At the early start of any new consoles life, ports of games from the previous generation with slightly touched up graphics are generally to be expected. Since often it’s too early for the arrival of a new incarnation of a series, publishers and developers tend to go back to the latest entry of the previous generation and touch it up for the new consoles. Sometimes this leads to sloppy games that really don’t feel like they belong on the console and other times it leads to superior versions of great games. Burnout Revenge on the Xbox 360 falls into the latter category providing a game that not only trumps its current-generation counterparts, but also outdoes many of the “next-generation” games on the market.

Burning Visuals
The biggest change in going from the PS2/Xbox versions of Burnout Revenge to the Xbox 360 version is, of course, the visuals. The textures, the lighting, and the cars all have received strong enhancements to bring them up to par in the HD-era. While the cars and tracks themselves haven’t changed all that much in terms of polygon-count, the visual package as a whole has gotten a substantial upgrade and while playing Burnout Revenge is a gorgeous game.

Running at a constant 60fps (including in split-screen modes), the game features great looking tracks littered with tons of objects, hundreds of cars, and branching pathways that make each run a different experience. Even when the most chaotic moments are going on with several cars scraping paint off each other as sparks fly off and traffic rushes by…even then, the game never slows down for even an instant and instead keeps its lethal speed. While the visuals may not look on the level of Project Gotham Racing 3 when in stills, in motion Burnout Revenge provides a visual experience surpassing every other racer on the system.