Fri, Jul 08, 2011 | 10:31 BST

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.

8 comments

aleph31
08/07/11, 11:13 am

Big fail. As someone else posted, this looks “like a cheap iPad game”…

Why on hell don’t they develop another regular Burnout, instead of focusing on NFS (boring) and this piece of crap?

Fin
08/07/11, 11:17 am

I thought Criterion’s NFS wouldn’t be great, but it was fucking awesome, so I’ve high hopes for this!

McLovin85
08/07/11, 2:46 pm

Sounds like PAIN but with cars…already have PAIN so not really interested in this too much. Would really have to be impressive and be decently priced for me to consider purchasing this one.

spiderLAW
08/07/11, 2:58 pm

@1
NFS Hot Pursuit is an amazing game. By far my favorite racer this gen.

However, I wish that they would go back to the Underground roots of NFS. But add some extras in there.
I want Motor Swapping, Transmision swaps, etc. More variety of cars and a more accurate spec charts (Hot Pursuit was i the right direction in that department)

This Burnout looks cheap.

NightCrawler1970
08/07/11, 3:54 pm

Looks like the first GTA on PC…

Old MacDonald
08/07/11, 6:29 pm

I like the looks of this. Still a big fan of top-down racing games.

majicship
08/07/11, 11:20 pm

Looks dreadful. More like a mobile hand held jobbie. I’d buy if it was £2.99, otherwise I shall stay clear. Paradise was an Epic Fail IMO and this is the final nail in Burnout’s charred coffin.

SplatteredHouse
09/07/11, 12:24 am

Destruction of buildings, then. lol! There’s destruction of cars, disruption at junctions and at high speed, but no cutting through someone’s living room and tearing up the carpet in any Burnout that you could care to name.

From the description, I cannot be sure, so do you even control and steer the car or is it sharing other similarities of pinball, and PAIN (as suggested by #3) in that you just fire in essence, a car-shaped ball from a launcher?