MetaReview -- Burnout Legends
So, everyone loves Burnout, right? Of course they do. The series features insanely fast racing, tight controls and great hunks of metal careening through the air and colliding to form twisted lumps of scrap. After making a solid debut with
Burnout Legends on the PSP, the frenetic franchise was all set to make it onto the DS, with fans eagerly wanting to get their hands on some flaming wrecks. What luck then, that
Burnout Legends turned out to be just that - a flaming wreck.
- IGN (35/100) "This should have been on the cutting block the moment the development
team realized that the experience couldn’t even come close."
- Modojo (20/100) "When you're in the middle of a crash and you position to hit a car, not
only are particle effects from the vehicular damage missing, but
sometimes cars will PASS RIGHT THROUGH YOU."
- Gamespot (40/100) "There's a multitude of reasons why Burnout Legends isn't fun to play,
but the biggest and most glaring one is that the cars just aren't much
fun to drive."
The most glaring complaints about the title are terrible vehicle handling, weird collision detection and no real sense of speed - all qualities you'd expect from a Burnout game. A further interesting point is that the DS version of
Burnout Legends wasn't even developed by Criterion, but by a studio called Visual Impact. EA farming out popular franchises to inept studios in an effort to make a quick buck? Unheard of.
