Freedom Fighters 2

IO Interactive delivered one of the most enjoyable shooters with 2003’s Freedom Fighters, a game that beautifully meshes tactical elements along with pure adrenaline-pumping action and an emotionally charged narrative of overthrowing oppression – and fans absolutely lapped it up. There have been scant rumblings of a sequel over the years, but nothing much has come to fruition. While the IP continues to be under the possession of now-independent IO Interactive, the chances of a full-fledged sequel happening anytime soon are extremely slim. 

Sleeping Dogs 2

Sleeping Dogs might have felt like yet another one of those cheap GTA clones, but United Front Games’ open-world offerings were as much a product of their creativity as it was derivative of Rockstar’s works. Wei Shen’s story of navigating through the criminal underbelly of Hong Kong is a consistently thrilling ride that’s punctuated with great gameplay variety and fun open-world activities, and the ideas were ripe to be built upon with a sequel. United Front Games had some ambitious plans in place, but those were gone to waste as the developer closed doors permanently in 2012 – leaving us with faint hopes that will probably never come true.

Star Wars 1313

There is no shortage of Star Wars-based games in the current market scenario, but it’s hard not to reminisce about the canceled Star Wars 1313 project. The game was being developed by LucasArts themselves at one point, and it would be telling the story of Boba Fett in his early days of navigating the galaxy. Initial showings of the game looked impressive with its cinematic gameplay and faithful rendition of the popular sci-fi setting, but the project was put on hold when Disney purchased the studio – putting the final nail in its coffin.

Agent

Rockstar is behind some of the best games of the last couple of generations, and the studio is also behind the mysterious vaporware that was Agent. First announced all the way in 2007, Agent was supposed to be an open-world game with elements of espionage and fans were understandably excited to see what was in store. Months and years passed with little in the name of concrete information on the game, and Agent slowly faded into the void with no hopes of emerging back once agai

Bully 2

Since we are on the topic of canceled Rockstar games, we should also discuss Bully 2. The original Bully felt like a breath of fresh air with its school setting and a narrative that let you experience the highs and lows of a teenager living in a boarding school, and those ideas were ripe to be built upon with a sequel. While nothing was ever announced in an official capacity, there have been several rumors and reports that state that Bully 2 was at least in the cards at some point if not in active development. Rumors continue to churn out even to this date, but the chances of anything coming to fruition are pretty low.

Scalebound

PlatinumGames has rightfully established its reputation as one of the best names when it comes to developing action games brimming with style and substance, and Scalebound felt emblematic of the studio’s biggest strengths. Scalebound’s idea of using dragons as your companions was enough to send fan expectations off the charts, and initial showings were looking really promising. However, development wasn’t the smoothest and the team faced several problems in trying to create a cohesive experience with online functionality built into the game eventually leading to Microsoft canceling the project altogether. It’s a shame that such an amazing idea was let go to waste, and Scalebound could have genuinely turned out to be a great time if PlatinumGames was given the creative freedom they wished for.

Silent Hills

Konami’s Silent Hill franchise is set to make a grand comeback with several new entries set to release in the near future, but we can’t help but think about the canceled Silent Hills project. Silent Hills was Kojima’s take on the popular horror franchise, and the playable teaser was more than enough to leave fans salivating for the final release. But the infamous Konami-Kojima breakout left the project in ruins, eventually leading to it being canned and our hopes and dreams unfulfilled. 

A New Metal Gear by Hideo Kojima

The Metal Gear Solid series has continued to deliver hit after hit with each new entry, and it continues to be one of the most revered franchises thanks to the incredible attention to detail that Kojima and the team have poured into each and every aspect of the experience. While the series is also making a comeback with the upcoming release of Delta Snake Eater, we would love to see another new Metal Gear directed by Kojima san himself, but the infamous Konami-Kojima break-up leaves little chance of that happening anytime soon.

 A New Burnout

Criterion’s Burnout series was one of the best arcade racers of its time, and its gameplay loop of crashing into rival cars and emphasizing a generally aggressive driving style was what helped the franchise stand out from the crowd. But with EA eventually moving Criterion to work on the Need For Speed series, the Burnout IP was kept hostage and it slowly turned dormant over the years. Without a shadow of a doubt, there are more than thousands of fans who are hoping for a revival, but the current state of EA and its obsession with continuing to invest in NFS means that a new Burnout game isn’t likely to come out anytime soon. 

