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.