Burnout Legends

Now we're talking, EA.

The thing that perhaps is the most encouraging about this first generation of PSP games is their ambition. Very few developers are opting to cut-down their games for the handheld. They're trying to cram as much in as possible. Admittedly, the results tend to vary, but it's a vote of confidence in the platform.

So it shouldn't be a surprise to find that Burnout Legends isn't just a handheld takeoff of the all conquering Burnout 3: Takedown, rather it takes the play and flavour of the third, and throws in elements from the first two as well. And it works a treat.

Getting rolling you notice a few things. One, there's the Burnout-style impression of activity on the streets, even though at later stages you do figure out that there's not as much traffic as the console versions. Two, it looks pretty decent. It's obviously a lower resolution than the console versions, but it still looks decent, and plays smooth enough to be able to bolt along at high speed.

And it's just as well that you can, because there is a LOT of game in here. Not only do you get the integral features that made Takedown such a massive hit - the aftertouch, the chained boost, the crash mode crashbreakers - you also get such hot modes from the past as Pursuit, where you get a cop car and smash the bejesus out of a target vehicle. In solo play mode, there's the World Tour to negotiate. Like Burnout 3, it's all the game types thrown in to an ever-branching series of challenges. You get the straight up race mode, road rage, crash (of course), multi-race grand prix, elimination races, and the insanely fast Burning Lap challenges. Consider that you've got a bunch of unlockable vehicles, and gold, silver or bronze medals to collect, and it's a steep, long lasting challenge, and your hands will wear out before your will to play will.

You also get a multiplayer mode over wireless. Once again, it's ad-hoc, but that shouldn't stop you from having a blast. Up to six can play, and obviously the strength is in road rage and straight up race mode. Party crash ain't half bad either, and double impact - where two players team up in crash mode - is good for a pump as well.

Bottom line is that it's a well rounded challenge. The world tour mode is staggeringly deep, and the multiplayer mode contains all the action you'd want in a pick up and play form. But it's not all sweetness and light. While load time isn't terrible, one of the most fun innovations of the Burnout series - Crash mode - suffers pretty bad, especially in solo mode. Many folks like the idea of running through a string of crash mode tracks in succession. Here, this gets a little annoying, because you cop the load delay every new mini-track. There's no real way of avoiding some load time, because in World Tour mode you can hop all over the globe and pick whichever track you've unlocked to date. However given that you're only racing on a segment of a track - usually enough distance to build up speed, then into an intersection or three - it would have been much cooler if it was as brief a load for the next track as the console versions. It seems longer - and on a handheld, downtime is always of the essence.

Also, as strange as it may sound, Burnout Legends is almost too fast at times. Oh yeah, it starts off slowly enough, but then as you start getting some juiced up rides, things really start flying. When you're in a really fast car and boosting its butt off say in Burning Lap, you better hope you have the track layout wired in your head as the PSP LCD - good as it is - doesn't update quickly enough to give you the kind of advance warning of oncoming road kinks or drivers that you may be used to on Xbox or PS2. It's not really a major issue 95% of the time, but you'll see what I mean when you buy the game.

And buy the game you should, no doubt. While your individual preferences for brands may vary, from this point of view, Burnout Legends is not only the best race game on PSP, it's also one of the very best titles on the handheld yet. True, there's a couple of niggles that we're hoping games in the future do away with, but for sheer flexibility and fun, this is just the ticket.