Team Road Rage

Gamers and speed fans agree: Burnout® 3: Takedown™ is one of the finest arcade racers on any system, and it might just be the best EA game yet to hit Xbox LIVE® (depending on one's football tolerance). The single-player game is robust and impossible to put down, until you go online and begin to explore the Xbox LIVE options. Depending on the number of players, you can participate in the anything-but-simple Single Race mode; go head-to-head with a friend in Team Crush or Double Impact modes; do the most damage in the crowd-pleasing Party Crash mode; or hunt your fellow drivers like an automotive predator in—the breakout success of Xbox LIVE play—Team Road Rage mode.

Unlocking cars in the single-player modes will help later.

The Game
Single-player Road Rage and its offline multiplayer cousin are a blast to play, no doubt about it. Your goal is to eliminate as many rivals as possible in the time limit. The more takedowns you get on your rivals (they're marked by a blue triangle over their cars), the better you do. Your rivals are A.I.-controlled, but they're not chumps.

Still, in single-player or offline multiplayer, the race elements take a backseat to the hunt. You needn't worry about overshooting your rivals or keeping up with them, since the game provides you with nearby rivals as needed. It's brilliant, addictive, and one of the standout modes when you're playing Takedown solo.

Criterion, the Burnout 3 developer, took these basic elements of the single-player experience and transformed it into something even cooler: the Xbox LIVE-only Team Road Rage mode. The setup is slightly different for each color-coded team—as the onscreen intro tells you, "Blue races and red chases." That means, instead of competing for a high takedown score with others against A.I. rivals, one team becomes the target, while the other is on the hunt.

You can take yourself out with too many mistakes.

Blue Notes
The blue team begins the game first, with a standard three-second countdown. If even one member of the blue team makes it to the finish line, blue wins, so speed is essential. Pick the fastest car you've got (that's allowed by the host's restrictions), and drive as if your survival depends on it—because it does. Take care not to crash too much, or you'll take yourself out without any help from the red team. And, don't go after anyone that doesn't have a red Gamertag over their car, for Pete's sake. You're all in this together. Wait until there are just a few seconds left, and then make sure you're in the lead. Only then is it acceptable to try and take out teammates, but it probably won't win you a lot of friends.

If you get eliminated, either by a red driver or your own ineptitude, it's time for some payback. You're still on the track, but now normal traffic is not a danger to you—you're some kind of freaky ghost car! You can still collide with normal track obstacles, like medians and overturned vehicles, but more importantly, you can earn takedowns for hunting the red team. Even an eliminated racer can become the blue team lynchpin by running interference for the blue racers that are still in the game. Use caution, though: too much time in "ghost car" mode can make you sloppy when it's time to return to normal driving conditions.

A single takedown is enough to eliminate a racer.

Red Dawn
The red team's goal is simple: Catch up and take down. You'll start with a seven-second ticker that gives the blue team a slight lead. (This isn't too hard to close, especially if you pull off a starting line boost.) Everyone has their own method for pulling this off. I pull both triggers on three, rev the engine, tap the brake trigger on one, and then switch to the gas pedal on, "Go!" You'll likely be in a pack at the top, and if you feel extra competitive (and just love making online enemies), you can try to knock out teammates to take out the blue team and earn all the takedowns yourself.

The red team plays quite differently, depending on whether the "infinite boost" option is active. Many games of Team Road Rage can end unsatisfactorily if the blue team gets so far ahead that the reds can't catch up. To balance things out, infinite boost gives the red team a much easier way to close the gap. It's up to the host, but personally, I like to use it whenever possible.

For the red team, your car is your weapon, but even infinite boost doesn't make you invulnerable. Your car is going to take a pounding along the way, so make sure the blue guys are the ones crashing.

Try putting each team in a different class.

Variations on the Theme
In addition to infinite boost, you can use unofficial variants to spice up your Team Road Rage game, if the group is open to the idea. Most Burnout gamers (and Xbox LIVE gamers, for that matter) are more than willing to try out a new twist on a game that's as addictive as this one.

Also, I like to make sure everyone switches teams after each match. It helps keep the scores in balance and prevents one team or another from dominating. If that idea isn't flying, you can try upping the challenge for both sides by eliminating infinite boost for the red team or putting each team in different car classes (e.g. supers for red and compacts for blue). One of my favorites (and one that most Xbox LIVE gamers will try at least once) is a variation on the MechAssault™ classic "giant killer" game. Take the highest-ranked gamer in the room (trust me, there's always one) and make him or her the sole member of one team. If he's red, go ahead and give him infinite boost and maybe a super-class car against a blue team in muscles or compacts. If he's blue, turn off the infinite boost, but keep the car classes the same (fast for red, slower for blue—again, supers and compacts work great here) and let him lead the hunting pack on a merry chase.

Takedowns never tasted so good.

There's nothing else on Xbox LIVE like Burnout 3 Team Road Rage mode. You get everything that makesTakedown great in one game mode—crashes, competition, and speed—in a team-driven package that's perfect for online play. Try it once, and you might never Party Crash again.

Article by Ben Barker