Details straight from Criterion. New screens for additional drooling.
by Charles Onyett
November 30, 2005 - Wondering what you should be looking forward to on
your Xbox 360? Well, here's a game to add to your list. While Burnout:
Revenge is already out on current generation consoles, the upcoming
Xbox 360 version is going to come with a greatly augmented visuals and
lots of enhanced online functionality. So basically, even if you have
the one that's out right now, you're going to be missing out if you
don't pick this one up. Of course, you'll need an Xbox 360 for that,
and as of right now that's a difficult thing to acquire, but that's a
whole different issue. Anyway, we got some official information
straight from Criterion's Matt Webster. Read on to find out why the
Xbox 360 version is going to be a big step up, and feel free to check
out early screens of this fine looking racer.
IGN: Is the Xbox 360 version of Burnout going to be all new? A port
from current gen? Ported from which version? Does the Xbox 360 version
have a unique title?
Matt Webster: We're making the Xbox 360 version of Burnout Revenge. We
wanted to make this the showcase version of the game, so not only will
it give you the visuals that you expect from a 360 game, we've really
concentrated on adding new features such as Live Revenge and Save and
Share.
IGN: How will the already excellent visuals and sense of speed be
improved on the Xbox 360? How are you taking advantage of the X360's
three processors and graphics chip?
Matt Webster: We have a host of cool new effects going in to the game.
The shader technology that we have to give us scratches and crumples
are added to new physical deformation technology. The cars look even
better than ever, and when they crash it looks and sounds amazing. For
sense of speed, we've also spent considerable engineering effort to get
a brand new motion blur effect. With the horsepower that the 360 gives
us we can now do a real per-pixel vector motion blur, it makes even the
entry-level cars feel faster than ever.
IGN: What will be new in the Xbox 360 version's single player? For
instance, new cars? New modes?
Matt Webster: We're introducing 10 new crash junctions for single
player. These are real standout moments for Crash mode utilizing all
the design elements that we honed when working the current-gen version.
Additionally we are bringing a number of unlockable cars into the game,
but we'll bring news of that later. Our main area of focus for 360 was
to concentrate on new online features that take Revenge further than
it's ever been.
IGN: How is the X360 Burnout going to take advantage of the Xbox Live's
enhanced functionality? What new online modes and features will it
offer?
Matt Webster: Our major concentration was in online. We looked at how
online games are played and came to the realization that they were all
essentially the same. Join a lobby, play the game, come back the lobby.
We wanted to take this much further and that led to the Live Revenge
feature.
Gamers come together in the lobby and then we do something brand new.
We look at how these players connect with each other in a real sense,
and then we highlight these relationships to all players.
In Live Revenge, 6 players come together and the game looks to see who
has played whom before. Maybe you've taken me down in a previous game,
perhaps I am the highest ranked player, or maybe we haven't played each
other before. Whatever the case, when the game starts, we fly the
camera around each of the racers in the game, and then every player
gets rival relationships specific to them called out.
For example, if you have taken me out in a previous game, it tells me
that you are a Revenge Rival, and tells me what the score is between
is. Simultaneously the game is telling you that I am coming after you,
and that you are ahead in takedowns.
Perhaps I am the player with the highest Rank, the game will show me to
everyone, calling me out and giving everyone a focus, a target to
takedown. Everyone hates a winner! It's all about long memories and
short tempers.
What makes this even cooler is that these relationships are persistent,
we track them, we look at how they change, and we communicate that to
the player. If I haven't been online for a while and we get into a game
together then we'll highlight this fact to both you and I, telling us
that there is a vendetta between us, and reminding us of the score.
Persistence make this feature really powerful.
It's about building relationships, giving the player a focus and then
tracking how these relationships change.
We feel that we are making a real change to how games are played and
sustained online. In every game that you play, they'll be something
going on, and that's before the real action has even started!
The other new feature that we are really e***d about is called Save
and Share. Burnout is always an amazing game to watch, we have the best
action! We always have these times when you say "Did you SEE that?"
With Revenge on 360, you can now SHOW people. Now, when you finish a
World Tour event, you will be shown a replay of the action, that's one
of the most requested features from our fans.
So what? Well we're giving the player the ability to make a highlight
of the action. You hit the record button and save a section of this
replay to the HDD or Memory Unit. The real innovation here is that you
can select to SHARE the clip. The highlight will be uploaded to your
own section of the server where you can share it with other gamers.
They'll be able to download and rate your action and we'll keep track
of the Top 20 Most Downloaded highlight reels. It's something that
we've wanted to do for a long time, and now with the power of 360 we
can do it all online.
IGN: Will it run at 60 frames per second, and how long will the load
times be?
Matt Webster: It's Burnout and that means it's at 60Hz. For load times,
they'll be as short as we can possible make them.
IGN: Can you name some X360 achievements that will be built into the
game?
Matt Webster: We haven't finalized the naming just yet, but we have
over 30 of them and they will reward gamers of varying skill levels, as
well as those playing off and online.
IGN: When is it coming out?
Matt Webster: It'll be on the shelves in March 2006.
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