Episode 54: Burnout 3: Takedown

Retro Spectives

The Burnout series is famous for one thing: combining racing with carnage. Less focused on customisation than Need for Speed, but with more traditional racing structure than Carmageddon, Burnout 3 seeks to elevate car-on-car battles to be equally important to navigating around its tracks skillfully. Rewards for taking out other racers come thick and fast, and it even has an entire mode dedicated to crashing into intersections.

But does it all add up to a compelling video game? Does the focus on combat actively detract from the art of racing? Or does it end up being a gimmicky mess?

On this episode, we discuss:

• What’s the deal with Burnout 3’s famous crash mode? Is a puzzle mode really what we want from a racing game?
• Is having rubber banding AI ever justified? Or is it a fundamentally terrible thing to include in a racing game?
• How does Burnout 3 hold up aesthetically? Do its graphics ever actively affect the gameplay experience?

We answer these questions and many more on the 54th episode of the Retro Spectives Podcast!

Intro Music: KieLoBot - Tanzen K

Outro Music: Rockit Maxx - One point to another

Burnout 3 OST: Various artists (see individual youtube descriptions)

Old Man Murray article on adventure games