Apparently EA didn't have enough racing games under their belt so they went and purchased the rights to the Burnout series from Acclaim. I sincerely doubt that Criterion was against a nice infusion of cash and resources. I can't really complain much though, as it seems the move has solidified the series as a wonderful contender in a crowded genre of quality titles.

When people want realistic racing, it's barely arguable that the Gran Turismo series is the king there. When you want sick options, brutal realism and an insane amount of vehicles to choose from... you really can't go wrong there. However there are some of us out there that don't want to fine tune every single aspect of the engine and spend 3 hours on an endurance race around a small oval track with no other cars to contend with.

Burnout 3 isn't just trying to be your standard arcade-style racer. While many of the features are present, Burnout 3: Takedown is quick to supply a gimmick that makes the game stand out from the crowd. Burnout 3 adds in spectacular crashes and crazy reckless gameplay that results in a game that almost always provides maximum fun.

The crux of the gameplay is all held within the World Tour mode. In Burnout 3's World Tour mode, you compete in events across three continents, unlocking new challenges, cars and other assorted bonuses. The events run from the horribly addictive crash challenges to the mundane nearly out of place Burning Lap races.

The basic races in the game have you facing off against a track and six competitors. You have the normal racing game features such as speed boost and drifting gameplay mechanics, but the Burnout world allows you to take out your opponents in spectacular fashion. Taking out your opposition allows you to extend the capacity of your boost bar while filling it with the much appreciated speed juice. Not only do your basic 'takedowns' treat you to a slow motion live cut scene, but you can also shoot for Signature Takedowns which are track or object specific takedowns which score bonus points and eventually a new car if you get them all.

Aim for the truck!

Trying to get the big rigs to jack knife across multiple lanes of traffic is not only fun, but the key to the high scores.

The next mode of play are the Road Rage events which place you on a track with a mission to take out as many opposition cars as you can. The enemy vehicles travel in packs and you generally don't have to go far without seeing them in front of you or ramming you from behind. Since this isn't a standard race, you do not have a finish line. Instead, you have a time limit and, unlike any of the other races, your car actually takes damage throughout the event. If you crash in the other races, your car is magically restored like Christine as you get back on the track. Not in the road rage events. You need to carefully manage your aggressive driving so that you don't completely total your car before you reach the takedown goals or the three minute clock winds down.

Then you have your GP Series events where you run three races and try to place in the top three so you can move onto the next race in medal contention. All of the standard rules apply to this race variant as well. The next race variant is the elimination races where you start off with six racers running five laps. At the end of each lap, the last place racer is axed from the race. As with the other races, all gameplay mechanics are there for takedowns, etc.

Before I get to my favorite event, I'll spend a few lines on my disdain for the Burning Lap events. When the rest of the game features all sorts of great car battling action, racing around a lap with no opposition really isn't all that much fun. Sure, it gives you an extra opportunity to practice the tracks and work on perfecting every turn, it just isn't as fun as the rest of the game.

My favorite part of the game and easily the most addictive to me were the crash events. The basic premise of these events is to race into some sort of traffic intersection and cause as much collateral damage as you can. Here is where the game seems to almost take a nod from another EA hit, SSX. Littered around the intersections are various tokens which can give you a simple cash bonus, score multipliers or even the 'heartbreaker' icon which will cut your score in half. There is even a special icon for multiplayer events which will transpose your score with your opponent. My buddy used this one expertly by amassing not a single scratch on his car and stealing all my points, leaving me with nothing.

In this mode, you really use the 'Aftertouch' gameplay mechanic which is available throughout the game when you crash your car. By hitting the Boost button during a crash, you enter into a slow motion mode where you can actually guide your wreck. You can use this in a standard race to score an 'Aftertouch Takedown', however in the crash events you will want to use this heavily to snag bonus icons and the almighty 4x multiplier while going for the gold medal score.

Once you start the carnage, a countdown starts to tick down wrecked cars until you reach the 'Crashbreaker' limit. The Crashbreaker is another mechanic used in this mode which allows for a secondary explosion for your car which can get you a chance at going into another lane of traffic or scoring a multiplier bonus. You can even string together multiple explosions as there is usually another Crashbreaker icon for you to pick up on the track. You can pull off some pretty impressive combos using these features and it is highly addictive trying to get the gold medal in all of the events.

Like most racing games, there are still a couple issues with the AI, although they don't seem as bad as some other racing games I have played. The infamous rubberband AI is employed to keep you on your toes as opponents will rarely be more than a couple seconds behind you at most. The only problem with this is that it leaves you with a low margin for error. If you run a perfect race and then blow one corner near the end of the race, you could lose even though you should have been way ahead. I've also seen a single crash on your part put you more than 12 seconds behind the lead CPU opponent. I guess the rubber band is only used one way.

Online using Xbox Live is a little mixed. Unfortunately it seems that EA is running the servers as you are greeted with a message that says the game is transferring data to EA when you log in. While the service works, it does have a lot of issues. It took me a while to initially find a game to jump into. Apparently, 'Quick Match' isn't exactly what it seems. Quick match seems to throw you into a room of soccer hooligans who will make lame jokes about your Gamertag and then kick you out of the room. Attempt another quick match, same people, same lame taunts and then kicked. I'm not sure if quick match was throwing me into a private room or what, but using that mode was useless.

There are some fun and interesting modes available online when you finally get into a decent group. One of the main modes are these red vs. blue team races where one team gets a short head start to try and win the race where the other group has unlimited boost and is only there to take out the players on the other team. The online aspects could have been implemented a little better to fully take advantage of Xbox Live, but it gets the job done. Voice chat during the matches works fine and lag was non existent.

Burnout 3 looks incredible. The series was decent before, however the added EA assets were certainly put to good use, bumping up the look of the game and giving an incredibly polish to the whole package. The framerate moves along at blistering speeds without a hitch and it remains an excellent looking Xbox title. Fans of licenced cars may scoff at the game since it features no real cars at all. All of the vehicles are generic knockoffs, most likely due to the insane amount of damage that is often inflicted upon the cars. Besides, Burnout isn't really a series that requires licensed cars to compete.

Just LOOK AT IT!

Drool at the special fx which aren't overdone nor overly taxing to the hardware.

There are plenty of lighting effects employed liberally all over the place. You'll find some tracks reflecting the late day sun making it slightly more difficult to judge conditions further down the track. There are also some very slick blurring effects when your boosting that aren't quite as jarring or annoying as those in Need for Speed Underground which I felt were a little bit overdone. All in all, the Xbox hardware is well used for pumping out a great looking title.

The audio is standard EA fare these days whether you love or hate it. Sure, there are some great tracks just as the classic Ramones' hit, "I Wanna Be Sedated" as well as the peppy theme from FX's new hit show 'Rescue Me', "Come On Come On", but most of the tracks are easily forgettable. The 'radio' in the game also has an annoying DJ that talks a lot and unfortunately gives you some clues for the signature takedowns and such, which is the only reason to leave him on.

Burnout 3, in the end, is a fun game. The crashing gameplay mechanics are well implemented now compared to the original titles and the new sheen that EA provided for the series has paid off. Burnout 3 also has wide appeal. I felt like a little kid playing with my Matchbox cars during the crash events and can easily see how gamers of all ages could enjoy this game. Gear head gamers will certainly find their fill elsewhere, but I doubt anyone could honestly not have any fun with this title. Burnout 3: Takedown is a complete package of graphics, gameplay and, most importantly, fun.