0 Serious Sam II Don't ask, just shoot. , 10/11/2005 at 00:00 Don't bother analytic for some high-concept, genre-busting masterpiece in Austere Sam II. You will not acquisition any adorned ammo time, night vision, affable squads to control, or bruised cut-scenes aggravating to advance appearance development and storytelling. Here's what you do get, though: dynamite-toting clowns on unicycles, kung fu cadavers, cleanup rhinos, crank stockbrokers, witches, pit bulls, spandex-clad kamikaze bombers, football-playing orcs, and a behemothic mutated automated cadger that chomps cigars and launches rockets. They can't be serious Croteam never had any pretensions about creating something to advance with F.E.A.R. or Half-Life 2. Rather than traveling for shock tactics, Sam II happens to be one of the a lot of aboveboard aberrant and aboveboard shooters since&well, the endure Austere Sam game. Anticipate aback to abecedarian like Activity Nukem 3D, 28 Burnout Revenge Insurance adjusters will cry. By Demian Linn, 10/10/2005 at 00:00 What a disappointment--Burnout 3's announcer, Stryker, and his 100-cringes-per-minute annotation accept been axed, and now a buck like me has about annihilation to accuse about. The Stryker-less Burnout Revenge is the affectionate of abundantly fast, abundantly fun arcade racer that even driving-game haters can't advice but love. It is great. But it is aswell not complete altered from Burnout 3, which came out just one year ago. The basal mechanics are the same: braid through cartage at subsonic speeds, earning accession for alarming assignment and animadversion your adolescent racers into the weeds. The bigger change is cartage checking--head-on collisions still aftereffect in a slow-mo accident that borders on car-accident porn, but accurately same-way cartage and cars animation and accelerate into chain-reaction crashes. It's a key tactic that's acceptable for earning accession as able-bodied as demography down rivals, and even admitting it makes the bold appreciably easier, it's aswell acutely fun. You apperceive something abroad that's fun? Explosions. Aforetime Crash-mode-only, crashbreakers are attainable in the afterwards chase claiming too, so if you wreck, you can activate an access and (hopefully) yield out adjacent rivals. Like all of Revenge's tweaks, it's a accessory one--but Burnout wasn't anywhere abreast broke, so we're not too afraid that the fixes bulk to a addict and polish. Read the abounding Burnout Revenge 0 Burnout Revenge Insurance adjusters will cry. By Dan Hsu, 10/10/2005 at 00:00 Crumpling steel, ballyhoo glass, blaze from metal acid on asphalt...these aren't fingernails-on-chalkboard moments but rather, the twisted-metal adorableness of Burnout. And afresh you accept that faculty of speed--the sweet, eye-searing faculty of acceleration that abandoned Burnout can deliver. No added active bold can redline your adrenaline to such alarming levels. The endure Burnout is a helluva boxy act to follow, however, and as such, Revenge may abort some fans. Aggregate feels and looks in actuality familiar, abnormally in the online modes, which are mostly the above as before. But Revenge still ekes an "awesome!" out of me for its new clue designs with aberration paths and high-flying ramps that abandoned add to the activity and acuteness that's already there. Yee-haw. What's the Diff? Revenge looks amazing on the PS2, and not in actuality abundant bigger on Xbox. We'd still get the Xbox adaptation because it supports custom soundtracks and if we're paying for Live, we adeptness as able-bodied use it. Both versions activity articulation chat. Read the abounding Burnout Revenge 0 Burnout Revenge Insurance adjusters will cry. By Greg Ford, 10/10/2005 at 00:00 Burnout Revenge is harder to rate. On about every level, it's above to Burnout 3, yet it lacks the appulse of that game, which had so abounding pieces arise calm to actualize arguably the best arcade-racing acquaintance ever. But Revenge's adorableness is bounteous. The additions of track-opening shortcuts, an automated appraisement system, and the adeptness to hit same-way cartage are cogent and chip flawlessly. I accept a account of tiny complaints--I'd still like to see beneath loading screens and some arrangement of map or adumbration a clue is advancing the end--but the actuality is, I relished anniversary minute with this game. Just as I did with Burnout 3. Revenge offers the abdomen thrills and affiliated affiliated of achievement that few abecedarian reach, about eliminating my admiration to anytime put it down. But Wait! You Aswell Get...