Well, I wrote a very interesting review/comment on the Burnout 2 'Point of Impact', in the Burnout 2 section of this web site, but due to a Ghost in a Shell situation, it has been lost. It was one of my best works and it is no-more, like a dead parrot.
What I do have to say about Burnout 2 'Point of Impact' is that it was one of my most loved games of the Burnout series, I had spent at least 2500 hours on that game, its generic, heart pumping sound track. Its boost chains. Its weather effects, when set to rain or snow, changed the drift arc around every corner on every track used, to make a new race every time (well it seemed too). Even time of day could be changed, to make my Black Roadster glisten moistly with a glow of ambient wet light, that was a setting for one of the airport tracks. Or it would blur like a shadow, over coastal corners in the raging sun, as it chased down the bi-plane, through THE cross-roads of Big Shores. Truth be told I prefer the colour black for my cars in Burnout, it gives it presence, a gravitas, as well as hide it in shadows. But the real reason is that the colour black is not distracting for me, I don't need to focus on the car while I drive, except to judge space for a drift around a corner. While if I used first person view, I could not see the Black Beast, truly arc a perfect drift, to show me how well I did that corner.
In those days A was accelerate, X was brake and Right Trigger was boost, causing cramped thumb, which see-sawed between A and X, to get drifts around some obscene 90 degree corners and a clawed right finger, from trying to boost through the controller.
The birth of Drift Jumping was born here, for me going through the oncoming tunnel, in Big Shores, drift out, catch air, drift on landing, made the car leap away from the controller and you fought to control the speed, flew up hill, catch air again and fly for 300ft, land just before you start hitting the S-bends with the view of the sea to your left, took a corner, where for just a brief second you were facing the sea, before you swiched back to miss traffic, then miss oncoming.
This was a game I never wasted time on, it is what makes me a Burnoutaholic, today, every hour spent on this game, allowed me to get better, so when Burnout 3 'Takedown' came out I was ready again. Though if 3 was just 2 but online with vs. 6, I would have been happy not because most of my lap times on 2 are awesome, but it would have been fun to prove it, to an audience of 5 others. Thats how much I enjoyed this game, it gave me an ego that was jusified.
In truth I don't want to write any more, I don't need to as i'm going to go play it again (like I did the other night when I wrote the last one[another reason to stop writting]), and I suggest you do too, go buy an old Xbox, a copy of Burnout 2 'Point of Impact' Directors Cut and play it, so write or play...play...