Portal 3

The Portal games continue to be some of the best puzzle games of all time, thanks to an ingenious central mechanic that forms the basis of all gameplay and the witty writing that came along with it. Many games have tried to create similar experiences since then, but none have managed to capture the magic of Valve’s works – which has left us craving for a potential Portal 3 even after all this time. But given the current stance of Valve’s game development division, it seems like Portal 3 would probably never see the light of day. 

New Dino Crisis 

Dino Crisis was very much a product of its time, a game confident in its ability to deliver a consistently thrilling experience despite being based on a concept so weird. We have had some really fond memories of shooting down dinosaurs with machine guns, and we would really love to get a new entry with the same level of eccentricity and fun that is so characteristic of the franchise. However, it feels highly unlikely that the developer would be making much effort to breathe new life into this now stagnant IP. And no, Exoprimal doesn’t count.

Deep Down

Yet another one of the developer’s failed projects, Deep Down was put forth as one of the PS4’s launch titles. Deep Down featured impressive graphics for its time, and the concept of working your way through procedurally generated dungeons with friends sounded like a really fun idea that could have genuinely turned out to be a big hit. Development wasn’t obviously the smoothest, which eventually led to the game being delayed to an indefinite date. We still think about what Deep Down could have been, but all we can do is hope.

Titanfall 3

Titanfall 2 was a great game that y featured one of the best FPS campaigns of all time but it failed to capture much of an audience since it was sandwiched between the highly overrated Battlefield and a Call of Duty series- making it a commercial failure. The future of the franchise already looked bleak after that failure, and now that the developer has been focusing majorly on Star Wars – a potential Titanfall 3 is most likely not on the cards. 

The Next Dark Souls

It’s safe to say that FromSoftware has birthed an entire genre with Dark Souls, and the entire trilogy remains one of the best experiences of recent memory. The developer has already moved on to bigger experiences with the likes of Elden Ring, but there’s undoubtedly a void for a new Dark Souls game. Between this and the fact that the trilogy brought a definitive end to the endless cycle of fire, a new game coming out feels like a distant dream that probably won’t come true.

Prototype 3

Radical Entertainment’s Prototype was a really great open-world game that provided a really satisfying power fantasy as you mow down entire squadrons of enemies in moments unnoticed, and those elements were taken to the next level with Prototype 2. Radical Entertainment was slowly devolved into a support studio for Activision’s bigger franchises before it was closed sometime in 2014, leaving the dreams of any potential Prototype 3 dead in the dust.

Of course, Need for Speed Unbound is launching soon, spelling Criterion’s return to both, developing its own games and developing Need for Speed titles, but for many, the franchise that the studio is most commonly associated with is Burnout. So with Criterion having come back to Need for Speed, is there a chance that Burnout might follow suit?

According to studio veteran Kieran Crimmins – who’s also creative director on Unbound – it’s very much on the table. Speaking in an interview with Eurogamer, Crimmins said that while there are “no immediate future plans” for a new Burnout game, it’s something that the studio would be interested in- though he suggests Criterion might need to expand if it were to work on both Need for Speed and Burnout.

“Yeah, absolutely. I hope so,” Crimmins said upon being asked about a potential Burnout comeback. “It’s not something we’re looking at doing now. It’s not my next game or anything like that. Not that I could say if it wasn’t, but I guess I can say that it’s not the next game I will work on. But if you’re talking about the two games that the studio has the most passion for, they’re obviously Need for Speed and Burnout. We love those two franchises, and Burnout has a unique take on racing that I think would be absolutely phenomenal now. So I guess what I’m saying is, I would love to do that. And I hope that if everything goes well with these games, and we can expand the team, then maybe we can make one of those as well. It’s not in the immediate future plans or anything like that, but man, it’d be really fun.”

The Burnout franchise hasn’t seen a lot of activity over several years (if any), so series fans will surely be hoping that Criterion does eventually go back to it- hopefully sooner rather than later. Though we have seen the launch of Burnout Paradise Remastered in 2018 and downloadable side project Burnout Crash! in 2011, the last new mainline game in the series was 2008’s Burnout Paradise. 

