Burnout 3: Takedown (T) (5 stars)
Electronic Arts
PlayStation 2, Xbox
Do you shy away from racing games because you find the tracks dull, you crash too often, or you don't know which button works the brakes? Then this is the game for you. In Burnout 3, every track is thrilling, crashing is the point, and even though you race at speeds in excess of 200 mph, you'll never need your brakes.
After trading paint with greatness in the first two Burnouts, the franchise has a head-on collision with perfection in Takedown. Extra boost is awarded to racers who take the most chances, whether by sliding out of control, driving into oncoming traffic, or achieving a takedown, i.e. slamming some poor bastard into a wall and sending his mangled sports car into orbit.
No game has captured the sheer joy of destruction like this since Blast Corps hit the Nintendo 64. Scoring takedowns is endlessly addictive, watching your opponents fly apart in slow motion is sinfully satisfying, and Burnout 3 is one of the very best racers. Ever.
Star Ocean: Till the End of Time (T) (4 stars)
Square Enix
PlayStation 2
Space ... the final frontier. These are the voyages of the blue-haired, vaguely effeminate young boy, Fayt Leingod. His two-disc mission: to explore the beautiful but sometimes tediously long dungeons, leveling up through an excellent real-time combat system. To seek out his lost parents and the many plot twists that keep them separated. To boldly go where many an RPG has gone before, but seldom so well.
Spy Fiction (T) (3 stars)
Sammy Studios
PlayStation 2
This latest entry in the booming stealth genre takes a few liberties with reality. Obscure sci-fi concepts let you blend into walls with a single button and manifest disguises out of the air. Some of these innovations will have you humming the Mission: Impossible theme, but others will leave you rolling your eyes. In a genre ruled by Solid Snake and Sam Fisher, realism proves better than fiction.
Astro Boy (E) (2 stars)
Sega
PlayStation 2
Astro Boy packed a pretty good cybernetic punch on Game Boy Advance, but on PS2, he'stoo big for his dangerously revealing britches. Despite its similarities to the superior Omega Factor, Astro Boy winds up feeling like nothing more than a string of aggravating boss battles. And though the controls handle as if the Speedo-sporting hero's got a few screws lose, the whole misadventure can be beaten in a few short hours.
Matthew Scott Hunter has been known to mumble, "Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start" in his sleep. E-mail him at
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