Burnout 3: Takedown Harvey Elliott on Burnout 3
Burnout 2 earned a special place in the hearts of gamers because it was a racing game that encouraged you to create the most spectacular multi-car accidents that you could in it's Crash Mode. No longer did you have to spend your time in a racing game avoiding wrecks, you were charged with creating them. Burnout 3: Takedown will try to build on the success of its predecessor by making the game's crash engine even better. How so? We asked the game's Executive Producer Harvey Elliott to find out ... and to learn how the intentional wrecks of the Crash Mode have now made there way into the Race Mode as well.
[GT] In previous Burnout games you were encouraged to drive recklessly during races, but to avoid wrecks. Is it the case in Burnout 3 that you’re actually encouraged to cause wrecks?
[Harvey] If you look at the first two Burnout games, it was all about having a really intense race through traffic, and if you push it too far you crash. In essence Burnout 3 is the same – you’re ultimately trying to win a race, but instead of just avoiding the traffic, we wanted you to fight with your opponents. So we introduced Takedowns. The inspiration was really simple – just look at any action film from Hollywood from the last 30 years… they all have cars battling with each other, and trying to get the other car to wreck. So that’s what we did – we gave the player the ability to slam their opponents into the paths of other vehicles, to make them wreck, and come out surviving. But we also made their opponents do the same to them.
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Whereas the previous Burnouts made the player feel like they’d failed by crashing, we wanted to give them the opportunity to claw back a victory from their defeat – to use Crash Aftertouch to steer the course of their wreck and ultimately try and takedown their opponents even though their car is trashed.
[GT] Please tell us a bit about the boosters that have been added to the game. What type of boosters will there be and how will they affect gameplay?
[Harvey] The boost bar is the most immediate reward for your actions. Every risk that you take gives you boost – so near-misses with traffic, driving on the wrong-side of the road, sliding around corners – all fuels your boost bar. And you can use the boost at any time. And the faster you go, the bigger the risk, and the bigger the reward – i.e. even more boost! If you take even bigger risks, and start battling with your opponents, you get more immediate boost rewards, as slamming into rivals steals their boost. They can also steal your boost, so it becomes a more intense experience as you fight around the route. If you can slam a rival into traffic and cause them to crash, you get a takedown, and that instantly gives you an extra segment of boost-bar, and fills it. The boost can be used immediately and you can keep repeating this until you have 4 filled segments.
[GT] How much control will the aftertouch feature give you as you are crashing? Is it designed to let players avoid wrecks or to create them?
[Harvey] As soon as you’ve wrecked your car, you can launch impact time – where you can slow time down and get more opportunity for control. You can then influence the path of your wreck, sort of like a strong gust of wind, and steer into the path of your rivals. If you can smash into a rival, you may be able to take them down, and score an Aftertouch Takedown which throws you right back into the heat of the action with a re-filled boost bar. In Crash mode the whole purpose is to cause as much damage as possible, and try to cause as many wrecks as you can. You’ll also use aftertouch to steer into bonus items, e.g. a 4x score multiplier or instant cash rewards, so the game suddenly becomes more interactive than just slamming into a car and watching the results.
[GT] What other changes are in store for the racing portion of the game?
[Harvey] The takedowns really change the dynamic of the race events – so instead of just trying to win the race, you actually need to battle with your opponents in order to get to the finish line first – it’s not enough to stay out of trouble, if you don’t takedown your rivals, you won’t get boost, and ultimately won’t get to the end ahead of them. We’ve also expanded the race modes, so instead of our normal races we’ve added Road Rage, where the player has to takedown as many opponents as possible in the time-limit. It’s keeping the experience as intense as possible!