Of course, if you’re hoping for a healthy dose of Criterion’s racing formula in the near future, Need for Speed Unbound is due out on December 2 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.

What originally set, and kept Burnout apart from their competition throughout the entire run of the series was how they turned the goals of a racer on its head, asking players to take big risks by driving against traffic, ramming their opponents off the road and a general disregard for safety, all wrapped together with what were at the time very technically impressive car crumpling slow-mo shots that just fulfill some primal thrill. The original title had some rather humble origins for what it would become though, as an under the radar gem published by Aklaim.

The game featured a collection of cars that would get it laughed out of the locker room when you put it beside racers today, and their hundreds of customizable rides, with a small grouping of 9 cars in four different classes, all ranked by how easy they are to handle in the game’s championship events. From a Supermini to a Bus, players have to barrel through oncoming traffic and cross busy intersections at speed if they want to make it into the winners circle, building boost through more daring feats like near-misses against traffic, and weaving through the wrong lane.

While the game didn’t see much mainstream recognition at this level, it certainly had fans of the over the top driving and detailed, at least for PS2 standards, crash physics. The popularity of which inspired the series insanely popular Crash Mode, which debuted in Burnout 2: Point of Impact on PS2 just over a year later. While the championship remains very much the same, Crash mode places the player onto specially designed situations with tons of traffic, and asks them to aim for a high score by managing to cause as much havoc as possible.

The Crash Mode, as well as other additions to the standard gameplay loop like Pursuit Mode, where you had to take down a criminal car to unlock it, really resonated with racing fans, and is where the Burnout Series first really came into its own, with sites like Gamespot, GameSpy and Eurogamer granting the title insanely high accolades, praising the game as one of the most compelling arcade driving titles of it’s era. A more diverse range of vehicles with more apparent stat differences between them helped raise the star of the series just a bit further, but it would take one more game before things really took off.

With the fall of Aklaim in 2004, Burnout 3: Takedown and all subsequent entries in the series were published by Electronic Arts, though still developed by Criterion. This wasn’t always going to be the case however, with the studio and publisher having previously fallen out over creative differences over a skateboarding game. Burnout 3 only was made after EA came back to the studio, and made the game happen with the condition that EA would have no say in the creative process. It turned out very well for them.

With Criterion’s firm hand still very much on the wheel, they took a “If it’s not broke” approach to tuning the series and introduced the Takedown mechanic, which made the already adrenaline filled racing experience that much more personal. Players were able to slam other racers into crashes, and have that tie back into the all important boost mechanic, encouraging players to not only dart between traffic, but to get their sonic sumo on as opposing players worked to disrupt their rhythm. This final piece of the puzzle felt like it finally completed the Burnout experience, and both critics, and thanks to a little bit of EA marketing money, gamers just adored the highly tuned racer.

Burnout 3: Takedown went on to receive an impressive collection of awards, including two magazines even ranking the title as Game of the Year. Remember that this is the same year we saw Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, just to put into perspective the heights that the series had risen to. For the first time, a Burnout game was dominating the sales charts just as hard as its hardcore players were dominating on the track, with regions like Australia seeing the game hit top 10 for both Xbox and PS2.

Even today, Burnout 3: Takedown is considered a highlight and triumph not only for its series, but for arcade racing games in general. General consensus is that the game easily stands with the best titles on the two sixth generation systems with its track design, mode selection, sense of speed and varied modes. The standing 94% on Metacritic for the Xbox version speaks for itself.

With this third title having Criterion and Burnout easily among the pantheon that once belonged to Need for Speed and Gran Turismo, unfortunately the only place to go from the top is down. The 2005 follow up in Burnout Revenge was decidedly given a different direction, with a grittier aesthetic that pushed the takedown mechanic even more into the forefront. Alex Ward, Director on most of the series, would later comment that while they purposely didn’t want to just create Burnout 3 again, he doesn’t believe that any of the games following quite captured the same spirit.

Between Burnout Revenge, which allowed players to check traffic into other racers and went full Michael Bay to the slight detriment of the skill that racing took, and their true follow up in Burnout Paradise, we have a quick aside to the black sheep of the series, Burnout Dominator. No, we… we don’t talk about the underwhelming handheld games. While EA used Criterion’s name, they were busy creating Paradise and so, EA UK took the reigns on the one and only game since the original Burnout to ditch the lauded Crash Mode, among other elements such as traffic checking, online multiplayer, and racing wheel support. The game saw a noticeable drop in critical reception, which tends to happen when a game is so obviously pushed out to stall. But if the Burnout series was only going to get one more lap, what Criterion had in the garage was worth waiting for.

