We've been hunting for Burnout Revenge (Xbox 360) ever since word broke late yesterday that it was on display somewhere on the CES showroom floor. Microsoft had no idea it was at the show, but they made some calls for us, and sure enough, EA's little Easter egg was hidden away at the Dolby booth. We've read mixed impressions of the CES demo, but let's just say that we're leaning heavily towards the "jaw-dropping" side of the spectrum.
EA did right to plant Revenge at the Dolby booth, taking full advantage of a large Samsung Mitsubishi display and a booming 5.1 surround setup, instead of crowding in over at the Xbox 360 display. What we found was a highly polished version of the game that graced current generation consoles last fall. There will be 10 new crash junctions, but no new race tracks. EA's David Silverman assured us that the development team was focused on the new Xbox Live features, namely Live Revenge and Save & Share, which we consider to be a step in the right direction. Along the way, the visuals were most certainly touched-up, most strikingly in the real-time damage effects that your car will sustain during the course of a race. Grind n' check and pretty soon the paint will chip, then the metal will crumple, and your shiny (unlicensed) sports car will transform into a rugged battle-scarred rig. The draw-distance and lighting effects (reflections) have also been improved.
Even though the demo featured a mere three tracks in single-player time trial mode only, we were hooked--and the crowds were gathering. If you held off on picking up Revenge for the Xbox or PS2 because you knew its true place was in the next-gen then you won't be disappointed. But if you've already played the title to death then you might want to wait and see how the Live features pan out.
Note: there are no plans to release a demo on Xbox Live Marketplace, for now. Instead, Criterion and EA are focused on the full retail release this March. However, Silverman did suggest that a demo may be released after the game's official launch.
