Criterion on Burnout Crash: "Looks different," but core of game "exactly the same"

A top-down Burnout that's more pinball-with-cars than the explosion porn equivalent of fine art? Blasphemy! Or is it? Criterion insists that this is still the Burnout you know and love. In that spirit, the Fischer Price's "My First Deathmobile" look houses a dark secret: This time around, things explode bigger than ever.

"This one maybe looks a lot more different from the crash you remember," creative director Richard Franke told GameSpot. "But actually, as you play it – at its core – it's definitely crash. You've still got to drive in and crash into traffic. You still have to blow up your crash breaker and move around using aftertouch. So really, essentially, that part of the game is exactly the same."

So then, why shift away from glorious slow-mo fender-obliterators at all? According to Franke, the new perspective on your grisly rush hour revenge actually comes in service of a higher goal: increased destruction.

"The reason for the top-down is actually so that we can ramp up the scope of the gameplay. So you can destroy buildings now, and you want to be able to see where the traffic's coming from. We're very inspired by pinball, and the fact that you can see everything that's possible for you. That's something we really wanted to take on board, because we wanted the player to get the most out of the software."

We're still crossing our fingers for Burnout: Crash Bandicoot, of course. But in the meantime, this sounds like it'll do well enough.