Shaun Munro reviews Danger Zone…
Though Burnout fans are still lamenting the series’ unjust demise, a group of former Criterion Games founders have banded together under a new studio, Three Fields Entertainment, to recreate a small sliver of the racing franchise’s most beloved mainstay – Crash Mode.
For those who weren’t fortunate enough to experience the glory of Crash Mode back in the day, it hurled players (and their cars) into a stretch of traffic and begged them to set off a series of collisions, using their car to kick-start the orgy of crashes. After that initial contact, the player’s ride of choice would then fly through the air in slow-motion while they attempted to use their momentum to steer into other vehicles and cause as convoluted a domino effect of vehicular carnage as possible, all while the resulting damage was duly tallied up as a dollar value.
It was an absolute time sink of a mode, one which has been promisingly resurrected in Danger Zone, a budget reprise of Crash Mode which may lack the sharp, sprawling city-wide beauty of the franchise it spawned from, but should nevertheless fill a hole for fans.
The game presents the player with 20 different levels in which to stage their mayhem, all materialising in a Matrix-like digital landscape, which sadly lacks the charm of Burnout‘s actual locales, and ends up feeling rather samey and sterile quite quickly.
That said, the minute-to-minute gameplay recalls the best of Crash Mode, as you agonisingly attempt to rack up enough car collisions to trigger a “Smashbreaker”, a huge explosion which will destroy any car in the area, and also provide you with further momentum to hurtle towards cash bonuses and even more Smashbreaker pick-ups littered around the map.
It’s a simple but beautifully efficient gameplay loop and one that can be easily rinsed in 2-3 hours, but it also benefits considerably from that “one more try” appeal thanks to the presence of online leaderboards. There’s an immensely satisfying feeling to topping one’s own score and savouring the orgy of smashed metal as a dozen school buses careen helplessly into the colossal road block you’ve created (don’t worry, there’s no kids in them). Though the game isn’t really built for long sessions, it functions rather well if you’ve got 15-30 minutes to kill every now and then.
There are some issues that hold it back from fully capitalising on its premise, though; in addition to the aforementioned bland locales, reloading a track takes far too long considering the trial-and-error nature of the game, and it would certainly benefit from an instant reset button as in the Trials franchise.
Also, the tracks get challenging surprisingly fast, especially as vehicular handling isn’t great, and later on players may find themselves struggling to rack up even a Bronze medal, which may be a little disheartening for those who were expecting a more casual experience. Also, the fact that an attempt is immediately stopped if you fall off the edge of the map into a digital “net” is a bit of a shame; why can’t the game just let the rest of your Rube Goldberg horror show play out first?
Also, the package is rather rough visually, and though expectations are hardly through-the-roof for a budget title that pretty much came out of nowhere, the vehicular models in particular look years out of date, and there’s no option to select another car beyond the boring default one, both facts which only compound the aforementioned blandness of the environments. Presumably due to budget constraints, there’s also no music to be found, though you can’t blame Three Fields for not splashing some cash on Kenny Loggins, delicious though it would’ve been.
Still, the lack of stylistic finesse is hardly a deal-breaker, and certainly not at this price point, which will represent the game’s big pull to many; Danger Zone retails for just a tenner on PS4, which is more-than-reasonable for how much even casual players will probably get out of it. It’s a shame Danger Zone doesn’t offer more in the way of location variety and overall polish, but it does a fine job serving up the basic goods, and sometimes that’s enough.
Pros:
+ A solid recreation of Burnout‘s beloved Crash Mode
+ It’s incredibly addictive
Cons:
– Lack of content
– Casual players may find it too challenging
– Mediocre graphics
Rating: 6/10
Reviewed for PS4 (also available on PC)
Shaun Munro – Follow me on Twitter for more video game rambling.
