Genre : Racing
Publisher: Eidos
Developer: Climax
Release Date: November 16, 2004

Pre-order 'CRASH 'N' BURN': Xbox | PlayStation 2

After a long period of time where Gran Turismo was the unchallenged master of racing games, a number of challengers have surfaced all at once: Forza Motorsports, Enthusia Professional Racing… and Crash ‘n’ Burn.

It may be somewhat unfair to put Crash ‘n’ Burn in with those other games. It doesn’t have an exhaustively detailed physics engine like Enthusia, the long list of lovingly reproduced real cars that Forza can boast, and it doesn’t bore me stupid the way Gran Turismo does.

This is because of one simple thing: in Crash ‘n’ Burn, you are encouraged to destroy everyone else on the track.

Half racing game and half demolition derby, Crash ‘n’ Burn is a fun, fast-paced run around the track, punctuated by occasional explosions. You can, theoretically, play it straight if you want, and over the course of an ordinary race, you probably won’t see too many burning wrecks by the side of the road. (There’s some kind of Halo 2 sales metaphor here, if you care to look for it.)

The real point of the game, however, is to sideswipe somebody into oncoming traffic. You’ve got a wealth of destructive options, from the simple and unimaginative headlong ram to sideswiping your opponent into another car to dropping an oil slick, and if you’re lucky, your last victim will leave a flaming wake for other cars to drive through. I’ve crashed my car a couple of times because there had been too many explosions in the same place, creating a thick cloud of smoke and preventing me from seeing the road.

Not bad, for a game without missiles in it.

Crash ‘n’ Burn lets you create your own car, using one of four models and around a dozen parts for each feature: hood, spoiler, rims, and so on. The paint job, color, and vinyl are up to you. As you race, you earn money and experience points, the latter of which determines when the game lets you buy upgrades for your car. This is fairly simple stuff like a better engine or tires.

The singleplayer mode lets you compete in a variety of championships on tracks across the United States, in locations like Los Angeles, the Bronx, Miami, or the Grand Canyon. Each track is unique, and some have their own relative dangers, like rainy weather or dirt roads.

You can choose from a variety of game modes, both offline and using Xbox Live. There are simple races, but you can also play in Kamikaze mode, where half the players are going one way while the other half go the other (this is the mode that produced that track-obscuring cloud of smoke I mentioned earlier; it has a habit of chewing up race cars like candy), or Last Man Standing, which is a simple demolition derby in a large open lot. The final version of Crash ‘n’ Burn will have several other modes, such as Bomb Squad, but those weren’t in our build, so I’m not sure what they are. I would suspect, however, that they involve destroying automobiles.

I’m not a racing fan, so you’ll need to excuse me if I’ve overlooked several of the subtleties of the genre. All I know is that for once, I enjoyed playing a racing game, and that was mostly because I was methodically destroying my AI opponents. (“Rubber band this, bitch!”) I can only hope that the final version of Crash ‘n’ Burn will include monster trucks, just to complete the experience.