Well its ridiculous isn't it. That one word so neatly sums up an entire series of games. Burnout: Ridiculous. Burnout 2: Even More Ridiculous. Burnout 3: More Ridiculous Than Ever and, you guessed it, Burnout: Revenge hasn't gotten any less ridiculous. It's ridiculously fast, it's ridiculously destructive and it's ridiculously fun to play.

I remember when I first played the original Burnout. I was determined not to like it, as at the time I was an avid and loyal Gran Turismo puritan. What was this upstart of a game that reviewers claimed to be a 'GT beater'? So I played it, and try as I might I couldn't help but fall in love with it. It was so fast! The cars didn't handle as accurately as GT's but I'll be damned if they weren't a lot more fun to drive. The aim was not to perfect braking distances to maximise the acceleration out of the corners, but to slide wildly at full speed through the corner toward oncoming traffic in ways that can only be described as…ridiculous!

Then Burnout 2 came along, post The Fast and the Furious and with some seriously exotic cars to play with. Faster, harder, more intense and with driveability that just made you want to go everywhere sideways, as though the roads were coated in butter. The music was more intense, there was more traffic, more accessible boost and even more speed. Burnout 3: Takedown hit the shelves and everything went mental, thanks mainly to EA taking over Acclaim as publisher and ploughing a whole load of money into the series. Cue licensed music, formula one cars and that weirdo Striker, but more importantly, the perfect balance between arcade style driving and aggressively ramming your opponents into a wall. Or a truck. Or pretty much anything that's going to cause their speed to drop to zero instantaneously. It saw the series shift toward being more of a beat 'em up on wheels, with punches thrown at 180mph.

Every Burnout title seems to have improved upon its previous incarnation and now, instead of being an upstart trying to carve a niche for itself, it's become the benchmark of madcap, irresponsible driving madness. Burnout Revenge has taken everything that was good about the previous games, added a nitrous kit and polished it until it looks really, really shiny. Gone are the garish bright colours that defined the previous titles; now everything looks grimy, dark and, well, even better! The detail seems almost infinite at high speeds; city streets are strewn with litter, fire escapes and neon signage. The whole arena feels more alive and more lived in. There's a lot going on, which looks great, but you'd better be careful! The sides of the roads are littered with barely visible obstacles, whether you're careening down the highways or flying through lumberyards. Walls, trees, pillars, fences, machinery, all give the track a very three-dimensional feel. You won't be able to do that age old trick of slamming into the side on a tight corner and letting it take you round; more often than not you'll find that corner taking you down.

The races feel faster than ever too. Every new Burnout title seems to be as fast at the start as the previous one was at the end, so the standard cars you begin with in Revenge feel almost as fast as the Formula 1 car did in Takedown! It's as fluid as ever and the new graphics stream by at an incredible rate without even a flutter. Add to that a whole host of new 'whooshing' sound effects every time you pass an object (which is fairly often) and the overall effect is like surfing the Millennium Falcon at light speed through an asteroid field.

The tracks are full of detail and now full of shortcuts, which can seriously affect the outcome of the race. Blue lights indicate the entrances to these numerous alleyways, so you can 'easily' negotiate your way through at ridiculously high speeds. Races also take on a much more three-dimensional element, with added emphasis on jumping and, more to the point, landing. Vertical takedowns, where you literally land on your rival, are equally as difficult as they are satisfying. In fact, I defy anyone playing to score a vertical takedown and not let out at least a little yelp of glee. Jumping is however fraught with danger, as jumps can often send you soaring helplessly over cliffs or into solid objects such as lampposts or mountains.

The ability to jump has added a whole new dimension to the crash mode as well, which, since Burnout 3, has changed dramatically. Gone are those infuriating pick-ups that make or break your score. Instead, the aim is to destroy as much traffic as you possibly can, no distractions. There's a target car that'll give you a bit of a bonus and the cashbreaker's been ramped up, so the higher the cashbreaker level on the car, the bigger the explosion. And what an explosion it often is! Dozens of cars fly outward like some Matrix-esque disaster, in a cloud of green and red flame. The jumps make things interesting, as you can attack the junctions from a whole host of different angles and the wind will throw you about all over the place depending on the car's weight. If you found previous crash modes intensely satisfying, having the power of destruction at your fingertips and sitting in with your mates and causing havoc, you'll love this.

In terms of game modes, Burnout remains a great multiplayer game. It's one of those classics that you can just pick up after work, on a Sunday morning, or after the pub and just get into it straight away, whether you're on your own or with friends. There are plenty of modes to go for; whether you fancy a jolly good race, an all out road rage war, or a bit of casual destruction in crash, there really is something for everyone. It's not quite Monkey Ball for game mode diversity, but for a driving game there are plenty of options. I don't think Burnout Golf would work somehow anyway.

The only criticism I have, and it's a small one, is the level of involvement you feel when playing the Burnout World Tour. There's little justification for you being there; you just apparently go around the world competing in events and every now and then a mysterious power awards you a new car. I hate to say this, but even Striker in Takedown helped to give you more of a feeling of involvement, like you were competing in a real event. He talked an awful lot of nonsense but at least he made you feel like you were part of the game. There is a replacement, an unnamed female voice, which only really speaks up when new events are introduced.

