PS2

Burnout

Burnout is a 2001 racing video game developed by Criterion Games and published by Acclaim Entertainment. It was released for the PlayStation 2 in 2001 and GameCube and Xbox in 2002.

Racing

Time to beat: about 5.3 hours
Plays offline: Yes

Overview

Burnout is a 2001 racing video game developed by Criterion Games and published by Acclaim Entertainment. It was released for the PlayStation 2 in 2001 and GameCube and Xbox in 2002. It is the first instalment in the Burnout series.

The main gameplay mode in Burnout is the Championship mode, which is a selection of events with three or four races in each. Here the player competes against three other cars on various courses styled on European and American locations. Each event gets harder and requires the player to use faster cars to reach first place. After completing each event, a Face Off challenge is unlocked which in turn unlocks a new car if won. Other modes include single race, time attack, and 2-Player.

Burnout was in development for almost two years prior to its release in November 2001. The 1976 French short film C'était un rendez-vous and the 1998 film Ronin influenced the conception of Burnout. Alex Ward, the creator of Burnout, said the inspiration for the racing game was the DVD version's 15th chapter, which is titled "Crashing the Case", and shows a crash between two opposing cars.

Burnout received "favorable" reviews on all platforms as reported by video game review aggregator website Metacritic.