Perhaps the missing element comes from the fact that there is not really anything new about Burnout Dominator. The game is largely pieced together from elements existing in previous Burnout titles. The proceedings are focused purely on racing this time around – there is no crash mode featured in the game. Now that’s probably not such a bad thing – crash mode had been a little bit iffy after its redesign in Burnout Revenge when compared with previous iterations, so unleashing another half-baked crash mode on the world would have only hurt Burnout Dominator, but its presence is still missed (Criterion has promised that a re-imagined crash mode will debut in Burnout Paradise). The traffic attack mode from Burnout Revenge has also been omitted, and thus the traffic in the game is back to being an actual threat to your racing progress. The focus on racing makes the re-introduction of burnout chains seem like a no-brainer. The feature was one of the best things about Burnout 2, but was cut for the third game. Burnout chaining involves consistently performing stunts, near misses and driving on the wrong side of the road to keep your burnout meter full – all while keeping the turbo button held down. It’s fast and frantic – the way racing games should be. In reality, the burnout chains are an element that should never have left the series – the system they were replaced by in Takedown and Revenge was really no comparison. The burnout chaining system has changed a little, with players needing to do extra stunts with a full burnout meter in order to change its colour to blue, thus allowing for the chaining to begin.
Bloody female drivers!
Burnout Dominator has the usual exhibition and World Tour modes available, with the latter broken up by car series (starting with classics, and finishing up with the formula one style circuit racer). World Tour is basically a collection of different race types over a number of tracks, and fulfilling certain objectives will unlock new cars, while completing events with medals will allow the player to progress onto the next series. The standard race, lap time challenges and grand prix are available, as well as the more exciting road rage and eliminator events. New to Burnout Dominator are the maniac races and drift challenges, which are basically score challenges that require the player to rack up a certain number of points within the time limit. The new tracks featured in the game are primarily designed around the concept of burnout chaining, so expect lots of open spaces and wide turns, with plenty of shortcuts to give the player an advantage over his AI rivals. The openness of the tracks makes the game quite a bit easier than its predecessors, particularly when one gets to the later series – the player can feasibly drift his car for more than a couple of miles at a time in some tracks, which is a tad ridiculous.
And really, that’s all there is to Burnout Dominator. The multiplayer modes are quite limited, with none of the series’ fabled online play to be seen – only split screen and take-turns multiplayer (for up to four players) are featured. For the racer that fancies the achievement type path, Burnout Dominator retains the trophy list of its last two predecessors, and also featured the signature takedowns, although they’ve been enhanced slightly and redubbed signature shortcuts, as they now open up a new hidden shortcut on the track after being executed. The quick race option has returned after its curious omission in Burnout Revenge, offering players the opportunity to beat their previous high scores and best times. All in all, Dominator is a slightly more anaemic package than Takedown or Revenge.
So these guys are the reason my insurance premiums are so high?
Burnout games have really raised the bar for visual expectations over the last few years, often blowing the competition away with their luscious graphics and silky smooth, 60 frames per second action. While Burnout Dominator is no slouch in the graphics department, it just doesn’t seem as sharp as its predecessors, leaving one to think that the game was designed with the PSP in mind, and later ported up to the PlayStation 2. It’s an excellent looking game on the PSP, but not so much on the PS2. The cars feature all sort of pretty reflections, and break apart quite spectacularly in the event of a crash, but the visuals have a certain blockiness, and a whole heap of extra aliasing issues that were never present in Takedown or Revenge. Burnout Dominator has support for progressive scan and widescreen display modes, which is particularly handy for those running the game on the PlayStation 3.
The soundtracks featured in Burnout games have always been a point of contention, particularly since Electronic Arts started publishing the series, forcing the implementation of its EA Trax feature, which is commonly associated with whiney emo-rock groups like Funeral for a Friend and Fall Out Boy. Unfortunately, Burnout Dominator takes this aural travesty to a new level of suckage by featuring Girlfriend by Avril Lavigne as its signature track – but wait, there’s more. This track is available in not one, but four different languages. Frankly, we’d rather listen to a bunch of cats having their tails pulled for hours on end than listen to this manufactured harpy whine about how she “doesn’t like your girlfriend.” A return to Burnout 2’s non-descript techno, or even custom soundtracks would be very much appreciated for Burnout Paradise.
Burnout Dominator is more of the same frantic racing action we’ve enjoyed over the previous four titles in the series – now that’s not such a bad thing, but there’s little in the way of new content in the game, yet many features such as Crash mode and online multiplayer have been neatly excised for this iteration, making it seem like a bit of a last ditch cash grab before moving on to the next game. The presentation of Dominator, both visually and aurally, just doesn’t compare with Revenge, and in the case of the soundtrack, horribly offends anyone within a 30ft radius. It’s worth a look for someone in the mood for some fast-paced racing action, but just be wary of the fact that it’s not quite up to the usual Burnout pedigree.
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