Live Revenge wasn’t the only addition to the Xbox 360 version of Burnout Revenge. It was pumped full of even more destructive insanity by the creation of an extra ten Crash Junctions. We talked to Charnjit and Pete to find out how they came to be.

 

What were the ideas behind the new junctions?

Charnjit: We really wanted to showcase our superb new crashes and also offer new challenges that hadn’t been seen in Crash mode before. With the power of the Xbox 360 we were able to have more vehicles crashing simultaneously. We also had a great draw distance so you could see for miles. Exploding Bay and Car Wars really showed off these new vistas.

The junctions were designed with multiple ways to play in mind; there were several ways to complete each junction with each one giving you a different medal. This was all in addition to the target car that was an extra bonus.

An example of this is Grand Master Crash in Unsafe Rank. You could go up the jump and take out the cross traffic, that would be enough to get you a Bronze medal. You could also take out the traffic approaching from the right to earn a Silver medal. But if you wanted Gold you had to take out the cross traffic, stop the traffic approaching from the right hand lanes and then Crashbreaker down to the underpass.

Why weren’t they included for the PS2 and Xbox versions?

Charnjit: When we started working with on the Xbox 360 version of Burnout Revenge we wanted to include new content for Crash mode so we set ourselves the target of creating ten new junctions.

Pete: We thought of the biggest, baddest, craziest moments we wanted to play. Once we're all excited about them we try them out in the game and see how they play out.

What is your favourite junction and why?

Charnjit: Car Wars in Assassin Rank – I really like the huge jump, then flying through the air and taking down all the traffic on the two elevated roads before you drop down to cause carnage on the freeway. This is the biggest jump we have in the game.

The real trick is to smash the traffic on the top level and work your way down the junction, really satisfying when you nail it.

Any handy tips for these junctions?

Charnjit: Check out my "Crash Course" guide for them all!

Will do. So, why did you lock the different cars to the junctions?

Charnjit: We really wanted to highlight the special abilities of these cars for the new junctions. Some junctions just wouldn’t have been possible in other vehicles. With Car Wars, for example, you needed the Compact C185 Super or else you just wouldn’t have made that jump.

For Wish Upon a Car in Reckless Rank we really wanted to obliterate everything on the freeway so we chose the Mobile Diner as it had the largest Crashbreaker. This really let you destroy all the traffic if you got a full force Crashbreaker.

What else did you change for Crash Mode on the 360?

Charnjit: We removed the swing meter from the start of crash mode. On the Xbox and PS2 it led to a lot of restarts if you didn’t get it right so we replaced it with an instant boost start every time.

When you restarted a crash junction on the PS2 and Xbox the game would ‘rewind’ the junction. For the 360 we reduced this problem and made most restarts instantaneous so you’d be put back at the start point straight away. This change also applied to the Crash Cam that shows you a preview of the junction; if you wanted to skip it you’d be put back to your car ready to start the junction. Much more convenient.

Pete: With the extra power of the Xbox 360 we were also able to increase the resolution of the game. Everything now runs in crispy High Definition, so to make the most of that we gave every crash junction in the game an overhaul - polished them up, or in many cases dirtied them down with new layers of rubbish and grime. All the environments were revisited by our artists so more destructible objects litter the streets and extra details are visible everywhere in the buildings and roadside.

We also upgraded all of the cars. Both the player and traffic vehicles in the junctions now smash into many more pieces and deform with much greater fidelity. We use ‘Normal Map' technology to add extra dents and crumples to the car parts and when you set off your Crashbreaker the cars around you are left visibly scorched and burned.

Talking of Crashbreakers, our visual effects system was also given a complete overhaul. In Burnout Revenge on Xbox 360 we are pushing around more particles and effects than ever before. Explosions are broken into multiple visual types and styles giving you greater visual variety. We added layers of sparks and debris to crashes and explosions to create an even more chaotic ballet of destruction. We also use some post processing effects to burn the whole screen as explosions flare near the camera lens.

Cameras were also given a face lift on Xbox 360. We wanted to make sure you could see all the action all the time. We hand placed multiple cameras right where the action happens and then refined our helicopter views to show off the destruction as you hadn't seen it before.

We also restyled the entire on-screen display system to give it a fresh High Definition look which took its inspiration from road markings and signs.

In previous Burnout games, most of the Crash action took place on the race tracks, but this wasn’t always the case in Burnout Revenge. Why the change?

Charnjit: We asked ourselves ‘How could we maximise the benefits of the world for crash mode?’ As I mentioned, we wanted locations we could play in different ways, and we were particularly interested in having more ‘three-dimensional’, layered junctions than we had in Burnout 3: Takedown. So we did build special Crash areas that weren’t part of the race routes, but were designed to fit in with some of the game’s locations.

The 10 new junctions for Xbox 360 are perfect examples of these. Some of the junctions would just not have been possible if they had been set up on the race tracks, such as Exploding Bay, Doughnut Disturb and Live and Let Crash.

We did use some bits of the race worlds for Crashing because they were so good we just couldn’t resist it. Crashaoke on Eastern Bay and Cry for Alp on White Mountain were great crash locations.

Sometimes I’d do the same thing in a Crash Junction several times over and get different scores – How did the scoring actually work?

Charnjit: The overall crash scores were all dependent on multipliers. For Burnout 3: Takedown we had pickups in the junctions that awarded you different bonuses. Some of these were x2 and x4 multipliers.

What we wanted to do for Burnout Revenge is make the player work for their multipliers so we tied them to exploded vehicles. The more vehicles you exploded earlier on in the crash the bigger your score. You could see the multiplier by checking the More Details from the Crash Results.

h3How popular is Crash online? Do you notice a lot of other people playing?

Charnjit: There are always many Crash Party and Crash Tour games hosted so it must be popular!

I regularly play crash online and enjoy the challenge of playing against other people; they sometimes give me a real run for my money! There are some really good crash players out there and it’s interesting seeing the different strategies and vehicles they use – certainly some we never thought of when we were creating them. It’s fun talking to people about what they like about Crash mode. To some people it’s what makes Burnout Revenge so different and refreshing.

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