Manna from heaven for those not sated by the Electronic Arts-ified Burnout Takedown from 2004, Revenge restates the case for BO's claim as the most insanely quick racing series around and will surely overtake everything in its path on its way to the top of the best-sellers list in 2005. Truth told, in the initial gameplay, there's not a great deal of difference between Takedown and Revenge; even as far as an hour into the single-player game, the uptempo sounds of Yellowcard, Bloc Party and D ... more >>

Manna from heaven for those not sated by the Electronic Arts-ified Burnout Takedown from 2004, Revenge restates the case for BO's claim as the most insanely quick racing series around and will surely overtake everything in its path on its way to the top of the best-sellers list in 2005. Truth told, in the initial gameplay, there's not a great deal of difference between Takedown and Revenge; even as far as an hour into the single-player game, the uptempo sounds of Yellowcard, Bloc Party and Dead 60s are the only clue as to this game's release date. Well, that and the Revenge motif that keeps cropping up.

So, after an hour, we've made a dent in more than a few shiny cars, and only a 3% impression in the game as a whole. We're no maths geniuses, but we reckon that could mean around 35-40 hours of gameplay depending on how well you progress and whether you're satisfied with a merely 'good' performance and a bronze medal in any given event.

Race events are plentiful: Race is as simple as it gets, as you take down rivals in a no-holds barred rampage to the finishing line; Traffic Attack invites you to beat time targets as you race through busy thoroughfares; Burning Lap is a beat the clock event; Road Rage gives you a time limit and a remit to take out as many rivals as possible; Eliminator is a last-man-standing event; Preview is a quick test drive of some ridiculously fast vehicles against the clock; and GP Race is a multi-race battle, the fastest of the lot.

Crash events are preceded by a fly-by crash-camera sequence from which you can plan a trail of destruction to score the maximum of points, and are an interesting diversion from the main game at best. The second iteration of Burnout (Point of Impact) still features - in our opinion - the ultimate version of the Crash event. Still, there's hours of fun to be had in both solo and multi-player modes. There's a World Tour campaign to take on, with its own Crash and Race events, and you can take the multi-player action to the world stage too, with Revenge's online facility. Up to six players can cause havoc featuring the aforementioned modes of play, plus Crash Battle, Crash Party and Crash Tour - multi-layered, multi-player mayhem at its finest say we.

It's all a bit too reminiscent of Burnout Takedown to be an essential purchase, but to the few gamers who have resisted the franchise so far, Revenge is as good a place to start as any. After all, in the time it's taken you to read this, the game'll have shifted a dozen more units at least, and all those punters can't be wrong, can they? << less