I will be the first to admit, I was not really looking forward to yet another current generation port to the Xbox 360. That card has been played already, repeatedly. But I am coming from a slightly different perspective — I have not played Burnout Revenge to death. Yep, that's right, I skipped this on the Xbox. I suppose it had something to do with Forza Motorsport.
Regardless, comparisons have to be made between the Xbox and Xbox 360 versions of Burnout Revenge. Looking at them side-by-side does not show a leap in quality. The Xbox version is, after all, one of the highlights of higher production value late in a console's life. The graphics and sound are some of the best the Xbox has to offer (I have never played the PS2 version).
The major differences are small details such as chipped paint, better crash animations and higher resolution textures and models. But again, the Xbox version looked so good already, the new additions do not look very spectacular. Simply put, the "wow" effect is spoiled by the version that came out six months ago.
Small graphical updates are welcome additions to be sure, but this is not a large enough leap to get the "next-gen" moniker. What is a welcome is native 720p HD support. Burnout Revenge really shines in High Definition. I cannot wait to see the next Burnout for the Xbox 360, one built with the console in mind from the start.
Also, game play remains the same. There are small tweaks, but not enough to make a big difference. The 360 release gets a few new Crash Junctions, but the rest we have seen before on PS2 and Xbox.
While the game play did not get a boost, Xbox Live did. New to the 360 is Live Revenge, which takes the single player Revenge feature online. The game will track all the players you tangle with online. If you get a Takedown, your rival can settle the score by taking you down as well. There are even Achievement Points for this.
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