It's so friggin' awesome that it's bad for me. No, literally, this game is so much fun that I think it's best to stay away from it. I have a bad habit of getting easily addicted to video games, and when I get hooked to a game like this, where the experience is essentially spending hours grinding to 100% rather than telling a story with a clear ending, I basically sit there playing it all day long without knowing when to stop. I think it's best to put it aside for the time being, because I have a lot of stuff to do irl and I can't get myself distracted by something like this. Just know that I'm only complimenting it by doing so. If you don't suffer from this problem as much as I do, get your hands on a copy as soon as possible!

Burnout 3 is a deeply interesting conglomeration of two violently different genres and if not the first, then definitely the best, or maybe most notable example of the Venn Diagram of Racing and Puzzle games. Just from a conceptual standpoint, Burnout 3’s a weird ass game.

Gameplay is separated into Race and Crash modes. Race is, weirdly enough, about racing cars. Crash is again, weirdly enough, about crashing cars. Now race is fine, circuits aren’t egregiously long and even late game in the Grand Prix that do push it with 2 four-minute laps, the AI does tend to be thankfully just rubberband-y enough to give you a fighting chance to catch up, all the while still being unforgiving with a driving model that seems to really dislike sharp turns. It’s an interesting driving model – you almost feel on-rails at points as the car just refuses to turn. It does tend to instigate a couple frustrating moments where a crash feels inevitable.

The Crash mode though, that shit’s art. A significant improvement over Burnout 2’s proof-of-concept, whose multiplier was simply based on how many cars you hit, Burnout 3 maps out what ends up being tantamount to an obstacle course. “Do I take boost for this?” “Should I just go for the x2 instead of the x4?” “How can I finagle the car to hit the x4 and the bonus points while avoiding the ½ point multiplier?”. For a mode that made neurons fire off in my tiny child skull (when i was a child, my skull is larger now), there’s a lot going on here. Crash mode is bizarrely strategic. And for all it's strengths, I think there might just be too much of it.

Weirdly enough, a common complaint I see about Burnout 3 is that it’s too long. That’s a weird one for a PS2-era racing game. Depending on region, about 5-6 months after Burnout 3, Gran Turismo 4 would hit store shelves. GT4’s vibe, it’s attention to detail, it's sim-status, the meat contained within; it’s not even in the same realm of game. Playthroughs can comfortably hit the 100h mark with no completion in sight. Burnout 3 kinda overstays its welcome at 20-30h. A lot of very samey races, 100 crash events in the same areas over and over. 30 minute to 1h Grand Prix that demand retries due to aggressive traffic just ruining your attempts. This stupid GP at the end with the circuit cars that might as well crash if there’s another vehicle in a 50m radius? That shit sucks! What a stupid fucking race!

The game ends up in this annoying area; incredible fundamentals, comfortably one of the most fun racing games ever made, the crème de la crème of the golden age of arcade racers and yet it really hams on the bullshit. I think this is probably “the best game you ever played if you didn’t own it”. I think that’s an apt description. I’ll tell people I played this and call it that as if I made it up on the spot

i think almost every decision that made me hate burnout 3 by the end of it all stems from the lethality of everything. the thought process with the races, to keep "close racing" and not make new players feel too bad about sucking, was to stick an opponent 1 second behind you for the whole race until the last 30 seconds. it's less of a race and more of a "can you not die near the finish line" contest with 4 minutes of driving tacked onto the start.

knock on effect of that: cars don't really mean anything apart from a new model and texture. the only difference is maybe 5mph of top speed and having either usable handling or being part of the 10% of cars that are completely undrivable because they immediately lose grip. plus, you unlock all of the cars right at the end of the series anyway, so you get like 10 races in the starters + the assassin/modified cars and then maybe one each for the rest. why? you get to the points/takedown thresholds so quickly that you don't even get to care after the first act.

road rage and time trials are actually fun and the only part of the gameplay i was looking forwards to by the end, but because of the lack of difficulty in the races, they inflate the requirements for those as hard as they can. i spent years playing road rage on burnout legends on my psp so the thresholds there didn't affect me but getting perfect runs on 4 minute long tracks in the previews/special events... if i didn't have good luck on that event i would have ragequit forever

I can't complain about the graphics on the whole cause they're actually really well-done, maybe a little lackluster for such a high-budget game coming out in 04 but whatever. the issue with the graphics is trying to play this in the original 600x800 will destroy your eyes and your will to live, the lack of any blur or anything just makes the horizon a sea of disparate pixels that you have to pick out headlights from in order to not die.

honestly the structure of the campaign itself sucks too, you start off in the most painfully boring environment, then the last two are pretty great But they didn't even finish asia!!! why are there no point to points... point to point is the most fun in the game just because you can't anticipate the ending so easily and thus the rubberbanding isn't so painfully obvious. anyway they should have cut out like any of the "do the same race/road rage on the reverse version" events and the game would have been so much more tolerable

i didn't mention the crash events here because i don't like them and thus they're not factored into the score. i don't think i could sit through 90 of them and not go into a catatonic state

yeah it's fun in bursts if you do a couple hot laps or a road rage but revenge is like. actually fun to play through the career and everything. so why not just play that? i want to say legends is this but better but honestly it's been so long since i've played it. i do however know that the tracks are 1000x better and coming to this i was very disappointed that the only tracks from legends in here are the most boring ones (apart from winter city... that 270 degree turn in winter city i will always love you)

Incredibly fun and one of the best arcade racers.

