In Burnout's popular Crash mode, each junction has its own name, giving it a bit of character and making it easier to discuss during development. For the first Crash mode in Burnout 2: Point of Impact, the lead designer thought the junctions should have cool names like the tracks and, in his own words, he “got a bit carried away” creating them.

But where do they all come from? And what do they mean? There probably isn't one person who can fully answer both of those questions but this is as close an account as you'll find. By the end of it you'll know things that, until now, only the development team have known.

When you Wish Upon A Car...

Game development can be a long and tough process, so to make it more enjoyable we always end up cracking jokes about what we're doing. Naming the Crash junctions is a familiar outlet for this—in fact, we compete to come up with the funniest and most appropriate (and inappropriate) names. Despite their wide variety, they nearly always fall into some recognisable categories.

The most useful names link into the junction itself and give you a little hint how to play it. For instance, “Leap of Faith” in Burnout 3: Takedown is a subtle way of us telling you to use the jump ramp. “Run for the Bus” is also a clue to getting a good score. Others don't give a gameplay hint but are still named after a feature of its track such as “Grand Slam” (next to a sign for Hotel Grand), “Break the Bank” (outside a casino) and “Market Crash” (in a market).

Some are puns on the titles of our favourite films, such as “Return of the Semi” and “Grape Fear”, or songs (“Ticket to Collide”) and, in one slightly unlikely instance, a play, “A Street Car Set On Fire”. (That last one is also a clue—setting fire to the trams almost guarantees a gold medal.) Other good puns are on popular phrases (“Look then Leap”), types of food, (“Crash au Van”), or even a combination of the two (“Noodles of Fun”).

Other names reflect the interests of the team members who authored them. You'll find that some are obscure references to pinball machines, reality TV shows, our own names and games which we have a lot of respect for. Which ones those are I leave for you to work out for yourself.

A grisly scene from Smashed In Translation

Despite this seemingly endless range of topics to choose from, when there are up to 100 good names to come up with, things can get a little desperate. Takeaway menus, copies of tabloid newspapers, various internet databases and a thesaurus come in handy at this point.

We have even resorted to emailing the Black team for ideas, which resulted in getting several different emails saying “‘Car Wars’, its like Star Wars but with cars. Get it?”

To be fair, the Black design team came up with some of the better names in Revenge, like “Pasta Red Light” and “Mountain the Kerb”. Anyone at Criterion can join in the fun so we're often pleasantly surprised when some passing programmer or artist comes up with a hilarious name that has everyone in stitches, like “Forrest Bump”. (At the time, it was funnier.)

Everyone on the team has their favourite junction names—usually ones they made up themselves. Mine are “Wonton Destruction”, “Exit the Dragon” and “A Streetcar Set on Fire”.

A taste of Wonton Destruction

Sometimes, though, disaster strikes down even the best ideas. The menus in Burnout 3: Takedown only supported a certain number of characters so several of our best names had to be shortened. “Wrecks in the City” became the neutered “Wreck City”. The ridiculous “Chilli Con Carnage” became the awful and just weird “Chilly Crash”. The genius of “Exact Change Only”, which takes place around a toll booth, lost its gleam when it was shortened to “Exact Change”. “Rock Around the Dock” was stripped of all pioneering rock and roll references when it became “Rock the Dock”.

It doesn't end when all of the names have been decided upon, though. Burnout is released in many different countries and the EA localisation teams do a great job of translating the game into many different languages. Crash junction names are an interesting test of this process.

For example, how well does “Crash de la Vista” translate into Dutch? Or Spanish for that matter. Not speaking these languages myself, it’s difficult to tell how they finally ended up. Apparently the French versions are a bit more bloodthirsty than the English with names like “Interstate of Death!”. A Danish junction in Eternal City was inexplicably called “Julius Caesar”. I'm sure there are many other interesting translations that our international and bilingual fans could tell us about.

In fact, if any of you linguistic geniuses out there want to send us your favourites, we’ll profile them right here on this page!

Gallery

Related Articles

Crash Course
Ever been unsure exactly how to complete a Crash Junction in Burnout Revenge? How to block all the roads or what's the best car to use for making the jump? Well, consider this your one-stop-shop for everything you ever needed to know about each Crash Junction.

Crash Bonus!
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.