...First, the game is enjoying a substantial upgrade in the graphics department. Where Burnout Revenge for the Xbox and PlayStation 2 had relatively grainy textures and dull-looking car models by comparison, everything has been given a new coat of paint in the 360 version of Revenge. The car models look slick with sexy paint jobs and sheen effects that are evocative of those found in Project Gotham Racing 3. According to Revenge producers, the car models have been rebuilt to take advantage of the 360's power. Part of this rebuilding process was to add better damage modeling, including location-specific damage effects. Rub the right side of your ride against a cement wall, for example, and that side will be ripped up accordingly.
What really floored us about Revenge's visuals, however, were the environments and the explosions. Sure, tracks looked fine in Revenge on the Xbox and PS2, but here they look amazing. Rich clarity and depth in the mountain track we played, coupled with some impressive draw distances, really lent a sense of space and breadth to the environments, even if it was basically the same track we'd played many times in the older version of the game. And speaking of tracks, producers told us that 10 new crash junctions will be added to the 360 version of Revenge, along with some new cars, including a Dolby-themed whip that might just give the Madden truck a run for its money.
While it's fun to stare at the pretty environments in Revenge, what you really want to do is barrel you car into them at speeds well exceeding 100mph. In Revenge for the 360, doing so will result in explosions that are far more effective than anything found in the PS2 or Xbox version of the game. Instead of the vaguely translucent flames in the old version of the game, incendiary explosions in Revenge for the 360 leave little to the imagination--with rolling flames and thick swabs of black smoke emanating from the smoking husk of your car...
