f you live in Minneapolis, you’ll know that people here honestly do not know how to drive.  It’s terrible.  And I’m not pigeonholing any specific drivers or reasons.  If it rains, snows, or is just a clear day it seems like people have their heads shoved completely up their asses.  If there’s an accident (and we’re not even talking a good one), people have to slow down to check it out.  Seriously.  Like you haven’t seen a freakin’ car accident before.  After living here for over six years, it’s almost driven me to the point of road rage.  Thank God for Criterion and the Burnout series from saving me from prison or a totaled car.

Yes, at its base you could call Burnout Revenge for the Xbox 360 a port, but fortunately there’s quite a bit added to this game to make it worthy of a second look, especially for HDTV owners.  Granted, the Burnout series has always looked stunning – especially on the PlayStation 2, but comparing the 360 version to current generation there is a huge noticeable difference.  After playing the 360 version for a couple of hours and then going back to the Xbox version for a bit, I dove over my coffee table to flip my component switch box back to the 360. 

All of the vehicles have been redone from the ground up to take advantage of the Xbox 360’s processing power and it shows.  In the current-gen versions after crashes you’d see a part or two come off the vehicles, but on the 360 you’ll have wheels, hoods, and more littering the roadways.  Due to increased fidelity, the sense of speed has improved as well.  Especially when you go into the hood view, you feel like you’re going so fast it could make your teeth hurt.  Most impressive however is the paint wear on cars.  When beginning an event you’ll see your brand spanking new car with a fresh coat of high gloss paint.  After rubbing, slamming, and crashing into other cars and rails, your car and rivals will soon look like they went through a cheese grater. MAACO would take one look at your car and tell you to find someone else to attempt to repaint your ride.

I used to think the current gen versions looked good, but once you hit top speed it would sometimes become difficult to make out where you should steer and what to avoid.  With Burnout in much higher resolution my fears of speed have vanished.  Everything is that much crisper, and it’s a lot easier to discern where rivals are and where little nooks are in the roadway that would normally catch me in current gen – causing me to blow a race.

Also, the audio in the game is much higher fidelity than the current-gen versions.  Criterion worked closely with Dolby for Surround Sound in the 360 version and it sounds phenomenal.  Just ask my neighbors who would love to get me evicted after my late night session.  You can feel where the other cars are, and the snappiness and punch of grinds, scrapes, and crashes have much more of crunchiness to them.  Even the audience applause that used to annoy me sounds better.  If you have a decent surround setup your ears will be in for a treat.

One fault we did notice is the load times, which can be extremely long.  Getting into an event initially takes around 25-30 seconds.  Restarting a race event takes just as long.  Crash mode restarts (which if you're a perfectionist you'll do a lot) snap you back immediately, but everything else takes a while.  Hopefully Criterion will clean this up before the game releases.

Criterion did tweak a few things in crash mode from the current generation version.  The golf meter has now been removed from this mode.  No more blown engines and crap starts for those people that couldn’t handle it.  You can time your starts to get an extra boost, but for the 40-50 crash mode levels that I played I couldn’t figure out the timing.  Personally, I liked the additional challenge that the golf meter added to the mode, and it truly separated the men from the boys.  Criterion said that fans of the series complained about it, apparently.  The other change from crash mode that I noticed was that during the fly by sequences after the crash, the tags for damage per vehicle were also removed.  This was a touch from the current-gen version I'll truly miss.

Replays have finally returned to the Burnout series and you can now watch a complete replay of any event in Burnout.  You have a VCR style button layout at the bottom of the screen where you can play, stop, rewind, fast forward, change camera angle, and most importantly record your replays.  The game allows users to save up to 30 second clips of events, and up to 20 clips can be saved to the Xbox 360 hard drive.  The size of each file is around 2-3MB regardless of how long you record, so if you’re using a Memory Unit you’ll be limited to how much room you have on it.  Recording is simple, and when finished, the game compresses the file which takes just under a minute for a 30 second clip.

While watching your best destruction is all well and good, the addition of the Save and Share feature allows you to share said clips with your buddies over Xbox Live.  After you create a clip you have the option of recommending your clips, and sharing them with your friends, as well as recent players you’ve raced against.  For your friends to watch your replay they’ll also need to own a copy of the game.  These clips will be important because the number of times the file has been downloaded will determine the top 20 clips on Xbox Live, which users from around the world will be able to download and view.  If you’ve got a hot clip that makes this list, you’ll score another Xbox Live Achievement.

The build we played was still unfinished, and we could not try any other Xbox Live specific features including the new Live Revenge additions.  Online isn’t new to Burnout but what Criterion has added to the 360 version is the tracking of relationships between burners.  You’ll know who’s a newbie, and who’s recently put you into a wall by indications above each of the racers.  Criterion is also tracking worldwide rankings, and by competing in different ranked events you’ll be able to bolster your standings.  We can’t wait to see how this all turns out in the end.

The game’s release on the 360 is just a few weeks away, and we’re tapping our feet in anticipation.  Even though there are only 20 new crash junctions, the addition of replays, save and share, and new online functionality make it hard for us as fans of the series from not plunking down 60 bucks for the 360 version.  Not only that, but as 360 owners know, the Xbox version isn’t playable on the new console (which Criterion blames on Microsoft, mind you).  Regardless of the changes that I didn't like, if you have an HDTV and an Xbox 360, Burnout Revenge is the version of this game to have.