There's no real character to the single player mode, which doesn't necessarily detract from the game, because at the end of the day you came to race, and it does that really well. You just don't have any intimate attachment to the tour that makes you want to win; you just win because it gives you faster cars and more races, and because it's there. A rating system measures your progress throughout the game, which is based on a star score earned during races. This is affected by your driving skill and aggression. The risks identified in Takedown, such as drifting, air and boosting, all fill up a rating bar from good to awesome. An awesome score in a race gains four stars, but coupled with a gold in the event awards a perfect five. These stars all add up to increase your overall rating, which ascends from an irritating Harmless through Offensive and Dangerous to Elite. There are ten in total and each opens up a new division of races.

A whole host of new features have been added for Revenge; along with the addition of shortcuts and the revamped crash mode, you can now smash through small and medium sized traffic heading the same way as you, known in the game as checking traffic (I'll spare you the special echo effect). Now you can fly along the tarmac in a velvet clad comfort zone clattering traffic around you like tin cans on a skittle alley, right up until you smash into the back of a large truck. The cars you hit can also be used as weapons against your enemies, but beware, your enemies will send cars flying your way too. The overall effect can be awesome, with cars and pick-up trucks flying around all over the place as you battle with the other racers.

The other drivers are noticeably more aggressive. Burnout: Revenge is aptly named, as each time you're taken down by a rival they become your new Revenge Rival and the arrow above them changes to red. This feature is brilliant, because if you get taken down your eyes become narrow and your skin changes to a deep crimson and suddenly winning the race isn't as important as sending your new nemesis into oblivion. All of those times when you felt frustrated beyond belief because of another racer that made you crash are suddenly justified and are actually part of the game now. It'll still make you mad, but at least you can get your own back in a way that feels sweetly satisfying.

You may find yourself crashing accidentally sometimes, because you're too busy admiring the rear wing of the car that just overtook you. They are indeed beautiful creations, all of them, and there are a fair few to boot. There's a similar standard to Takedown in how the cars are rated, in that you get a standard, limited, GT versions and so on of each model, but the way you choose them is different. Instead of the cars being grouped (mini, muscle, super etc.) there is just one long list of increasing power. Well, I say power; the only statistics you have to judge a car are weight, crashbreaker level and boost speed, which is (funnily enough) the speed you'll go flat out at when boosting. Nothing about acceleration, handling or braking ability; you'll have to find that out for yourself. You rarely get a chance to play with the same car for long though, as faster cars are introduced quite regularly and only a fool would choose to drive slower cars. The regular introduction of faster cars gives the game a nice sense of progression. It's paced well, so the game always feels like it's getting faster, and faster, and faster, until it goes so fast that you're finishing races before you've actually started them.

As I mentioned earlier, EA have brought with them a whole new soundtrack. Like Takedown, Revenge has a rocking juke box of licensed music and any fan of MTV2 or Kerrang will have heard at least a few of the tracks. Think skinny white men with guitars, lots of shouting and power chords and you're somewhere close. It might not sound all that great on paper, but in reality it's the perfect compliment to the type of game that Burnout Revenge is.

Burnout is one of the few racing games to have not jumped on the 'modding' band wagon, but this works in its favour as an out and out racer. It's not distracted by alloy types or the colour of the car; it focuses all of its energy on the thrill of the race and no other game does it better. Sure, you can argue that Gran Turismo is the closest a game can get to actual race driving and you'd probably be right, but Burnout isn't a simulator. Burnout is what you wish you could do on the roads; it lets you drive at stupid speeds through hordes of traffic and smash into them with little more than a wince of imaginary pain. It lets you drive cars that you wish existed and in ways that probably aren't possible, because of that annoying little thing we like to call physics.

It's likely you'll play quite intensely and work your way through the tour in around ten hours, but there are plenty of signature takedowns and challenges such as getting a double takedown or getting 20 takedowns in a road rage event to keep you busy for a while. You can play through the game quite quickly just getting medals, but to get gold in all events will take a great deal longer. Add to this an extensive multiplayer mode and there's a good chance that you'll still be playing this game when the next instalment in the ever improving series comes out. I'm giving Burnout: Revenge a 9 out if 10 and it took me a while to come to that conclusion. I'm always a little reluctant to give a 10 out of 10, because that implies that the game is perfect and to say it's perfect implies that the series has nowhere else to go, that it can never be any better. But no doubt there will be another Burnout and no doubt it will be improved. Such is the way of things.

Burnout: Revenge has all of the hallmarks of a Burnout title. EA and Criterion know they're on to a good thing with the series and they're not about to change anything that will put off devoted fans. Saying that, it is different enough and great enough to warrant buying, even if you have all three of the previous versions. It just looks so good and is so incredibly fast, and the new features compliment every aspect of the solid foundation laid down by the previous three games. In short, if you like the Burnout series, buy this game. If you've never played any of the Burnouts but you like driving games, buy this game. If you like the sensation of speed and taking your aggression out in a consequence free environment, go out to your nearest store with your piggy bank money and buy this game! Are you seeing a pattern emerge here?

Reviewed by Jim Powell for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).