Burnout 2 :
Point of Impact
Post Nostalgia #2
The still a little nostalgic Adolescence
Type of Game
Not a racing game, not a driving simulation, no. Just a f**** exutory that fulfills our wildest road rage fantasies.
release date on our machines
October 2002, a few months before my driving test. One of the worst ideas of my life (to play Burnout before taking my driving test).
Developer
Criterion Software Ltd. a studio which still exists today, and which helps out on the Battlefield and Need for Speed games.
Publisher
Acclaim Entertainment, Inc. Well, they disappeared, though. Electronic Arts reclaimed the rights to the franchise with the next game.
Burnout 2 : nowhere to be found. Gone to dust in a titanic accident, no doubt.
While I was one of the first Mega Drive owners among my friends, the PlayStation 1 arrived at my mother's house about three years after everyone else. I couldn't see myself broaching the subject of a possible PS2 purchase not even two years later; not for a long time, in fact! In the end, I didn't even try. Beau-papa bought the beast all by himself, and as expected, got bored of it within a few weeks. Before I got my hands on the machine, and to satisfy my thirst for video games on my own, PC games were more than adequate. But if I wanted to play socially, I'd go to Leyland Lampion, one of my best friends, to get my hands on the latest and greatest console of the moment. This famous guy with whom I grinded the first two Tony Hawks as well as Gran Turismo 2, and who would snap his fingers to get pretty much what he wanted from his parents.
A very stormy start
It was almost a case of me getting what I wanted too, given the huge proportion of my free time I spent at his place, and the similarity of our tastes in videogames. And while I don't consider Burnout 2 to be one of the best experiences I've had as a teenager (there are the concerts and the drinking ahead of it, and... well, you probably know what else), this purveyor of boundless energy played a big part in brightening up my day-to-day life.
Pass your burn degree first
I've never played Burnout 1, so let's pretend that Burnout 2 never had a predecessor. After months of calibrating our suspensions to the millimeter and adjusting our gear ratios on Gran Turismo 2, Burnout brought us a certain breath of fresh air and a welcome carefree attitude. Because in this game, instead of taking curves to perfection, or trying to save your tires, the important thing is to do absolutely anything! You'll be rewarded by breaking just about every rule in the book of Traffic Laws. The more chaos and destruction you wreak, the more points you earn! You'll soon learn to drive the wrong way, brush against many cars as possible, fishtail and swerve in ordre to cause a multiple car crash, all at five times the maximum speed displayed on road signs.
How many circuits were there? Different cars? No idea. There was no need to learn a track by heart or spend hours mastering this or that car. Just go for it and wreak havoc everywhere. Why think when you can have fun without using your brain? This way of approaching piloting, when in real life my mother yelled at me during accompanied driving as soon as I exceeded 52km/h, was already giving us a pretty monstrous kick. But one section of the game in particular was driving Leyland and me crazy: the Crash mode. Come on, forget the race, throw away the circuits and your opponents. Our car starts off on a small stretch of road, like a busy turnpike exit, and just has to blow up as many things as possible by crashing into the traffic, if possible big trucks or buses, expensive stuff that is.
The aim is to unlock trophies by reaching astronomical sums of material damage caused by the carnage. It's clear that the developers have put a lot of thought into this aspect of the game, with slow-motion sequences, different shots taken during the incident... etc. Before going out for the evening, we'd put on a Dr. Dre or Limp Bizkit soundtrack, and play a dozen or so Crash sessions. Afterwards, we'd arrive at people's houses in full dopamine overdose, even though we hadn't had anything to drink yet. They'd often wonder what drugs we'd ingested, and that was all it took for us to be barred from entering, if by any chance the event was taking place in the homes of people we didn't know well. So what did we do? Hey, we'd go back to smashing car bodywork on Burnout 2, while playing System of a Down at full blast, what else could we do?
Rollin’ Rollin’ Rollin’ Rollin’
But for real, we were mostly listening to the game's official soundtrack. At least during our play sessions. It fitted in perfectly with the spread of incandescent debris on the asphalt, with its sometimes venereal rock, sometimes semi-furious electro, sometimes both. Nothing exceptional when I listen to it again today, I guess this musical style has become part of the background, or has disappeared from the radar. In the early 2000s, we were in the midst of a wave of Nu-Metal, Fusion and all the rest; most of the teenagers I knew couldn't get enough of it. At least, in the case of Burnout, a guy created the compositions specifically for the game (Steve Emney, the guy's name). In my opinion, that's always better than a simple compilation of existing hits, however stylish they may be. We also laughed a lot at the voice-over of the dude who presented the circuits and missions (in French, please): halfway between the falsely enthusiastic camp monitor and the cheesy wedding DJ, but who thought he was a hundred times cooler than that. “I love Downtooooown!” That's one of our favorite phrases we'd throw out whenever we took our bikes or rollerblades... well, downtown. Of course, no one but Leyland and I understood the reference, and we looked like damn fools once again.
Need for Change
I don't think we gave up on Burnout 2 because we were bored with it, since we'd developed a sort of jubilant addiction to its destructive tendencies. But back then, we still often switched from one game to another, as long as we picked up a newer one. And in this case, I think Need for Speed Underground was the fatal blow that put Burnout 2 in the closet for good, never to be taken out again. It didn't offer a Crash mode, but it did make up for it with its poser tuning, and the possibility of sticking vinyls all over the bodywork of our vehicles (also poser tuning, really). In any case, I think that the impossibility in Burnout of enhancing the cars in any way, shape or form, was a bit of a turn-off for me. In the absence of an upgrading system, any game ended up suffering in comparison with the others. I'm better now, I'm taking care of myself, but I could relapse at any moment.
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