Burnout 3 Remains One Of The Greatest Racing Games Ever Made

thegamer.com:

Few games from my childhood have aged well. While I still adore the likes of Final Fantasy 7 and Spyro The Dragon, I’ll be the first to admit their original forms are far from perfect in 2022. They’re archaic, held back by dated visuals and primitive controls that have been iterated upon time and time again in the years since. But I still love them to bits.

Amidst this infantile rough sits a few diamonds though, gems which have aged beautifully despite being released decades ago on hardware that has long grown irrelevant. Ico remains a melancholic masterpiece with a poignant storyline and compelling mechanics, while Jak & Daxter or Final Fantasy 10 are two PS2 classics that combine a timeless aesthetic with engaging gameplay to create a duo of games that remain a joy to play even today.

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Burnout 3: Takedown can be counted among this small selection of enduring classics. Criterion's rip-roaring racer is a thing of beauty, building upon its two predecessors to craft a threequel that is frenetic, frantic, and so unbelievably satisfying to play. Part of its brilliance is how the game never once tries to overcomplicate itself. You have access to a plethora of disgustingly fast cars and your job is to complete races while wiping out fellow drivers with a series of sick takedowns. You can slam them into a nearby railing with a burst of speed, or flip them over your own vehicle by slamming into them from the exact right angle.

Whenever you pull off a successful takedown the entire screen shifts into a brief period of slow motion, allowing you to marvel in your own personal destruction before immediately drifting back into the action. Flawlessly completing a race