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Review: I liked Gran Turismo, for about a week. I really enjoyed Project Gotham (1 and 2) for about a fortnight. I WILL LOVE BURNOUT 3 FOREVER! Premise: Drive really, really fast into stuff! Preferably your opponents... simple, eh? The format seems almost depressingly similar. You start of with one class of car, race a bit, get medals, cash etc to unlock other cars which will then allow you to enter other races with other classes. Nothing new there, then. However, it's the way you have to achieve the places, medals and cash that makes ALL the difference. There are several race modes including racing, road rage and crashing? Race mode puts on a circuit with 5 other cars, place in the top 3 and you'll qualify. Along the way, slam into a few of your opponents, try and shunt them off bridges, into crash barriers, or (my own personal favourite) into pillars and bridge supports. Each medal and victim will put you closer to having a new car delivered to your garage. Usually faster, heavier and meaner! Road rage gives you a set number of opponents that you have to force off the road, into rivers, into other cars and so on. As long as you smash them into pieces, any method will do. As per the other modes though, take one car out and he'll be placed back on the road with a rather dented car and an even more dented ego. His attitude towards you will have taken a battering and he's going to try and return the favour in spades! Then there are the crash modes. Drive through speed ups, cash bonuses and score multipliers and then head straight for the busiest part of a junction as fast as you can to try and take out as many other vehicles as possible. You even get to explode your car for extra credit if you take out a minimum number of other road users! The graphics are incredible. I've yet to see any pop-up, slowdown or jerking, regardless of how fast you're going or how many other vehicles are on the road with you. And speaking of speed, if this game allowed you to go any faster, noses would start to bleed and an unsightly flapping of the cheeks would occur! Each time you takedown another vehicle (or when taken out yourself) you are treated to a spectacular depiction of the crash, wherein you can slow the replay down and steer the car into your opponents for an "Aftertouch Takedown". If you're going down, take someone with you! All in all, a racing game that remains a racing game regardless of the bells and whistles. But the bells are ringing and the whistles are definitely posse'd up! Several million out of 10! | 
PC & Video Games
