We are all familiar with the term "tweener", from the mightiest Empire Strikes Back to the hype magnet that was Halo 2, tweeners have made us drool with excitement and let us down by revealing themselves as being just a small link in a chain leading to a larger, more interesting climax. Tweener movies and games are there merely to keep things flowing until the next pivotal point in a story. Some people may think the same about Burnout Dominator. After the revolutionary Burnout Revenge impressed us all by making a franchise known for chaotic racing action even more chaotic than previously thought possible, Burnout Dominator may seem like a step backwards for some. In the end, however, Dominator proves that it can stand on its own and further proves that it is still one of the best non-sports franchises EA has to offer.
Burnout Dominator harkens back to the roots of the series where it focused on racing rather than crashes, traffic checks, and multi-million dollar highway pile-ups. Burnout Dominator puts the focus back into boosting, drifting, and winning every race possible to move to the next division and gain new cars. That's not to say the series has turned a complete 180, however, as taking risks, driving fast, forcing opponents to crash, and general driving insanity remain as the main staples of the game and are highly encouraged if you're remotely interested in winning.
Burnout Dominator offers more than eighty events for you to speed through with specialized and often lofty goals that will earn you medals based on your performance and points to unlock new events and divisions. All of the standard race modes are here including grand prix where you'll have to race through multiple tracks and hope that you'll come out with a good score and eliminator where the car in last place is eliminated after a certain amount of time until there is only one car remaining. One notable change in this installment is that the ability to traffic check, or rear-end traffic and send them hurling into opponents is gone. This means that pedestrian traffic has become a huge obstacle again and those players who have invested hundreds of hours into Burnout Revenge will have to readjust.
The racing has also received its fair share of tweaks, while the element of risky driving remains just as important as ever. Driving into oncoming traffic, near misses with pedestrian vehicles, drifting around corners, catching air, and causing opponents to crash, known as takedowns, will fill your boost meter. Once you've earned some boost, you can hit R1 to get a significant boost of speed. Squandering your boost, however, will turn your boost meter blue and earn you a supercharge that isn't just faster than a normal boost; it's the video game equivalent of ludicrous speed. Holding down R1 and draining the supercharge without slowing down or crashing will earn you a Burnout, while managing to drive dangerously or taking down opponents while draining your supercharge will earn you additional Burnouts that you can chain in succession, and therein is where the secret of winning lies. Another new addition to the racing are signature shortcuts. Each track has a number of signature shortcuts that are blocked off by special yellow concrete barriers. You can gain access to these shortcuts by sending opponents hurdling through the barriers. Once you open a shortcut, it's available for you to use from then on.
While standard race modes are all well and good, this is Burnout we're talking about, which means that the more interesting and insane race modes cannot be overlooked. Despite the toning back of some of the more insane elements, fans can be rest assured that the over-the-top race modes are still there. Road rage requires you to cause any opponent that gets in your way to crash, be it into a wall or into other cars. While one glaring omission would be the series' infamous crash mode, it's been replaced with the enjoyable maniac mode that requires you to drive as insanely as possible and every drift, boost, near miss, or Burnout chains will garner maniac points, which will earn medals in return. If you crash, it's not the end of the world since you can get payback by holding R1 to slow down time and steer your wreck into opponents for takedowns or perform a crash breaker by pressing R2 and watch in giddy glee as your car explodes and takes out everything about it.
There are multiple divisions for you to race through and unlock as you win events. Each division adheres to a certain theme of vehicles, such as muscle cars, factory standard, tuned, hot rods, and the ultimate division of "dominator" cars. While Burnout Dominator doesn't take the liberty of using licensed vehicles, there are bunches of nice looking cars that look worthy enough to buy and cruise around in. The cars go beyond resorting to cheap knock-offs. Each division has a certain number of events, which require you to earn a certain amount of points before the next division will unlock. Event goals are easy to attain at first, but as you speed through each division, the goals become loftier, and often seem impossible later on. It almost seems like you need to squeak by with a well-timed stroke a luck to get a paltry bronze medal in certain events. Compared with the lack of traffic checking and the overall difficulty of previous games, this installment seems much less forgiving. Luckily, Dominator does a fine job of always keeping you in the action as you'll never get lapped, nor will you find yourself lapping anyone else. No matter how fast you're going, you'll always have an opponent on your tail threatening to take your position. The same can also be said if you're lagging behind, you'll always be back into the action in a matter of seconds if you manage not to crash frequently.
For being a PS2 exclusive, Burnout Dominator looks great. Cars reflect their environments realistically and you'll get some neat looking motion blur when you get into high-speed territory. Of course, the icing on the cake has always been the crashes, and Dominator doesn't disappoint. With every crash, your car will deform and fall apart realistically, though you won't get the realistic paint scratching seen in the Xbox 360 version of Burnout Revenge, but that's to be expected. The track design of Dominator is improved over its predecessor and features a number of tracks that look amazing. It's a shame that the environment is flying by you too fast to enjoy it. There are a few glitches here and there where pedestrian vehicles will pop-up just a little too late and cause you to crash, or graphical anomalies where the camera will get stuck in the ground when you crash. There are also moments where the camera seems to conspire against you during a crash and will position itself at a point where you're unable to see any oncoming opponents, which causes you to cross your fingers and let loose with a crash breaker hoping that you'll get some instant payback.
The soundtrack is on par with recent games in the series and features licensed music from various punk, metal, and older alternative acts such as Jane's Addiction and Alice in Chains. While the music fits in well with the action of the game, one questionable addition to the soundtrack are the five different versions of one Avril Lavigne song with a chorus sung in different languages. While it's not a particularly bad song, and admittedly, she's pretty hot (aside from the fact that Ms. Lavigne really needs to see a dentist) it gets tiring after five different versions of one song are in the playlist rotation.
While Burnout Revenge was a hard act to follow, Burnout Dominator manages to set itself apart as a sort of homage to the first two games of the series while still keeping the white-knuckled, edge of your seat thrills that recent games have been known for (despite its lack of online multiplayer). Like the Empire Strikes back, this game may seem like it's a mere tweener game between Burnout Revenge and the next installment, but it manages to retain a charm all its own which brings me to two bits of advice. First, fans of Burnout will definitely enjoy this game and second, referencing both the Empire Strikes Back and Spaceballs in a game review will make you feel like a total nerd.
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