The last official release, aside from an App Store Crash spin off, to this very day is Burnout Paradise, which came out of Alex Ward wanting to bring a little bit of Crackdown into the Burnout series. The concept took the form of a racing game without defined tracks, and a spider web of roads making an open world in which players can explore at their leisure and take on events in any order they choose. The tiny world of Paradise City is a bit cute ten years later, releasing in the same year as a game like Forza Horizon 4.

Despite lack of any real faith from EA next to the Need for Speed series, Burnout Paradise rocketed to the top of sales charts, selling over 1 million copies within three months of release, and provided the foundation upon which racing games are being built upon until this day.  While it didn’t quite hit the heights of Takedown, Paradise managed a Metacritic within the 80’s depending on which platform you looked at, and took many Best Driving Game awards for the year.

Given the heights and acclaim that the studio had brought themselves, it almost seems like Burnout just stalled for no real reason. The fact that EA could rerelease the last entry in the series ten years after the fact as Burnout Paradise Remastered, and critics found that time had done very little to dull the adrenaline rush that the game embodied speaks to the passion and creativity of the team. The influence of the series lives on within Need for Speed and Forza Horizon. So what gives? At first, nothing gave at all. Criterion was handed the keys to a new ride, which EA had happily given when Criterion developed 2010’s Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, and then 2012’s Need for Speed: Most Wanted. Both sold pretty well and got decent critical reception too. But the team was a bit hamstrung by the expectations of Need for Speed. The heart just wasn’t in the games anymore, and the fast action definitely wasn’t either.

Criterion simply slipped back away into the shadows as their brand and baby was thrown aside, eventually leaving studio creator and director, Alex Ward to publicly put out on Twitter that the studio was moving away from racing games. A mere four months later, in September 2013, 80% of the staff was moved to Ghost Games UK to work on Need for Speed, leaving a tiny 17 person team to be the shell team we now know as Criterion, helping create vehicle segments for DICE.

There’s a world out there where EA cultivated the Burnout series for the interesting titles that they were, right alongside Need for Speed. But this is the darkest timeline, and the slow fall of Criterion and the Burnout series go hand in hand, as the minds behind one of the best arcade racers on PS2 slowly, surely got mulched into a support team for pod racing. No EA, it was not a good trick.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

Criterion Games is downsized, and most of its talent gone. EA managed to retain a lot of the people who made some of the greatest arcade racing games of all time with the Burnout franchise, but some of them left the company and started a new development house. It’s called Three Field Games, and they are apparently working on something special.

We know that one of the games that they are working on is meant to be a spiritual successor to Burnout; however, their other game has been a total unknown. Until now. Studio head Alex Ward posted an update on the game on Twitter, and mentioned that fans of Burnout and Black – two of Criterion’s most well known IPs – will appreciate this other game that the studio is working on, though he did cryptically add that the new game has no cars or guns.

As someone who was always fascinated by Black, and who adores Burnout to this day, I can safely say I am very excited. Killing Burnout was the worst thing EA ever did, and I can’t wait for the franchise to return, roaring back to life, yet again, in some form.

While Burnout fans were recently given the rather disappointing news that it doesn’t appear there is going to a  remastered collection of the game’s series, it appears they just might have gotten some rather good news this week. Three Fields Studios, made up of a number of former Criterion developers has announced that it’s working on a new racing game which it feels is a spiritual successor to Burnout. The company announced this new game on their official Twitter account. The firm also teased fans of the game series a bit by “asking” which one of the three in the series it should model this new game after.

It appears the company is also beginning work on a second game, though it hasn’t really shed any light on what that game might be. This is really the first hint at what Three Field Studios wants to work on at all. When the Criterion developers joined this team, there was a lot of talk about what direction it could have taken but that was just conjecture until now. We do know that the other game is going to be some kind of multiplayer sports game “with a twist” but beyond that there isn’t really any kind of information.

