Burnout 2 : Point of Impact (Xbox)

After a simple driving test you open the championship mode. The aim, which hasn't changed from the original, is to race three other cars in a series of circuits, avoiding all forms of road traffic. Notch up winning gold medals and unlock the next level; get gold in each race and not only unlock more tracks, but also the chance to race for another car in a pursuit race. Test your skills, beat the car and add it to your collection. Burnout 2 is brimming with new tracks and challenges. One addition is the crash mode, which lets you cause mayhem and destruction at various road junctions. Cause as much carnage as possible and unlock even more junctions. Watch your mayhem and destruction in glorious replays again and again.

Open the multi-player games and the pursuit mode alone will keep you racing for months. Be the cop and try to run your fellow gamer off the road before he escapes the long arm of the law. Race through the streets and highways improving your lap times, and you have the added bonus of seeing just how good you are on Xbox live. Are you the best in the world or just a Sunday driver? Throw down the gauntlet and see if you have what it takes.

Burnout 2 is a prime example of simplicity at its best; Acclaim have concentrated on pure gameplay and this game has it in abundance. A complete masterpiece of great arcade action, all rendered in glorious crisp graphics and presented in Dolby 5.1, Burnout 2 is a high-octane, heart-stopping, intense driving experience. --Robert Holliday

The concept is simple and well executed. Drive dangerously in order to win burnout points in order to drive dangerously at a greater speed... simple!

The action moves over a number of tracks, from high mountain passes to beach front freeways. Drive on the wrong side of the road, knock down road signs, plough into stationary cars... if only rush hour was this much fun!

OK, so you are wondering why only 4 stars? Why oh why do we only have a two player mode? This would be so much fun as a 4 player game. That is the only fault I really level at this game. Go buy it now... and don't drive your own car for at least an hour after playing it!


Burnout 2   October 14, 2003
 3 out of 3 found this review helpful

When you put burnout 2 into you're machine and wait while the acclaim logo passes across you're you think, 'I hope this will be a good game,' and then the rock music starts and you know that this is going to be good.

Then you do the tests at the beggining with the anticipation building up and up until you're about to explode. Then when you have passed the stupidly easy tests. You go into the first race and you win the first race and then you race again and again and again until you're eyes hurt and you thumb aches because you have been holding the boost button down for so long.

After you have finished the first races and unlocked the first few cars you're head is telling you that you have never had so much fun in all you're life. And this is true (sort of)you have been having lots of fun dodging in and out of cars, lorries and buses desperatly trying to beat the little red compact to you're left that always seems to be on a boost and never ever crashes.

However after you have played this game non-stop for a month trying to get the fastet time for big surf shores on x-box live you stop and think this game is actually really stupid it is completely pointless all i am doing is driving round and round as fast as possible there isn't any point to this if i was a vaguely intellegent person i would hate this game for its mundaneness.

But i am an incredibly stupid person and i absolutely love this fantastic game bring on burnout 3


fantastic ARCADE racer   October 12, 2003
 3 out of 3 found this review helpful

ARCADE racer. Notice the capitals. I kove this game. It truly, truly rocks your socks off. Its fast, its fun, it has the coolest crash animations, and the "boost" system encourages you to drive not just fast (like rally games) or stylish (Gotham), but like a flat-out maniac. Also, two player is an absolute blast.

Notice again, that this is an arcade racer. I love Rallisport and Colin McRae, as rally games. I love Project Gotham as a streetracer. All these games have Much more advanced driving, much more "simulation" feel; but Burnout2 is the game you'll want to break out when you don't want to sit around sweating about how to optimize your path through every turn, Not think about the best braking patterns etc. etc.
Burnout2 just gives you pedal-to-the-metal, blood-in-your-coffee-stream action.

Nothing more. Nothing less.


toooo faaaast!   September 14, 2003
 2 out of 3 found this review helpful

what a game.what an improvement over the original!
this version improves over the first because it is more forgiving
with the crashes.now you dont flip all over the road because you
tapped the bumper of another car at a slow speed.now you can race for longer and faster as the boost guage fills up a lot
quicker.and its a lot of fun getting the boost meter to fill up.
you can power slide,get huge air over jumps or drive on the wrong side of the road.also you can listen to your own music while you play thanks to the harddrive.excellent stuff!!!
graphics:9
sound:10
gameplay:9
replayability:9


I have a need, a need for speed...   July 18, 2003
 3 out of 3 found this review helpful

This is a truly excellent game, the kind that brings back happy memories of some of the early Arcade racers or the great Commodore Amiga "Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge" series of games.

The racing is fast, really fast. There are a multitude of cars and tracks to race but, in the spirit of all challenging games, some are only revealed on completion of earlier, easier levels. One excellent feature of this game is the "crash" levels, where the aim is simply to cause as big a pile up through reckless driving as you can - on crashing, everything goes into slow motion as you watch your car fly gracefully through the air into the side of a bus or oncoming juggernaut!

And it is *beautiful*. The graphics are the work of superb 3D rendering, with painstaking attention to detail. My only regret is that most of the scenery flies by too quickly to truly admire. As well as being beautiful, the graphics are very varied to reflect the environment you are racing in - be it desert town, country roads, or interstate freeway.

An excellent game that every Xbox owner should seriously consider adding to their collection.