Brenneut (Norwegian Burnout)

I was visiting family in Norway recently and they have a battered old PlayStation 2 in their spare room with a few games. Some of the games work, some are broken. Anyway besides noting how dated the graphics to Tony Hawks 3 look (it still pays fine), I got into playing Burnout Dominator. I'm not a huge racing game fan, but I have played them from time to time. I think my favourite racing game is the Sega Ages Outrun port on the Sega Saturn or the original Sega Rally. Maybe Crazy Taxi outshines them both - but I don't think that truly classes as a "racing" game.

I've not played any of the other games in the Burnout serious but I was aware of some of the ideas behind the series. By driving recklessly you increase your boost meter - you can do this by driving into oncoming traffic, narrowly missing cars, skidding, etc. Once the meter is filled you can activate your Burnout, the Supercharge Boost where blue flames spark out of car. Using this increased speed you can perform more dangerous driving tricks at breakneck speeds, which can then trigger another Burnout, thus chaining them together. You can keep doing this and chain together crazy multipliers for points like Nights into Dreams. I really liked this side of it, and you really get a feeling of the crazy speeds when you activate the boosts.

Of course this being a sixth-generation console game all the loading times are quite testing, especially the clunky way the save system seemed to work. But on the whole it was fun and killed the time pretty well. The unlocking of cars and courses and the medal system kept my interest and made we want to see the next race. Going back to improve your silver to get gold was strangely compelling.

I guess it was like eating at Nandos or something. That kind of experience.