call it that, sounded like he had just found his wife's cock. he gave it a gloriously undeserved 5.5 out of 10. i started to wonder if he played the same game i did. in the same issue, a winter olympics game got a higher score. then i read it. the words were bitchy, cranky, and unwarranted. it looked as if he had written it after pulling an all nighter arguing with james carville. did he really expect a story? did burnout have a story? it's a simple game about crashing and shooting rival vehicles. if it had any story (or post apocalyptic mad max type setting like he offered), it would be laughable, like the others that came before it. it's been done before anyway, as twisted metal. (examples of story driven "carmbat" failures: jakx, 187 ride or die, that other game i can't even remember because it was so bad...) basically, my point is that he expected hot shit in a champagne glass, so anything less became cold diarhhea in a dixie cup.

i considered this extraordinarily low score a bit unsettling though. then, earlier today, i read xboxyde's latest impression, and my heart sunk. did something happen to this wonderfully fun game between my near final build hands on and the gold press? these guys atleast had video evidence. or so they said. yes, it is footage, but it doesn't support their cries of an unnaceptable framerate. not once in the video did it drop a single frame. the comments reflect that. so what the hell is wrong with these reviewers? it's certainly not reflected in other reviews. it got a decent score from teamxbox, who strangely enough run oxm's website/forums. it got an even better score from my pals over at 1up. so what's going on here?

i intended to find out. so when i got my copy of the game late last night u.p.s., i popped it in. simple menu, but impressive. burnout revenge's menu system was confusing as hell, and i'm just glad i can figure out how to get the game to do what i want. so far, the graphics are stunning on my tv. i can almost smell the simoniz. the first few races are a bit desolate, but pretty soon i'm tearing ass through fantastically detailed city streets, ripping the competition to shreds. this game is a blast.

so it turns out that some people don't like this game. they probably gave bad reviews to crimson skies and mario kart (before it was established). these people blow my mind.

verdict: 7.5/10; buy it, and ignore the bad reviews. cynics suck.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 15, 2006 at 9:29 AM.