Burnout Legends

Last week, a crowdfunded project arrived that I have been looking forward to. OK, to be fair, that’s almost all the crowdfunding projects I back, but this one was different.

What arrived was my Ayn Odin Pro. The Anbernic 351M I have is good and showed me that my Retro Handheld path is one I wanted to travel. Playing the Anbernic for an extended period hurts my hands though.

Enter the Odin. About the same size as a Switch Lite, more powerful than the Anbernic and designed for emulation. I thought it would be a winner.

I will talk more about the Odin in a future Shenanigans, but early in the week, I started setting up the Odin. Things went well, but I spent a bit of time sorting out PlayStation and PlayStation Portable.

And the game I was testing and fine-tuning the setup PSP wise was Burnout Legends. This was the second Burnout game I played, and the only portable Burnout I have.

For people that aren’t familiar with the games, Burnout is (was?) an arcade racing game that emphasises reckless driving and taking out opponents.

That might sound ‘standard’ these days, but back in the early 2000s, Burnout was new and different. And for a good couple of hours last week, I was happy to start re-exploring the world.

It wasn’t only the fun gameplay and amazing visuals. Criterion and EA coupled Burnout with an amazing soundtrack of licensed music. Almost every track fit the world of Burnout. Even someone like me that doesn’t listen to most of the bands enjoyed the soundtracks.

There are various race types. ‘Standard’ races, Burning Lap where you beat times, Road Rage where you wipe out opponents, and Head to Head challenges.

And again, if you want to go deeper, there are even more things to do. There are various challenges, such as using traffic to take down opponents.

Signature takedowns are my favourite, where you take down someone at specific places. Your reward is a silly postcard type record of your recklessness!

But racing isn’t all you can do in Burnout. There are also Crash events. Crash events are where you speed into an intersection and try to cause as much damage as possible.

On one hand, this sounds terrible. On the other, knowing it’s a game, causing mayhem is fun and cathartic on the couch at the end of the day! Just watching car after car piling into a crash, and then exploding to cause even more mayhem. Responsible driving at it’s finest!

Will I get absorbed back into the world of Burnout Legends? Probably not. There are a lot of games I want to get back into, but I have been enjoying myself while learning how the Odin works.

If Burnout Legends tickles your interest, I recommend grabbing Burnout Paradise Remastered. You can go portable on the Switch, but I haven’t tried it so I am not sure how it plays. On PlayStation or Xbox though – amazing experience.

I backed the Odin Pro for a portable retro gaming console. I have been tweaking things little by little, but I have been getting distracted. That distraction has been Burnout Legends.

There has been enough racing to unlock all the vehicle classes, and I have gotten all gold in the first two classes. I have also been making some progress in the Crash mini-games.

According to my save file, I have played for about 6 hours. If you asked me without looking at the stats, I would have said 2 hours tops.

As a series, Burnout has always managed to draw me in. I don’t remember Burnout Legends pulling me in like this though. In general, I have enjoyed driving around and taking out opponents.

I have been making progress in Signature Takedowns and other criteria for advanced rewards. I haven’t been putting any real effort in for this, it has happened naturally during play.

I may be borderline completing Burnout Legends before moving on to other games. That wasn’t what I thought would be happening, but it is how it has turned out.

Kicking back on the couch, doing a race or two a few times to earn Gold might be the way to go. Because races are so quick, the pick up and put down Burnout Legends gameplay, might only take a couple of weeks!

Last time I talked about how Burnout Legends has distracted me. For a couple of nights this week, it has more consumed me! I spent a few hours making quite a bit of progress in the game.

I have a medal in every Crash event and completed the first three vehicle classes on World Tour mode. This is the real knuckle down phase of the game. To earn gold medals now, you need to complete races with no mistakes.

This might not sound too bad. Games ask you to be at your best at the end game. In Burnout Legends, now I am racing faster than ever as well as more traffic and surprises!

I did get to thinking about why I am enjoying the PSP Burnout Legends when I have Burnout Paradise on PS4. The new sandbox world Burnout Paradise must be a better gaming experience, right?

On the Odin, I don’t have to deal with any online aspects or continual play in the Paradise sandbox. I can do a race, then put the console down to take a break. Nothing flashes up to ask me to do another event, or race someone online.

These smaller game experiences are something I think we are losing in new games. Want a game you can play for 5 minutes only? I can’t think of a game released in the last 5 years that lets you do it. Even mobile games are trying to keep you tapping for as long as possible.

I am going to try and get gold in every event, but I am not going to try and grind it out. There is always the single event mode where I can pick random races and special vehicles.

Not all play has to be for mastery and completion, and Burnout Legends is a great stress relief game.