Burnout Legends [PSP]

It's getting to be a pattern: a publisher drops a new PSP title, and we complain about it being a shadow of its console self. But patterns break, and we haven't been this excited about a port since THUG 2: The Remix left jaws slack back in March. Burnout Legends is a slightly tweaked conversion of the utterly fantastic Burnout 3: Takedown. And you know what? Even after obsessively playing Takedown for more than a year, Legends still feels like a rush of fresh air.

The best aspects of the series are all intact. A fantastic sense of speed, though it's not quite as out of control as players are used to, and outlandish wrecks that send debris flying. The takedowns are in place, as is the great (sometimes intrusive) takedown camera and the aftertouch ability, with which players can destroy the opposition almost from beyond the grave. Signature takedowns, six classes of cars and a garage filled with dozens of vehicles are all on the feature list.

Better yet, it all moves at a very smooth frame rate, with only a hint of slowdown and some rare draw-in lag. (We saw it happen twice in eight hours.) The classic play modes -- Race, Road Rage, Crash, etc -- all return, and the content is organized almost exactly as in the console game, so it's all clearly laid out and easy to flip through. The great Pursuit mode returns from Burnout 2, and may be the fastest, craziest set of races in the game.

Most of the tracks will be familiar in some measure to veterans, but even the most complex raceways are fully navigable on the PSP. The new airport course (which pops up first as a Pursuit race) is devilishly twisted, and will send the best drivers into the walls more than a few times.

Inevitably, a few things are missing. One is traffic. While the Crash and Burning Lap events shave plenty of oncoming traffic to weave through, events featuring other drivers omit a lot of incidental traffic. Crash events also sadly lack the damage tally which showed how much cash value was done to each wrecked vehicle. Instead we get a single damage total. A minor change, sure, but there was something hugely satisfying about seeing exactly how much damage you did to that one tanker truck.

And while the EA Trax finally complement the game, the engine sounds in Legends are stunted and childish. When the presentation is nearly impeccable throughout, the little vromm vroom of a huge muscle car stands out in sharp relief.

But the trade-off is great. What's amazing is that Criterion was able to create such a tight control scheme, when other PSP racing games have felt floaty and flaky. By any standard, Burnout's control is rock solid. It's possible to dodge right though the same small spaces that entice players on the console game. Given the PSP's reduced screen and notorious analog stick, that's a minor miracle. Play it, race it, and definitely crash all of it.