Burnout Revenge (X360)

I spent some quality time with this title over the weekend.
- picked it up for $48 at frys
- Graphics are kicked up a notch. Explosions look quite a bit better. Incredible sense of speed. Crash mode really looks great now.
- Online is a complete blast. It plays great, smooth. I've already made a few rivals.
- Revenge is structured into classes. Each class has a good mix of events (races, crash junctions, etc) to earn medals in and to earn stars. Stars = your aggression level in the event. You increase this rating by boosting, drifting, checking traffic, takedowns, big air, etc. Sometimes you may even want to skip some shortcuts for more aggression opportunities. The highest level is 4 stars (awesome). Finally, your medal either subtracts a star (bronze), keeps it the same (silver), or adds a star (gold). To get a "perfect" on an event means not only getting a gold medal but also achieving an awesome aggression level. When you earn a certain number of stars another class is opened. To earn any of the single player achievements you have to get perfect for the entire class. I just did that for harmless and unsafe classes which took quite a few hours.
- On some races you get crash breakers. I want more of these! There's nothing quite like getting taken down, then immeidately activating your crash breaker to get instant revenge.
- burning lap tips: first I usually run through it a few times without boost just making note of all the short cuts and plotting my path. Once you get that down getting gold isn't too bad. Now some of the burning laps are really short (49 sec for gold) so getting your aggression level up is a bit tougher. Boost the entire time. Never let go of boost. Look for traffic early on to check so you can boost right at the start. Look for big air opportunities. Never let go of the boost since the longer you boost the quicker you earn aggression. If you let go (say for a turn) then it kind of resets things. Drift by applying a bit of break at the start of the turn but again never let go of the boost.
- I really like the game so far even though getting perfects can get a bit frustrating with a lot of repetition and memorization. But the good thing is once you get perfect on a burning lap you KNOW that course inside and out and that will pay off in online races.
- Local multiplayer only seems to allow 2 player split screen. I kind of wish it had at least up to 4 player split screen.

Highly recommended especially if you didn't already buy it on current gen.