Dangerous Driving Reviews

It also doesn’t help that the tracks themselves lack any sort of personality or distinctive visual landmarks, so you never really even have a good sense of how far along in a lap you are. While on that subject, the previously mentioned persistent wrecks, while a neat idea, causes an issue here. Since the entire appeal of this game is to turn the other cars into a burning wreck, that means you’ll basically turn the track into a minefield of wrecked vehicles. And since races go on for so long, along with a complete lack of a mini-map, there’s no way for you to make a mental note of where these wrecks happened. It also doesn’t help that when you really start to go fast the game will start to have a slight delay on loading in the wrecks and incoming traffic, making it even harder to avoid wrecking your car and possibly having to restart a five-minute race. Because of all this, you’re incentivized to not wreck any cars so as to make it easier on yourself which is insane for this sort of game.

All in all, Dangerous Driving is a marked improvement in basically every facet over Danger Zone 1 and 2. This is Three Fields firing on all cylinders and giving Burnout fans the experience they’ve been craving. While a few technical hiccups stop this from achieving greatness, you really shouldn’t sleep on this if you’re a fan of arcade racers. Dangerous Driving is the real deal and any Burnout fan would be crazy to skip it.

The Burnout formula is a simple one – crazy speed, big crashes, and, well, that’s really it. You’d think such a straightforward, yet well-loved series would be easy to keep running, but EA seems to have no interest in doing more Burnout games and, surprisingly, few have stepped up to fill that arcade racing niche. Enter Three Fields Entertainment, a small British indie studio started by Criterion Games founders Alex Ward and Fiona Sperry. In 2017 Three Fields attempted to revive Burnout’s well-loved Crash Mode with Danger Zone, in 2018 they followed up with Danger Zone 2, and now we have Dangerous Driving on our hands.

Criterion collection.

What happens when you take the creative leads from the beloved but near-forgotten Burnout series, team them up with a tiny handful of talented developers, and give them about a 100th of the budget of any typical modern racing game?

Do you have the need for arcade racing speed? Three Fields Entertainment, a studio founded entirely by former Criterion Studios employees, hopes that their fourth release, Dangerous Driving, can help satiate your need to drive recklessly. Can the arcade racing genre be refreshed with this smaller-scale release?

As enormous fans of Criterion's classic arcade racing series Burnout, we've been patiently waiting for either a revival from EA (a pipe dream, let's be honest) or for someone else to crash into the scene with a fast and brazen alternative. That's exactly what Three Fields Entertainment has created with Dangerous Driving, although you'd best pump the brakes on your expectations. Built on a modest budget by a tiny team, this brash racer comes surprisingly close to its inspiration, but it struggles to keep up where it counts.

Dangerous Driving marks Three Fields Entertainment's first attempt at making a fully-fledged spiritual successor to Burnout. Its thrilling speeds and exciting action scratch the itch, but the tight budget, myriad of technical issues, and barebones content hold it back from being truly special.

As a long-time Burnout devotee, I’m very glad Dangerous Driving got made. It is a wonderful complement to Danger Zone 2; together, they are basically Burnout 6 and the world is better off for it. That said, a drawn-out campaign and less-fun secondary events create a little too much drag on its standalone fun.

Two of Dangerous Driving’s fundamental tenets – racing and crashing – are at odds with each other. The game has both in equal measure, and they're enjoyable at times. However, they don’t complement each other to elevate the game to more than what it is on paper: a racing title in which you occasionally marvel at some mangled crashes.

As a Burnout fan, I had high hopes for Dangerous Driving. Unfortunately, Three Fields' effort fails to capture the spirit and feel of its inspiration, and consequently, emerges as a pale imitation.

Those with fond memories of Burnout Revenge and Takedown have been clamoring for a successor for years, especially with EA showing no signs of continuing the series since Paradise’s release more than 10 years ago. Now though, Three Fields, which is a studio made up of Criterion founders, are back with Dangerous Driving.

Dangerous Driving's scope may have been a bit too big to be made by such a small team in a short amount of time, leading to a racing game that does feel janky and unpolished in some areas. On the other hand, the variety of modes, car unlocking system, and Spotify integration are all interesting and ambitious ideas in a genre often thought to be fairly stagnant. In a world without any new Burnout games, I'd love to see the creators of that series continue to iterate on this formula and cater to those of us who prefer thrills to realism in our racing games.

Though Dangerous Driving attempts to tap into Burnout’s lineage, its numerous bugs and lack of polish fail to capture the spirit of its inspiration.

Disappointing is perhaps the best word to sum up Dangerous Driving. It could have been so much better, but instead it’s just passable fun. The saddest thing is, if you want a game that plays like classic Burnout, it’s the best option currently available. Like a cover band howling the tunes of your favourite but now defunct artist, it’s not a patch on the real thing, but you make do with what’s on offer. Dangerous Driving is good enough to provide some high octane entertainment, but it’ll still leave you craving a worthy Burnout successor.

Dangerous Driving delivers a tight, streamlined racing experience, but that comes at the cost of features that players have come to expect.