Don't you just love re-reviews? Well...I don't. No, I take that back, I do, as long as there's a purpose for submitting a second review on something. For instance, I know I'll be dropping the final word on Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter next week for the Xbox 360, but I won't be in any kind of rush to see what became of the Xbox version, although a curious few will want to get the final say on what became of the current-gen build in the face of the "HOLY CRAP!" 360 version. But I decided to approach Burnout Revenge in a casual fashion, as it seems to have the kind of promises to be a next-gen winner while not really changing anything about the formula it's presented before on the Xbox and PS2.

So, let me recap the game in a nutshell as I reviewed it on the Xbox. It was awesome, to say the least. A true sequel to Burnout 3: Takedown, Revenge featured deep, intricate level design with lots of opportunities for takedowns (crashing cars into walls, etc.) and air time, as well as a variance of online options and sharp gameplay. Granted, the EA Trax didn't have all the best picks around, as I found myself skipping around to my favorites quite often, but past that, I could find no blemish on the hood. EA had current-gen arcade racing down pat with that game.

And so that leaves the 360 version. Criterion could've easily just ported over the game in the same sense that Activision did with some of their launch titles (aside from Call of Duty 2), but instead they seemed to have optimized the game to finely suit the 360. That's not to say that they rebuilt the game from scratch, but they fine tuned it so it would be running on good performance levels for the machine. Details seem to pour out more now, especially where vehicular damage is concerned, and explosions with the Crashbreakers seem so much more dramatic. There were slight problems with hiccups in the frame rate, but, honestly, the game seemed like it ran just as well as it did before...and in high-resolution. That'll be the big seller for this version, being able to rip roar through hours of carnage in glorious 1080i.

There's more, though. Criterion's installed a replay system that kicks off automatically after the completion of each event, allowing you to move backwards and forwards throughout the race, looking for key moments where the tide turned or you just can't help but think, "Gee, I want to show off that crash and make my buddy laugh his ass off." Once you see your moment coming up, you can go ahead and record it, and save replays for later playing with others, or swap them with friends so they can see just how bad you bite it. It's not a total necessity to the formula, and I would've liked a bit more control over the cameras, but, hey, it's nice all the same.

Burnout Revenge also has a better focusing on its Crash circuit. There's ten brand new scenarios introduced with the 360 version, complete with new depths that you can drop your car into after you've already gotten a few cars gutted up in the lanes to pile up the dollar amount. Criterion's also wisely dropped the "golf meter", which was getting frustrating when you were already concentrating on the upcoming crash scenario as it is. The humility of a blown engine is long gone.