Save and Share

Burnout Revenge™ has many super cool elements designed specifically to take the Xbox 360™ version of the game over the top. When the folks at Criterion Games (developer) and Electronic Arts (publisher) started the process of expanding Burnout Revenge into the vast development environment of Xbox 360, they knew they could add standard features that take advantage of the console's technology, but they also wanted to add features no one had previously considered. The brainstorming began.

Coming from a strong history with the Burnout franchise, EA had a solid foundation upon which to build, and the technological advances of Xbox 360 opened new doors for them. The Xbox 360 version of Burnout Revenge comes with many new elements and features, but the two that I will mention here are both specifically related to playing the game on Xbox Live®.

The first is going to be one of the best ego-drugs since the invention of leaderboards. The second is merely brilliant and will feed a need heretofore undernourished among Xbox Live players. I predict that you will see many future games that take advantage of these great ideas.

Guess you had to be there.

Saved for Posterity
Let's bond for a moment. How many times have you experienced the following scenario? You're cruising along in your game, doing pretty well. You're pleased with your progress, but it's nothing spectacular. And then suddenly, the moment of moments, the pièce de résistance of all gaming events, happens. Your adrenaline shoots through the roof; your controller smokes. You pull off the grandaddy of all moves, even greater than you could ever have imagined, and … there's no one there to see it. Even your roommate, who usually watches for hours over your shoulder, hears you from in the loo and shouts, "What happened?!" Sigh.

In some games, you have the replay. That's quite a nice feature, but having a "Look What I Did on Xbox 360" potluck may or may not be enough to get all your friends there to watch it. Free food might help, but that's another story. You know that if you could just share the footage online, you'd be a superstar!

Well, guess what? Burnout Revenge gives you that option. Yes! Now you can save clips from your replays and share them on Xbox Live with anyone who wants to see them. Each clip can be up to thirty seconds long, and you can save them to either your hard drive or a memory unit.

Share the Love
You've just saved a clip of that amazing ten-car, flying, exploding pile-up you created, and you want to share it with your buddies. In Burnout Revenge, you can upload up to three clips at any one time to your Xbox Live server space. Once you've uploaded the highlight, then your Xbox 360 gives you the option of notifying some, all or none of your friends about the new addition. Your friends receive a message that you have a new clip to share, and they can view it, download it or recommend it to their friends.

By the same token, you can view your friends' clips in the same manner. Browse a list of your friends who have posted clips, and drop in to see what they've done. Save their clips to your own hard drive or memory unit, and you can pass on a recommendation to your other friends to have them take a look as well. You're not just limited to viewing your friends' clips either—you can also view clips posted by people against whom you've recently played.

With all these clips out there, how does anyone know which ones are the best? EA has taken care of that. Xbox 360 tracks the top 20 most-downloaded clips. Drop in to see them at any time from your main clips menu. Get one of your clips into the top 20, and you earn an achievement. This is how legends are made.

You should have seen it!

Avenge the Dent
Playing nice isn't always so much fun. Sometimes, it's not whether you win or lose, but how serious you are about revenge that matters. Some of the greatest heroes in print and on film started out with a revenge motive that we all cheered. In Burnout Revenge, EA espouses a philosophy of "An eye for an eye, and a headlight for a headlight."

Although your third-grade teacher would be appalled, the whole point behind the most daring new feature of the year is revenge. This fabulous new dimension to Burnout Revenge on Xbox Live actually tracks your enemies and rewards you with achievements when you give them a lesson in gameplay. Whenever an opponent takes you down (which never happens, right?), that opponent is tagged as one of your Revenge Rivals. The next time you enter a match with that opponent, the game very kindly points him out to you so you know where to focus all your road rage and target all your Takedowns.

I'll get you, my pretty.

Escalate the Hate
The game not only tracks your Revenge Rivalries, but scores your Takedowns against each Rival. The more Takedowns you have, in a row, with a particular Rival, the more likely you are to earn additional Achievements. Your goal is to get as many Takedowns as you can against your Rival before he gets a Takedown against you. Just one Takedown that interrupts your run resets the score.

Over time, your relationship with your Revenge Rival evolves. As your enmity develops, your Revenge Rival becomes your Arch Rival. Then, before you know it, your Arch Rival is your Arch Enemy. If you continue to battle, he becomes your Nemesis. How thrilling.

A Matter of Perspective
Don't forget that you're not the hero from everyone else's point of view. You're the enemy. So, while you're chasing down your Arch Rival, he's chasing you as well. In addition, one of the interesting features of the game tells you which player in the match ranks the highest in the World Ranking. If this is someone else, then you can go after him, but if this is you, then everyone else is coming for you. The game plays no favorites, so watch your back.

These two features add a whole new level of fun to the Burnout franchise. Innovations such as these are what make Xbox 360 such an amazing platform. On Xbox Live, it's all about relationships, rivalry and revelry. Start your engines, 'cuz the race is about to begin.

Article by Angel Leigh McCoy