Racing can be a fun game genre, but I usually get bored playing them. The only racing game to have ever captured my interest was Hydro Thunder, ever played it? It took the concept of racing, tossed it into three dimensions (you know, with jumping and all) and loosened up the physics. With a setup like that, you could jump in and just have some crazy fun. And... I THINK that's what Burnout 2 is supposed to be like. I dunno, I haven't played it yet...

<3 months later>

Ok, I got around to playing it about 2 months and 20 days in... so it's all good. Review time!

It looks like a racing game. Read the damn review.

I must say, I'm really impressed with the graphics. It took me a few rounds to notice, but all of the areas you race in are part of one huge game world; all of the roads connect to one another. A nice variety of enviorments populate this game, from a sunny beach, to the city, to a remote snow capped village, to a desert. Lemme see... what else... oh yeah! No slowdown! I'm almost getting used to the lack of it, which is a good thing. Constant frame rate is really nice in racing / fighting games, especially 60fps. One last thing, those crashes look pretty spiffy when they're rendered in slow motion.

The music in this game is pretty bland. It's... generic rock music? The cool part is when you hit the boost, the music is kicked up in volume and in clarity. It's a simple yet really really cool touch. The sound effects are just as generic. Sound wise, there's nothing really bad here. It gets a 7 for not being obnoxious like some other games.

While I can't really say anything about the originality, I can say that this game is simple fun. You can pop in the disc at any time and enjoy a round or two of racing. The racing itself is certainly arcade by nature, boosts can be aquired by passing really close to traffic or going over jumps. In a sense, it reminds me of Crazy Taxi in how easy it is to simply pick up and play. Although, while that game lacked in any real replay value... this game has plenty of stuff to unlock. There are plenty of tracks and other game modes that will keep your interest. Especially something reffered to simply as "crash". In this wonderful mode, you are given a certain amount of time to ... you guessed it ... crash in an intersection and create x amount of damage in dollars. Then add in the fact that you can do most of these modes in a multiplayer setting, and you've got a fun game.

The controls would be fine, except for one minor bit. Crash physics are really inconsistant. In some cases, I can ram into the side of a car and bounce right off. In other situations it will create a full collision scenario, tottaly ruining the vehicle and (usually) my chances at winning first place. Other than that, the control is fine for an arcade romp sush as this.

It's a fun game with lots of stuff to do. There are only some minor thing that detract from it (like how you have to pass around the 1P controller in certain multiplayer games).

+ It's fast!

- In Multiplayer it's slow

? The crash physics can be somewhat inbetween