There’s no two ways about it: Criterion buggered Burnout Revenge with that car-shunting business. Giving the player the ability to knock cars going the same direction as you right out of the way negated the idea of either side posing any serious threat. Despite the exceptionally high score we gave it at the time, Burnout Revenge doesn’t hold up as well as other games in the series. And were we to play it again today, we’re sure our once rose-tinted view of it would be spoiled thanks to that car-shunting rubbish.

Well, Burnout Dominator drops the idea of car-shunting – along with Crash Junctions too, bizarrely – and it’s a decision that’s paid dividends: we’re back to the Burnout of old, where both sides of the road offer equal threat to the player. There’s little relief in Dominator, which was a big problem in Revenge. In the latter you could slip over to a lane with cars going the same way as you almost any time you liked and just ram them right out of your way. But Dominator, thankfully, makes such acts a risky endeavour.

It’s still at its best when you’re on the wrong side of the road burning past dozens of cars, near-missing every one of them and boosting in the process. But thanks to Dominator reverting back to old-school Burnout it means both sides of the road are threatening again – something that reminds us of why we love this franchise.

Speaking of which, it’s interesting to note the direction the franchise has taken. We like to refer to Burnouts 1 and 2 as independent films before EA stepped in and turned them into Hollywood blockbusters with 3 and 4. But with Dominator, Criterion has found a way to stick to the same over the top, loud and visceral ethos of the later efforts, whilst at the same time conjuring gameplay that resembles 2 in particular. Don’t get us wrong, the gameplay isn’t drastically different to what you’ve come to expect, but more than a number of times did it remind us of Burnout 2: Point Of Impact – which we feel was the true turning point for this series. And that’s a good thing.

What isn’t so good is its overall lack of identity. The whole Dominator aspect in particular isn’t as well realised – or, for that matter, well explained – as it should be. And one also has to acknowledge the fact that the game purely exists as a last-ditch attempt by EA to get a Burnout game onto shelves before the next, real sequel is released on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Thankfully, the guys at Criterion have seen fit to pop a few welcome additions into Dominator. Chief of these is Supercharging. In short, it’s the idea of the player chaining score multipliers together to link boost speeds, and at times it can get absolutely nuts. The highest we ever linked was around x14.

Dominator features classic gameplay types of old – minus the Crash Junctions, of course – but mixes things up with the inclusion of Maniac, Dominator and the Dominator Challenge. The last two are exclusive to the angle the game is pushing for and mostly revolve around you creaming opponents. However, Maniac rewards you for being reckless – and the more reckless you are, the more points you achieve and the further you can progress. Like previous games, Dominator revolves around earning points to unlock different series of car in the World Tour Mode. For example: Classic, Factory, Tuned, Hotrod and so on. There are seven different car series in total. As ever, you begin with the worst vehicles in the game and have to work your way up the ladder – which also happens to be when Dominator comes into its own. For us, that’s around the Tuned Series. From that point on we were absolutely in love with it.

What we weren’t so hot for initially were the controls. Though you can change them in the options menu the default control scheme has X as accelerate, Square as brake and R1 as boost. This is Control Type A and it’s absolutely unwieldy for us. We highly recommend changing to Type B, which sticks accelerate as R2, brake as L1 and boosts as X. That way, drifting around corners and boosting isn’t as painful as before. And, while we’re nitpicking, the car selection screen is also intensely annoying, barely letting you see your car before it slam cuts to another angle. Imagine a car selection menu as directed by Tony Scott and you have an idea what to expect.

But what you might not expect is this, as previously mentioned, last-ditch attempt from EA and Criterion to be so bloody good. But it is. Dominator may lack a proper identity, but in terms of visceral action and an absolutely thrilling sense of speed, it’s distinctly Burnout – and therefore brilliant. Just be prepared for more of the same. A hell of a lot more.

Craig Gilmore