That game is also expected to be coming out sometime in 2016. That means we should be getting more info about it sooner, rather than later. There wasn’t any kind of window of release for this Burnout spiritual successor so fans who are getting excited will need to wait a little bit.

One of the most underrated shooters of all time is probably Black, which was released by Criterion (of Burnout fame) for the PlayStation 2 and the Xbox right as that generation was drawing to a close, and big releases for the Xbox 360 were drawing far more attention and media coverage.

But Black was an awesome game, and those who played it, loved it. They have also often wondered why Criterion never went back to it, and now, it seems, we have our answer. They did. Or at the very least, they intended to, and for a good while, they were doing everything to make good on that intent. It’s just that everything fell apart before anything concrete could materialize.

As it turns out, Black 2 would have been developed for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3- initial plans were for it to be a numbered sequel, and Criterion intended for the game to expand into a new franchise. However, those plans eventually fell through, and Criterion’s new idea was to reboot the franchise entirely, and start over with a new game just called Black, that would have nothing to do with the first game and would be a standalone narrative- you can see the concept logo for this game above- sort of like another EA studio, DICE, would end up doing with another cult hit first person game of its own, Mirror’s Edge, years later.

The new Black concept didn’t have much of a story attached to it, though Criterion was exploring the notion of making it a co-op shooter. They were also looking at getting a third party to make the game, but then, creative disagreements between EA and Criterion led to the entire project being scrapped, and Stuart Black, a senior designer on the first game, actually left the company over the matter.

EA still planned on going ahead with the game, and even mentioned it publicly in an interview in November 2006, but that was the last of it, and after that, the concept was canceled, and so was the game.

Nothing would ever come of a new Black, and Criterion would go on to make Burnout Paradise for the Xbox 360, PS3, and later PC, before scrapping work on that series entirely as well.

There’s actually a wealth more of information on the purported Black sequel/reboot over on Unseen64, including quotes, concept arts, purported trailer screen captures, and more, so if you are curious, be sure to head on over there and check it all out.

Alex Ward and Fiona Sperry, vice president and creative director, and studio director respectively, who co-founded the acclaimed studio, the guys behind Burnout and the Need for Speed revival, have left the studio, Polygon reports.

“Alex Ward and Fiona Sperry have decided to leave EA,” an EA spokesperson said. “We appreciate their many contributions through the years and wish them well in their future endeavours.

“The incredibly creative and talented team at Criterion are hard at work on a new project for next-gen consoles as new IP continues to be a major priority across EA.  Matt Webster is leading development of the new game and the Criterion studio moving forward. Matt has been part of Criterion for years and has an exciting vision for this new game.”

Criterion itself faces an uncertain future as of now. The studio dramatically downsized early last year, and was working secretly on some sort of next generation project that remains unannounced. But with only two dozen or so personnel remaining, the departure of the studio heads must come as a big blow to the company.

Ward, on his part, wants to start over. He tweeted that he “just decided to start afresh and form a new games company with Fiona Sperry.”

When Kinect was first revealed, it was a device that held a lot of promise, and, even more so than the Wii, promised to change the way we played games forever. While that never happened, and Kinect turned out to be inadequate as a method of control for more complicated games, in the beginning, a lot of major titles were either planned for it or were being pushed for it. One of these was a new Kinect exclusive Burnout game that Microsoft approached Criterion to develop.

Speaking on his Twitter, Alexander J Ward, the Creative Director at Criterion. speaks of the first time he saw the Kinect and how Microsoft approached him to develop a game for the peripheral. “[Microsoft] asked us to do a special Burnout as the pack-in game a la Wii Sports. We declined as we had just begun [Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit].”

The Kinect Burnout project was publicly demoed, with heavily simplified controls that resembled those of an iOS racer, with the player not getting any control over either acceleration or braking. It is hard to know how well (or not) the Kinect exclusive Burnout game would have turned out; on the other hand, one can hardly fault Criterion for going with Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit instead, the game that finally managed to revive EA’s flagship racer brand after years of missteps.

Criterion Studios boss Alex Ward has said that they have stopped making racers entirely. He revealed that in a series of tweets, but VG247 has rounded them up nicely.

Earlier a Need for Speed: Underground logo surfaced which was proven to be fake, however that didn’t stop fans from bugging Ward on Twitter.

