1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789 Burnout 3 Strategy Guide/FAQ by Tzar Sectus (11/9/2004 - v0.8) ---------------------------- --Introduction-- ---------------------------- --Strategies-- -Becoming a better driver- -Takedowns- -Driving recklessly- -Avoiding crashes- -Using boost- -Non-boost strategy- ---------------------------- --Game modes-- -Race- -Road rage- -Faceoff- -Grand prix- -Time attack- -Eliminator- ---------------------------- --Crash mode-- -Dead end- -Leap of faith- ---------------------------- --FAQs-- ---------------------------- --Contact information-- ---------------------------- --Version History-- ---------------------------- --Disclaimer-- ---------------------------- --Credits-- ---------------------------- ---------------- --Introduction-- ---------------- Most of the stuff in the faq is written specifically for world tour, even though most of it will also apply to single event and multiplayer. This FAQ is also written specifically for the PS2 version and I haven't tried the X-Box version, but I'm pretty sure that the versions are similar enough so that everything in this FAQ is valid even if you're using the X-Box version. -------------- --Strategies-- -------------- -Becoming a better driver- The most important thing to learn in Burnout 3 if you want to drive better is to avoid crashing. You can drive the best you can and do the best takedowns and drive in oncoming while drifting and getting near misses but that won't mean a thing if you continously crash like a maniac. There are of course other things as well. Starting to drift early in big turns will be great use since you don't only do them faster but you get a nice little boost bonus as well. To be honest though, this is an arcade racer so there isn't that much to master about general driving, there's no gears to handle, sliding along walls isn't that harmful to your speed as you'd expect. So there's basically only two really important things to master: avoiding crashes and handling boost. -Takedowns- Takedowns is definitely the most efficient way to gain boost. Once you take down an opponent you'll get a filled 2x boost bar, and get two more foes and you'll get a nice 4x boost bar. The way to get takedowns is to slam into your oppnent hard enough so he'll lose control and crash. Remember that you do absolutely no damage to him by slamming into him, you make takedowns by making your opponent crash, not by continously slamming him with nothing for him to crash into. The easiest way to do takedowns is by shunting your opponent. A shunt is when you slam into your opponent from behind. This normally does little good if you have similar speed as your opponent, but if you have greater speed, he'll usually do a 90-degree turn and crash into the nearest wall. A nice tactic is so save some boost until you're just behind your opponent, then use it so you can shunt into him with great speed and watch him crash. This works especially well if all the opponents are close by and you're able to takedown the one furthest behind, if you're lucky you'll get enough boost from the first takedown that you get enough insane speed to just drive through the entire competition. Another way to do takedowns is by slamming into them, which is just simply approaching your opponent from the left or right and drive right at him. Don't overdo it though, don't turn too hard or you'll just crash yourself. This is a pretty efficient method to use if there's traffic nearby. Just slam your opponent and he'll go a little left or right and hopefully straight into a traffic vehicle. Most of the time you'll probably just get takedowns without really planning it, if you just hammer at the enemy or grind continously at him he'll probably crash after a while, but remember the most efficient way of doing takedowns are the ones I listed above. There are also other more rare ways of doing it, like the psyche outs, which happens if you stay behind your opponent long enough and he'll just go crazy and crash by himself. An important thing to remember is not to do any overkills, once you get one takedown you usually get enough boost to drive ahead of your competition. So there's not much gain in doing more takedowns unless they're easy to do. So if you do one takedown and if the enemy is placed perfectly for a takedown, then go ahead and make him crash. But if you've done a takedown and you see the enemy in an dangerous area without any proper setup, then just use your boost to get ahead of him and don't take the unnecessary risk. Another tactic you might consider to use is braking down if an opponent is right behind you. If he's able to stay behind you he'll have a nice chance to take you down if you aren't careful enough, but if you brake a little so he'll drive past you, then you can use that to your advantage and slam right into him and making him crash. This only works well if you have enough boost to get a real powerful shunt at him. -Driving recklessly- You probably know very well you