Danger Zone Revives Burnout’s Body, if not its Soul

Burnout’s creators take another shot at the gameplay that made them famous.

By Ryan McCaffrey

Burnout 3 has always been my favorite racing game. Its near-perfect mix of high-speed arcade-y action with aggressive modes like Road Rage and the best-ever form of Crash Mode’s puzzle-y intersections made it both endearing and highly replayable. Eventually, however, EA applied its Burnout resources to Need for Speed instead, and Burnout’s original creators left the company.

Danger Zone, out May 30 for PC and PS4, is the closest thing we’re likely to get to a new and proper Burnout – made by its original creators – right down to the Crashbreakers (called Smashbreakers here), cash pickups, and ability to control your car in the air in slow-motion (nee Aftertouch). It’s a stripped down Burnout; the only mode is Crash Testing, and all of the events take place indoors in a drab virtual simulation chamber, but at least the price ($13) is reflective of the minimism.

In playing through the eight Crash Junctions (err, Crash Tests) in the preview build, it’s clear that Danger Zone successfully revives Burnout’s body, if not its spirit. The mechanics feel identical to classic Burnout: each Test is a clever little puzzle to be solved. What do you crash into first? Which order will you aim for each powerup? How can you maximize your dollar value of destruction? But the dull concrete halls of the simulation chamber these Tests are set in sap some of the playfulness that classic Burnout’s real-world setting provided. The notion of this kind of chaos happening in a real city added to Burnout’s absurdity. That charm is lost in Danger Zone’s boring gray basements.

Developer Three Fields Entertainment doesn’t make the Tests easy, which I appreciate. Even bronze medals are challenging to come by, and built-in leaderboards give you extra incentive to keep trying to best your score by letting you asynchronously aim to top your friends. I like the new gameplay mechanic of being disqualified if your vehicle – only one Audi-ish sedan is available in the preview build, by the way; hopefully the final game will offer more – falls off the road and into the VR void below.

I miss the bright, sunny, cheery setting of classic Burnout. Heck, I even miss DJ Stryker and his radio-station soundtrack. But any Burnout is better than no Burnout at all, and Danger Zone Jurassic Parks the DNA of the classic crash-y racer, and I’m a happier gamer because it exists again.

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s Executive Editor of Previews and Xbox Guru-in-Chief. Follow him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan, catch him on Unlocked, and drop-ship him Taylor Ham sandwiches from New Jersey whenever possible.

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