Burnout Dominator [PSP]

"Burnout Paradise for PS3 will be released later this year, but still Criterion delivered this little snack, only for Playstation 2 and PSP. I didn't want to dig up and connect my PS2, so I just got the PSP edition instead.

The graphics
The main attraction of the Burnout games is their spectacular graphics. And this handheld edition is looking superb too. I admit, the graphics are a little blocky, but the framerate is okay and the crashes are so gruesome that it hurts to watch them. And even on the little screen they managed to give you a good sense of speed.
The menus are nice too, having cool animations, sounds and music. I can appreciate that, there's not many developers who spend time on things like that (apart from Nintendo of course). You do notice that the PSP is sometimes having problems with all the graphical effects. Maybe caused by the loading of movies from the slow UMD drive?

The controls
Burnout is an arcade racer, but still its controls are not as detached as in Ridge Racer or Full Auto. If you take a turn too fast, you will loose grip gradually, which results in nice subtle drifting. With respect to the controls, I think that Burnout has found a nice compromise between realism and fun. Not too hard, not too easy, just nice.

Playing race games on a handheld device is not ideal of course, as there is no analog stick or steering wheel. The PSP does have that analog sliding thingy and that's what you use to steer in Burnout too. I have never been a fan of that sliding knob, its position on the PSP (bottom left) is so awkward that my hands are cramped after one hour of playing. Still the analog steering works quite well. To be honest, I wouldn't know how this could be done better on a handheld.

The racing
The main mode of this game is the Dominator World Tour. It consists of seven series. Initially only the Classic Series is available. By completing races in the Classic Series you earn Dominator points, which unlock the next series.
The fun thing about this Burnout is the fact that there are many types of races. For example, there's the Road Rage events in which you have to hit as many other cars as possible, and make them crash. And the Eliminator races, where after each lap the last car is eliminated. New in Dominator are the Near Miss challenges, the Drift challenges en the cool Maniac races, in which you have to collect Maniac points by driving dangerously. Of course there's standard races too (the ones where you just have to finish first), the most important of which are the Grand Prix's that end each series.

Strangely enough this Burnout does not feature a Crash mode. Which is a shame, because that one always provided a nice break between races.

In my opinion, the essence of Burnout is the excitement of racing through traffic trying not to crash into other cars (crashes are spectacular but time-consuming). In Burnout Revenge they suddenly changed this aspect and you scored points by hitting same-way traffic, you could only crash when hitting oncoming traffic or same-way trucks. This was fun for a while, but not nearly as exciting. Luckily Criterion came to their senses and went back-to-basics with Dominator, racing is as nerve-wracking as it used to be (and ought to be).

Burnouts are back too and essential to win races. When you use up your entire boost meter in one long boost, this is called a "burnout". If you manage to fill up the 2nd boost meter while boosting, you can continue boosting right after the first one runs out. This is called "chaining burnouts". Very tricky to perform, but immensely rewarding if you pull it off.

So I should get this one then?
Let me put if this way, I already own the PSP edition and am still thinking about getting the PS2 edition too, just to be able to play it on a big screen (especially since I just learned it is playable on the PS3).
If you want the hottest Burnout that is available at the moment, I'd recommend to go for Burnout Revenge on Xbox 360 instead. If you already own that one, then this PSP edition of Dominator may be a nice snack for the road."