RETROSPECTIVE BURNOUT

Forget Paradise City. We’re going back to where Burnout began on the original Xbox

- STEVE ASHBY

Play any racing game released before the year 2000 and you’d be forgiven for thinking that cars were indestructible.

They were all high-speed tanks that could run flat-out into a sheer rock face and simply bounce off. Oh, did you just crash head-on into oncoming traffic? Pfft, no problem pal – you’ve just lost a bit of speed. Carry on, you’ve got a race to win!

In 2002, the talented team at Criterion changed all that with Burnout, a game that would shake up the racing world and lead to one of the most popular driving series of the next two decades.

The game was up against stiff competition from the likes of the high-flying Need For Speed series and Gran Turismo on PlayStation 2, but it had an incredible trick up its sleeve – crashes. These wrecks were smashing in every sense of the word and brought a new dimension to racing titles that other developers simply couldn’t match.

Crash-tastic

Looking back now, it’s a little hard to believe that Burnout kickstarted a multi-million dollar franchise of seven other games. Compared to its competitors (and its sequels) it’s fairly slow – you’ll rarely break 140mph without boosting – and the selection of vehicles is limited to just nine. One of those is a bus, and another is a tow truck. Yeah… let’s call that seven then.