At what point do you release that Three Fields Entertainment really delivered a worthy homage to the classic Burnout? For me, it’s really simple – it’s all about the boost drift. An arcade racing game is nothing without its drift mechanic, and in Dangerous Driving it’s the key to sustaining maximum velocity – essential not just for the racing and not just for the boost chains (or heat waves, as they’re now known) but also in maintaining ramming speed for those classic Takedowns. And yes, the good news is that Dangerous Driving doesn’t just nail sublime handling, the gladiatorial racing combat works beautifully too.
But the new Three Fields game isn’t really that most eagerly awaited of things – the so-called ‘spiritual successor to Burnout’ – because fundamentally, we’re looking at a small indie game here following in the footsteps of what eventually evolved into an EA triple-A juggernaut, before the firm bizarrely mothballed the franchise. Dangerous Driving was built by a team of seven using Unreal Engine 4 – a far cry from the fully staffed up Criterion, often rebuilding its technology from the ground up from one title to the next. With Dangerous Driving, the end result is something different then – the innovation is poured into game mechanics and race modes rather than into a vast array of complex maps and cars.
Playing Dangerous Driving, I think my colleague John Linneman hits the nail on the head: this is Burnout 3 viewed through the lens of Burnout 1, with the original game’s lower budget and stripped back presentation, merged with the raw essence of what made Burnout 3 so satisfying to play. Visually, the game may lack some of the variety of later Burnout games, but technically it’s on point: UE4 delivers a clean, post-process-heavy presentation and a wonderful motion blur implementation that accentuates the brutal speed this game delivers. However, the use of Unreal also underscores the wide divide in the Dangerous Driving experience depending on whether you’re playing on base or enhanced consoles.
Both vanilla consoles and PS4 Pro render at 1080p, while Xbox One X bumps up clarity to 1440p but the difference in frame-rate targets is crucial here: the standard machines run at 30fps, while their enhanced equivalents hit 60fps. Danger Zone 2 offered the chance to switch between quality and performance modes on Xbox One X, but couldn’t quite sustain 1080p60, so I was a little concerned about Dangerous Driving going in. However, the good news here is that the new game gets extremely close to locking to that super-smooth, consistent frame-rate – especially so on PlayStation 4 Pro. Xbox One X gets close to Pro’s standard, with just the odd performance hiccup. Also strange is that both versions see minor frame-rate hitching when text appears on-screen mid-race. Both consoles do this, but the X sees it happen more frequently. By and large though, both of the enhanced consoles run really well – and away from the PC release, this is the best way to play.