Positives:
- Carnage filled high speed races.
- Fun Road Rage mode.
- Crash mode is unique and fun to puzzle out.
- A lot of content in the World Tour to complete.

Negatives:
- The rubberbanding AI is pretty egregious.
- Many long loading screens (Turbo mode in PCSX2 was a godsend).
- Any event involving the US Circuit Racer. It's difficult to control and crawls to a stop when grinding against walls, punishing you for racing agressively which is the entire point of the game.
- The track selection could be larger.

There’s nothing quite like the feeling of narrowly slipping through traffic, trading paint with a car inches away before drift boosting into a turn and sending another car hurtling through the back of a truck. The camera gives you a brief moment of respite, before whipping you back into the chaos, all the while the early 2000s pop-punk guitar kicks up on the soundtrack.

Burnout 3 perfects its unparalleled sense of speed and adrenaline with its tight controls and track design. Its addictive gameplay keeps you in a stranglehold, only relenting once you’ve secured the gold medal. Two decades on, and this game still rocks while remaining the peak of its genre.

When I saw this game brought up in "best racing games of all time" or hell even "best games of all time" lists, I thought it was exaggerated hyperbole. I thought that this game was likely a good racing game that people overhyped due to the fact that racing games aren't necessarily a genre that people really immerse themselves in. But now that I've played it, I can wholeheartedly say that no, it is not a bit, this shit owns.

So unlike Burnout 2, where your car was fueled by adrenaline, in this game your car is fueled by the blood of your rivals. Sure, you could (and still should!) get boost by driving dangerously, but the real way to earn speed is by ramming your enemies into anything that could turn them from functional race car to smoldering scrap heap. For every takedown, not only does it reward you with a full bar of boost meter, but each takedown multiplies your maximum amount of boost. Slamming into an opponent, watching them smash into a trillion pieces, then zooming away from the crime scene at a billion miles per hour with the boost that it earned just fills me with the most shit-eating-grin ass energy. Even if you are on the receiving end of a takedown, you can still control your midair wrecked car to try and take people out with you, and doing so respawns you with all the benefits of a regular takedown. Everything is engineered to turn races into hyperaggressive deathmatches between a few insane racers in a city trying as hard as they possibly can to kill each other. Absolute banger, a must-play whether you like racing games or not.

Oh, and the soundtrack is entirely made up of the highest-tier 2000s pop punk/alt rock complete with doofy radio station with the most goobery-ass host covering everything that goes on in the game. BASED.

Almost 20 years ago back in 2004 I bought Burnout 3: Takedown. Not exactly a groundbreaking declaration but you have to understand I'm not really into racing games. Buying this pretty much new at launch on a whim isn't exactly standard behaviour for me. The thing is upon trying it, this game had us utterly hooked. I say us because a friend and I took it in turns playing race by race. Unlocking every car, trying to get higher scores, faster times, every gold medal. We couldn't stop playing it and occasionally we still talk about it in conversation.

That friend moved to the other side of the country over a decade ago sadly. We still game all the time online together as technology has moved on. At least twice a year though I go and stay with him for a couple of weeks to drink, shop and play games together in person. Reliving our late teens and early 20's. I just spent the last week with him and whilst walking in town, what do we see? Burnout 3: Takedown. Needless to say we bought it, went back to his to play it in his newly organised retro game room. (So jealous, especially of the large framed Streets of Rage 2 poster). We then proceeded to be taken back in time to where it was the two of us eating snacks playing games together.

I saw a comic strip recently how playing games now doesn't give the same sort of excitement as when you are a kid. This just simply isn't the case because reliving Burnout 3 from my is still an absolute blast. The game has aged remarkably well. It's fast, blisteringly so. The frame rate is smooth as scenery whips by with every near miss of traffic as you nitrous boost into a corner a thrill. It plays extremely well, each car's arcade handling is smooth and the engine sound effects as you barrel towards oncoming traffic just brings everything together. The thing that always impressed us though were the crash effects of bonnets crumpling, wheels flying off as the carnage ensues from ramming someone into a bridge pillar. The crash physics are so good they created a whole mode for it setting you up to pile into traffic and cause as much damage as possible. Nothing more satisfying than jack knifing an arctic into a tuc tuc then exploding your wrecked car into a camper van in the other lane.

There are other race types too such as elimination where you have to stay ahead of your opponents as last place is removed each lap. The AI can be super aggressive here forcing you to wipe them out to stay ahead. Burning lap which is basically a speed trial. Some need perfect nitrous boosting the entire course to get gold on. Rampage which is about taking out as many opponents as you can in a set time limit, or before your battered car gives up the ghost. There is a huge amount of content here, this is back before unfinished games were released and patched or before half the cars were locked behind a microtransaction store.

If I had to knock anything about it, it's that while I love the garage band type music that blasts whilst racing, the "crash FM" commentator does get a little annoying butting in with nonsense while your racing. However it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things as the rest is so very good. My friend's wife who came in, saw us playing and laughing as the front end of our car got put into the back end from a head on collision simply said, "boy game" and walked out.

But it's a fun broom, broom boy game.

+ Holds up amazingly well technically and in how it plays.
+ Great variety of modes.
+ Crashing is often brutal and hilarious.

- Commentator can get irritating.