The first Burnout game smashed its way onto Xbox years ago, and since then the series has spawned 3 sequels which have, depending on who you ask, only gotten better as they went along. The franchise's penchant for destruction has certainly been refined over the course of the games, starting as an amusing distraction, and ultimately becoming the centrepiece of the series in Burnout 3: Takedown where players were actively encouraged and rewarded for destroying the competition. Burnout Revenge, game #4 in the series, was more evolution than revolution, but nevertheless was well received due to the fun-factor and highly polished experience. Now the game has sped over to Xbox 360 with a few tune-ups and mods, but is it worth buying again?

It should be said now that Burnout Revenge on the Xbox 360 is pretty much the exact same game as on the Xbox, so if you didn't read Shane's review, go read it now!. But having reiterated that point, it's worth noting that unlike lacklustre ports such as Tony Hawk's American Wasteland, Criterion have made an effort to address criticisms and issues present in the Xbox version, fine-tuning the gameplay to near perfection, as well as making it look a helluva lot better (which is saying something!) and sound superb. Make no mistake folks, Burnout Revenge is a high-definition gaming showpiece - if you want to make your friends green with envy and show off your home theatre, this is the game for it.

For those of you who didn't play Burnout Revenge on Xbox or PS2, the fourth iteration of the franchise really focused on the takedowns and aggressive driving that made Burnout 3: Takedown so popular. With the addition of Revenge Rivals and traffic checking, the carnage was not only personalised a little by providing you with an identifiable enemy, but also made even more crazy thanks to the ability to ram same-way traffic, causing other vehicles to rocket ahead and smash into other racers. The Xbox 360 version doesn't alter any of these gameplay fundamentals; rather it enhances the things gamers liked about the last version, while removing the things people hated.

To give you an enhancement example, the Revenge Rivals concept has been extended into the realm of Xbox Live, allowing you to track your run-ins with other gamers by providing a tally of people you've taken down and who have taken you down, along with a score of how many actual takedowns have occurred. It only takes one to settle the score, so it really adds an element of persistence and excitement to online games. To keep the flames of vendetta burning hot whenever you play online, you'll be reminded at the starting grid of any dismal failures to get revenge if you happen to be racing against a Rival, which only eggs you on to drive more aggressively to take them down or win the race.

On the flipside, Criterion has removed the much-maligned take-off in the Crashbreaker events. No more do you have to worry about blowing your engine before you even start the event, or fret about not getting enough boost to make that jump. It was an unnecessary complication to what should be a fun maximum car-nage event, and they've listened to the critical and popular complaints and totally removed it from the game. To the 5-6 people worldwide who liked this feature, this is a bad thing, to everyone else, it's back to business as usual.

Plus, thanks to the Xbox 360's grunt under the hood, the Crashbreaker events reset twice as fast, so the whole thing is just a faster, more enjoyable game mode. While this may be true of Crashbreaker, overall it feels like you're seeing more of the load-screens than before. It's probably only an extra five or so seconds on every second event, but the general consensus is that "next-gen" equals faster loads, not longer ones. It's a minor complaint in the scheme of things though.

In addition to these changes and others, there isn't much else new to the Xbox 360 version, aside from a few new Crashbreaker events. The biggest drawcard then is obviously the audio/visual high-definition improvements, and Criterion certainly won't disappoint on this front. Burnout Revenge looks absolutely gorgeous on Xbox 360, which is saying something given how attractive the original Xbox version was. Now polished to a near-blinding gloss, the game is stunning in 720p at a rock-solid 60fps. The paint on cars is now affected by the myriad collisions and impacts that occur during any race, so by the end of an event your ride is going to look like it, well, just took part in a Burnout challenge! There's a few new optical effects at work in regards to specular lighting, and the 360's anti-aliasing makes this the smoothest looking Burnout ever.

The highly touted audio is amazing too, boasting insane Dolby Digital surround-sound that puts you right in the middle of the pile-up. It almost sounds like the vehicle and crash sounds have been totally re-done for the Xbox 360, and are painfully realistic. Better yet, the kick-ass soundtrack plays much more consistently than the Xbox version, continuing during load screens and transitions. This means you'll hear a lot more of the songs than the 5-15 second snippets you used to get while navigating menus and preparing for events. Given the emphasis EA place on their "EA Trax" system a little more flexibility in song selection or the ability to construct a playlist would've been nice, but as it is, Burnout Revenge is one of the most impressive sounding games to come out of the EA stable.

Given Microsoft's strong commitment to an integrated online, Xbox Live experience, it was obvious that EA would have to really put in some effort in this new generation of console. The net result is that they've delivered a thoroughly satisfying - if a little standard - online component for Burnout Revenge on Xbox 360. The new Revenge Rival tracking is great, and being able to get a world ranking is pretty awesome too. Still, it's clear that online isn't really EA's focus for the series, at least not at this stage in the franchise. The game modes are the same as before with only a few minor changes, but the stability and connectivity is even better than the Xbox version, which makes the woeful Xbox Live "support" for Burnout 3: Takedown little more than an unpleasant memory.

Races are relatively lag-free for the most part, although larger racers with international gamers can see cars magically jerking about the track even on a 1500/256kbps connection. This can be a real pain during the road-rage events, but on the whole the game handled quite well.

In a very EA move, they've also included Burnout Clips, which are short player-created films of automotive audacity or hatchback hilarity, which can be viewed by all your friends or people from around the world. It doesn't add a lot to the core Burnout gameplay, though people have created some pretty impressive 30-second clips that really show off what the game's physics and sheer destruction are capable of. And yes, it does mean that replays of events are back, for both races and Crashbreaker events!

The Achievements for Burnout Revenge are a bit scattershot, with the singleplayer Achievements largely requiring players to go through the Revenge ranks scoring all-perfect gold ratings. Online Achievements reward constant gaming rather than exceptional gaming, but all told the Gamerscore points for this game are a damn-sight harder to unlock than other EA titles.