Welcome to Modojo, 
Burnout Legends Review
Written by Robert Falcon on Friday, December 2, 2005
Um, well, you can share it with other people with only one cartridge.
Everything else. Sharing it would simply make you a hated person.
Dear Santa,
I know you're rather busy up there at the North Pole this time of year, putting together your naughty and nice lists and prepping yourself for your usual run of the Christmas season. But I thought I'd go ahead and drop notice on my updated list of gifts.
Of course, the Tampa Bay Buccaneer cheerleaders are still on there. I simply cannot remove them for the sake of good sportsmanship. At least, that's the excuse I'm standing by. But I will go ahead and remove Burnout Legends for the Nintendo DS from my list. This is a game so bad that I wouldn't even wish it upon those on the naughty list.
Let me explain where everything all went wrong, Santa, if you got a spare minute for me. See, the Burnout games have always been handled by the good people at Criterion, from the inception of the series back in the old days to this year's current releases of Burnout Revenge for consoles and Burnout Legends for the PSP, both absolutely stellar releases that captured the high-impact energy of fast-speed racing. But once the control left their hands and ended up with the nameless folk over at Visual Impact, boy, the thing sank faster than sugar cookies left for you on a snack tray.
The whole product just really feels lackluster, Santa. The team at Visual Impact tried to retain a 60-frame per second speed on the DS but failed to really detail everything else. Tracks run by the numbers with very little details to set them apart; traffic is sparse at best, and, in the Crash mode, this is downright frustrating; and there's so many glitches scattered throughout that I'm surprised the game made it through final testing. So, visually, it's about as appealing as watching Rudolph hurl all over the snow over a drinking binge.
But I'm not done. We then get to the audio. Replacing the already below-average EA Trax from previous games is even worse guitar music that wouldn't even be suitable by a cover band, by any means. It just runs the typical routine and then repeats in the middle of a race. Car sounds are extremely generic, and nothing else, not even a cool announcer, comes into play to save the game. So the sound sucks, too. Well, stinks. I'm trying to remain on the good list.
Then we come to the control, which is also shot up quite horrendously. The vehicular turning is pretty lofty at best, where you have to maintain an incredible sense of steering. This, combined with the so-called tactics for scoring takedowns on opponent vehicles, just leads to remarkably bad frustration. And I didn't even get to the problems with collision detection, Santa. 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. I swear, it's like being activated for Ghost Mode on a full-time basis. Why was Impact Time even ported over if it doesn't serve any kind of purpose?
The game has various modes, but none of them serve any purpose with so many problems. And I have to remind you that Crash mode is hideous with so much traffic missing. That's like being invited to a monster truck pull and instead getting a bunch of elderly tricycle riders wearing fezes. You can share the game in multiplayer with other users, as well as play those also unfortunate enough to own the game, but the misery just spreads quickly that way. Might as well have the Grinch come over to your house and fart on your campfire.
EA is officially zero for three on the DS for the holiday rush. Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects was such a bad turd of a game, it's already hit a $20 price point; Need For Speed: Most Wanted reminds me of an uncontrollable port of the old Atari game Hard Drivin'; and now, Burnout Legends comes along and lays their Nintendo reputation to further waste. I think time would be spent avoiding these examples of poor programming and sticking to games that really reward the good kids out there. Stuff like Mario Kart DS and Mario & Luigi: Partners In Time. Know what I mean?
Oh, and if you can only deliver me one Tampa Bay cheerleader, Santa, make it a brunette. I'll understand.
Take care,
R. Falcon
