Burnout Revenge still holds its own against the best arcade racers. The traffic checking system is glorious, races smell of scorched tarmac, and Crash mode with friends still triggers proper belly laughs.
Your verdict
Category
Racing1 player12+
Description
Arcade racing by Criterion Games and EA, April 2006. Rival drivers race frantically through cities causing explosive crashes on opponents. Takedowns rewarding boost gauge, controllable Aftertouch slow-motion crashes and Road Rage and Crash modes. First Burnout on Xbox 360, port and upgrade of the Xbox classic.
Burnout Revenge review
4/5
Art direction
★★★★★
"Striking"
4/5
Music
★★★★★
"Excellent"
1/5
Story
★★★★★
"Anecdotal"
Revenge turns traffic into ammunition: civilian cars rammed from behind become balls of sheet metal you launch at rivals, and the intersections are drawn like pinball tables, crossing ramps, suspended lights, angles calculated to multiply the pileups. Crumpled metal gleams like molten steel here, an aesthetic of aggression the series never pushed further.
Crash FM runs on 2005 punk rock and alternative metal, compressed guitars picked to hit in rhythm with slipstreams and paybacks. The mix makes the impacts a section of their own: glass and metal crashes locked to the downbeats, big-wreck slow motion where the music stretches, then a dry pickup. The soundtrack and the wreckage literally play together.
Gameplay
"Masterful"
Smashing into oncoming traffic to carve your way through, racking up takedowns and skimming the tracks at full throttle forms an arcade racer of gloriously gratifying aggression. The sense of speed and the thrill of the crash remain intact. More brutal than its peers, it keeps a snappiness and clarity that still delight.
Fun
"From the very first seconds"
Arcade racing pushed to the extreme, where you slam into traffic in your direction to earn boost and every crash becomes spectacular. The gleeful Crash mode turns pile-ups into a discipline of their own. Snappy, brutal and fiercely cathartic, a racing game that bets everything on speed, impact and chaos, for instant, exhilarating sensations.
Addictiveness
"Obsessive"
Slamming into traffic instead of dodging it, triggering Takedowns and grazing disaster at full throttle turns every race into a rush of adrenaline that begs for the next one straight away. Climbing the ranks and unlocking new rides keeps the pull alive. The events repeat a touch, but the gleeful violence of the crashes and the sheer speed keep an immediate, fearsome grip.
Burnout Revenge, an entry that takes Criterion's ultra-fast arcade racing to its peak with jubilant crashes and sanctioned ramming, the apex of the series' classic formula. Still common, its desirability rests on this acclaimed intensity and the nostalgia of unbridled racing rather than scarcity, the Asian, Japanese and Korean pressings being harder to find. A prime piece for a racing set.
Is Burnout Revenge still worth playing in 2026?
Released in 2006 on Xbox 360, Criterion's Burnout Revenge takes the arcade formula to a peak of cathartic mayhem, with its Traffic Checking system that lets you ram same direction vehicles to turn them into projectiles. The hallucinatory speed, the crash staging and the dedicated Crash mode deliver an immediate, brutal glee. Readability sometimes suffers from the ambient chaos. But that very excess is what gives it flavour. For fans of aggressive arcade racing and strong sensations, this entry remains one of the most exhilarating in the series today.
