Shaun Munro reviews Dangerous Driving…
EA’s refusal to give Burnout fans another entry into the beloved arcade racer series has left something of a gap in the market over the last decade, and one that curiously few developers have actually attempted to fill.
Enter Three Fields Entertainment, then, a small developmental outfit founded by several former employees of Burnout‘s Criterion Games. In 2017 the company released Danger Zone, a low-budget attempt to reinvent Burnout‘s much-loved Crash mode, along with a sequel the very next year. Their latest effort, however, represents a more ambitious quest to replicate the core shunts-n-bumps Burnout experience.
Though on one hand Dangerous Driving is understandably rough around the edges given Three Fields’ limited resources – having just a small fraction of Criterion’s team size, budget and time – it’s also unmistakably a game that feels like a mere pale shadow of Burnout rather than the passionate, low-fi reinvention fans may be hoping for.
For the most part, the game is a fairly conventional racer in which players can battle A.I. rivals in a series of gimmick modes – such as 1v1 Face Off; Eliminator, where last place is eliminated after every lap; Survival, where play continues until you fail to meet a checkpoint; and Burnout‘s fan favourite mode Road Rage, where it’s all about taking down your rivals as many times as possible.
If Dangerous Driving gets anything right, it’s in replicating the sense of speed mastered by its forebear; tearing around a track feels appropriately breakneck, aided by persistent wreckage which can waylay absent-minded players on subsequent laps. Road Rage in particular manages to muster that nostalgic twinge every so often, and you wonder just how great this game could’ve been with more resources on the table.
But right from the jump, it feels unmistakably cheap. The visually unappealing, glitch-filled menus could generously be interpreted as a tribute to earlier entries into the Burnout series, but that rather feels like an attempt to hang a lampshade on a game that is malnourished across the board.
To start with gameplay, despite the palpable velocity, moment-to-moment vehicular handling is frustratingly floaty and loose, while collisions look awkward, even janky, and therefore aren’t easily savoured (especially in the case of the signature slow-mo crashes).
Accurate physics aren’t the be-all and end-all of a game like this, but when you can collide with a railing and nonchalantly bounce off it, with a stilted correction animation no less, it’s tough not to wish for the glory days when Burnout had this licked. The A.I. is also comically easy to beat for the most part, which alongside some suspicious rubber-banding routines, strips away most of the game’s competitive grit in the process.
But the worst sin committed by Dangerous Driving is one of dullness; the game offers up 27 vehicles across six classes, with 31 courses spread across a number of American national park locations, and yet precious little of it is interesting or even basically memorable.
Most of the tracks quickly blur together through their lack of basic personality. You see, aside from the solidly glossy vehicle renders, visually the game is thoroughly bland; environments look pervasively dated, especially when playing the game in 4K. Furthermore, an overabundance of glare while driving in sunny conditions is more an annoyance than it is an admirable quirk in the pursuit of “realism.”
Progression meanwhile consists of listlessly working your way through almost 70 races between the six classes, where the feeling of repetition quickly emerges and never disappears. It doesn’t help that the tracks on offer routinely outstay their welcome, with class events typically culminating in a Grand Prix – a tedious multi-race slog that can last up to about 15 minutes. Without sufficient challenge for the most part, it’s easy to enter a daze of sorts where you’re physically playing the game but not mentally present.
If all this wasn’t frustrating enough, the game is also lacking many basic features; the PR notes for the game declare that they’re “delighted” to announce that Dangerous Driving ships without an in-game soundtrack (save for a single, repetitive menu loop), and players will instead need to plug their Spotify Premium account into the game (or source their own music elsewhere). Though some might accept it as a fair compromise considering the project’s low budget, given the bevy of peppy bangers that the Burnout games made their signature, it further compounds the game’s crushing lack of identity.
Also, the game is launching without any online features whatsoever. Three Fields insists online racing with Road Rage will be added to the game during the month of launch, but at present, it’s a major failing that basic multiplayer functionality isn’t ready for day one. This, combined with the lacklustre suite of single-player content, makes Dangerous Driving feel like an unfinished prototype of a game rather than a cohesive end product worthy of your cash.
The charmless and disappointing Dangerous Driving is effectively just Burnout with the soul ripped asunder.
Pros:
+ Car models are solid.
+ May slightly scratch the nostalgic itch for Burnout fans.
Cons:
– Plays like a lifeless Burnout clone.
– Gameplay is both janky and boring.
– Bland environments.
– No music.
– No online (yet).
Rating: 4.5/10
Reviewed on PC (also available for PS4 and Xbox One).
Shaun Munro – Follow me on Twitter for more video game rambling.
