Burnout Dominator

Burnout Dominator from 2007 was the last entry in the series before the move to the fully open-world Burnout Paradise, and it returned to the classic structure of separate races, chases, and stunt sequences that Burnout grew up on. The game from Criterion Games built on crash battles with oncoming traffic, scored drifting, and the so-called Burnout mode, where accumulated energy temporarily boosts the car and triggers its own chain of destruction in heavy traffic. Compared to the previous entry, Burnout Revenge, the series returned to a somewhat more sober, less chaotic ride, but retained the series' typical emphasis on risk and reward for driving into oncoming traffic.

The PlayStation Portable version launched alongside the PlayStation 2 edition, but it had to account for the handheld's considerably weaker hardware and the lack of a second analog stick, which the PSP doesn't have – the camera and cornering therefore used a control scheme adapted to the single analog nub and buttons. The smaller screen and lower performance required simplified vehicle models, sparser traffic on the track, shorter draw distance, and more modest smoke and spark effects on impact, so the spectacular chain crashes typical of Burnout feel somewhat more contained on the PSP than on the PlayStation 2. On the plus side was portability – the game could be played anywhere, without a television and without connecting to a home console.

Content-wise, the PSP version stayed faithful to the original – the same cars, tracks, and game modes, just adapted to the handheld. Collecting points, unlocking new cars, and progressing through the individual race series worked the same as on the home console, so players effectively lost none of the game content. That made it one of the few entries in the series that players could take with them on the road and play, say, on a train or during a school break, before EA and Criterion abandoned portable versions of the series entirely with the arrival of Burnout Paradise.

Why play it: Anyone who wants classic Burnout on the go gets the same cars, tracks, and game modes on PSP as on the home console, without losing any game content.