Danger Zone 2
PC, PS4, Xbox One
By transplanting the Burnout series’ Crash junctions to a sterile underground test facility, Three Fields’ first Danger Zone seemed as if it fundamentally misunderstood the transgressive appeal of the original mode. A year later, its sequel has sensibly gone back outdoors, with roads and motorways heaving with traffic to smash into. Ploughing through hatchbacks and caravans on the M62 in a semi truck, shunting vans and cars across multiple lanes – this is the kind of power fantasy we crave. And how about the cathartic pleasure of demolishing multiple taxis en route to LAX? Better.
Which is to say that there’s a longer build-up to the game’s explosive pay-offs, with individual challenges to complete as you make your way there. You might, for example, have to take down a certain number of vans on the way, or nudge smaller vehicles into trucks, causing them to jackknife. There are ramps to speed up and jump off, with an optional slo-mo view that can be triggered by pressing the left bumper, the game’s camera cutting away to a cinematic wide angle as you fly through the air. Other challenges are about avoiding collisions, as you weave your way between trucks and swerve to dodge oncoming cars at breakneck speed in order to successfully chain boosts. It’s slight but exhilarating stuff, and bodes well for the developer’s spiritual Burnout successor Dangerous Driving.
After a given number of crashes you can trigger the Smashbreaker, an explosion that causes carnage around you, while letting you steer your wreck in mid-air – hopefully towards the scattered score-boosting bronze, silver and gold pickups, or to the other Smashbreaker tokens that let you detonate your vehicle again. In the grand Burnout tradition, to get any real movement you’ll need to jam the analogue stick in the appropriate direction until it feels like it’s coming free from its moorings. And yes, your plans can once again be ruined by a single vehicle belatedly skidding across your path just before you grabbed the gold.
It’s a game that lets you get a move on even when your foot isn’t on the gas, resetting you at the start within moments of a failed run, or automatically launching a new course within ten seconds of passing a bronze-medal target. Yet other elements feel decidedly rushed. We’ve seen better menus in one-dollar XBLIG titles, while collisions are inconsistent, and some stages are needlessly punishing: one, featuring a tediously long run-up to a bizarrely exacting jump, makes a mockery of those speedy restarts. Sure, Three Fields might not have the resources its founders once did, but it feels as if the studio was in rather too much of a hurry to get this one out the door.