Burnout Legends

Burnout’s best bring their skills to your DS in the fast-paced Burnout Legends.

• Get the series’ blistering speed and intensity on a handheld
• Includes redesigned versions of the best tracks and crash junctions in the franchise
• Four-player wireless LAN options
• Loads of modes
• Up to 5 players.

In many ways, this is a best of Burnout, as it compiles the best modes of the series: crash mode, pursuit mode, road rage and time attack. In addition to that bounty, Burnout Legends includes tracks from Burnout, Burnout 2: Point of Impact and Burnout 3: Takedown.

Burnout Legends sports several classic gameplay contests, from Crash to Pursuit and Eliminator. You’ll get your fill of these in the World Tour, an intercontinental racing challenge that pits you against some amazing racers. Winning these events unlocks other stops around the world and some of the 72 cars that will end up in your garage.

The graphics are serviceable, if not a little dark on some tracks, but you’re usually going too fast to really take the time to smell the roses. Some of the replays of wrecks are OK, but the Impact Time slow-mo crash sequences are a DS work in progress. When you wreck, you’re able to press R to go into Impact Time, which lets you make your wreck look more dramatic.

You can play against a single opponent wirelessly with just one game card, but with multiple game cards, you can race against up to four other people.

Bottom Line: The game feels a little choppy when it comes to the wrecks, which is usually the main draw to Burnout.