“Here is what I want folks to know. Some folks are eternally disappointed. Nothing I can do about that. So many tweets asking for new Burnout. Equally many tweets asking for a new NFS game from us. Also Road Rash,” he said.

“Whilst I love all of those games, I am personally not doing any. After over a decade of making racing games it’s time to make something new. It is early days thus I have nothing to ‘announce’ or talk about.”

“I am proud of all of the Burnout games. When it feels right we will make another one. We are creative people.

A new next-gen Burnout game would be amazing and hopefully EA hires Criterion to do the work.

Tell us what you think in the comments section below.

As creators of the only decent Need for Speed game in years, earlier this year Criterion took over all development of future Need for Speed titles. Prior to this, Criterion racers were either Burnout or forgettable Dreamcast outings. How do you make a Need for Speed game that redefines itself without veering too far into Burnout territory? You meet it half-way. Most Wanted feels like a seismic shift, more like the HMS NFS has finally gained a weathered old sea dog to give it some sense of direction; Paradise City.

The way cars are earned and driven has been completely overhauled, no longer do you simply started with a Vauxhall Corsa and trudge your way towards a Lamborghini Aventador, all cars bar the ’10 Most Wanted’ are available as soon as they are discovered and jacked, meaning if you can find it, you can drive it. This represents a fundamentally more open and inviting game structure which doesn’t punish newcomers or casual players.

Hopefully this framework still lends itself towards a sense of progression, rather than individual cars being the aspirational goals of a gamer, tweaks and tuneups of existing cars, as well as the 10 unlockables. Each car has a set of specific races and events which unlock mods for that specific car, allowing both upgrades but also tweaks to particular driving styles or events.

Billboards now represent something more than a mere smashable collectable, the racer who attains the furthest jump on each will have their face and Fairhaven license emblazoned on it for all to admire; doing away with the mugshots of Burnout Paradise in an attempt to reduce the amount of flip-off cocks for a 3+ rated game.

Checkpoints also now appear along the most ‘logical’ path towards the finish, straying off this path doesn’t necessarily punish the racer, checkpoint will adjust to suit your trajectory and serves as a much needed point of reference mid-race, addressing the key criticism of Paradise, the need to constantly map-check. Now when events end, you continue fluidly into the world rather than being captive in DJ Atomika’s hideous forced stasis until the event finishes.

Further tweaks have been made to the Paradise formula, top speeds on given roads are measured by speed cameras, a more logical means of measuring competitive speeds. Times and vehicle types can also be explored by pulling up to cameras, so more detail is available to those who seek it, whilst still keeping the interface lean and uncluttered. Easydrive also returns allowing quick mod selection, including the inevitable Kinect support which according to Criterion producer Matt Webster, is “faster than d-pad”.

Multiplayer is again different to previous NFS games, taking the fluidity of Burnout model in the creation of Speedlists, a collection of 5 events/races, some of which individual and some collaborative, seamlessly played back-to-back around Fairhaven, with the winner being declared Most Wanted of the given Speedlist.

The overarching means of progression are Speed Points (SP) which both drive position on Most Wanted list between friends and levelling up. SP carries over between consoles, iPhone, Android, Vita, so once you’re bored of the game on the console and fancy some fresh air, you can play a slightly lower-grade version on-the-go.

The Most Wanted staple, the police, are an “ever-present character” in Fairhaven, occasionally rearing their heads during races and often turn up just after. As your heat level rises, police become more resourceful in utilising spike strips and, if Most Wanted follows the GTA model, employing the full force of the US Army. The rozzers will follow you throughout the huge open world or Fairhaven until evaded, which can be attained through cooldown spots, straight-line speed, line of sight and the fan favourite, sheer brute force.

The main question Most Wanted raises is that what does the future hold for Burnout? Especially with such a solid game borrowing from both sides to create a thoroughly enjoyable and robust experience. Webster may have categorically denied that Most Wanted is the end of Burnout, it’s been 4 years since the last Burnout game -Crash! simply doesn’t count- and I can’t see a future other than through some sort of hideous alternating years model which inevitably harms both series in the long term.

Need for Speed: Most Wanted is the logical convergence of two franchises into one by the same developer, taking the fun and bombast of Burnout with the tension and tightness in controls of Need for Speed, having more than enough potential to be the very Need for Speed title to date.