get boost from driving oncoming, drifting, getting air and near misses (as well as the various slams you can do on your opponent's vehicles), but remember you get a lot less boost from all these methods. You get a fair amount of boost by slamming into your opponent, though you'll usually want to do takedowns instead of getting a little boost from hitting your opponent. Driving in oncoming, doing near misses and drifting is a slow way of getting boost. So I really don't recommend taking too many risks to get boost this way, it's slow and it's really bad if you crash by just trying to fill a quarter of your smallest boost bar. But of course, if you're in an area with little traffic and a wide road then you have nothing to lose with driving on the wrong side of the road, and the best way of taking most corners is by drifting. -Avoiding crashes- This is in my opinion the most important thing when it completing races. Since you'll lose so much time by doing a crash. And most beginners in the game has a tendency to drive as recklessly as they can, and this leads to MANY crashes. There's a few things you can learn to avoid crashing easier. First of all learn all the things which are dangerous and not. Walls and such aren't that dangerous unless you drive headon, you can easily "slide" along walls and you won't be hurt, you'll just lose a tiny bit of speed. Driving on vehicles is obviously dangerous, but if you have a very low speed then you won't crash on them. There's also the slight chance you'll just "slide" off vehicles if you drive on them from an odd angle. Opponent vehicles are actually completely safe to drive on unless they've crashed (unless you did a takedown on them, then their wrecked car is usually safe). You'll probably do most of your crashes on traffic and on some walls. It's vital you avoid unnecessary risks. Especially if you're at top speed. If you're driving into a dangerous area or if you're simply not sure how the next turn will be just drive more safely. Let go of that boost button, and try to "cling" to one of the walls to remain almost 100% safe. Once you've gotten past the area you can use some of that boost again. Also be very aware of any oncoming vehicles, if you're driving in oncoming you'll see bright lights from the oncoming vehicles, so just focus on avoiding those. Try to drive along a lane which is safe or try to drive between vehicles. Mastering how to drive between vehicles is pretty important, since it isn't that dangerous once you get a hang of it and you'll get a nice oncoming+nearmiss boost from it. I personally prefer driving in oncoming if I'm driving on a wide road since it's easier to see the bright flash from oncoming vehicles than those on the other lane, and if the road is wide enough then you have plenty of room to manoevour in. Remember that you get little boost from oncoming and near misses, so avoid doing those unless you're positive it's safe. And of course, sometimes crashing is simply inevitable. Sometimes an opponent will you slam so hard you'll just head right into a bus and there's not a thing you can do about it. Or you just drive at top speed and suddenly a car drives right at you from the left or right so you won't see him soon enough. When this does happen it's important to use the aftertouch to your advantage. If you were just ahead an opponent then just position your wreck so there's a chance you get a takedown. Or you could try to get your wreck as far as possible so you'll respawn a bit further ahead. -Using boost- It's pretty stupid to just use your all your boost when you first get it. If you don't have that much boost and you just get a little from doing drifting, oncoming and near misses then I recommend you save that boost until you need it. When I have a small boost bar I usually only use the boost in cases where I just lost a good chunk of my speed. For instance, if I did a turn badly and ended up sliding along the wall then I would have lost a quite bit of speed, that's a good moment to use some boost to quickly accelerate. Otherwise I'd say it's a waste to use your small boost bar just to drive a little faster in a straight forward road, when you could have saved it to do takedowns easier or to quickly accelerate when you've lost most of your speed. On the other hand, if you do have a lot of boost to spare then things are different. If you just did a takedown you get an insane amount of boost, and you might as well use most if it to get further ahead. But try to keep your head cool, don't take unnecessary risks when you're driving that fast. Also if you're already ahead by 5 or more seconds then you should try to drive more stable and be completely certain you won't crash. If the enemy is getting closer, then you could use the boost you saved to either take him down or drive even further ahead of him. Another thing to be aware of is that if you're really a long way behind your opponents you'll get boost quicker. Take this to your advantage, start to drive oncoming so you'll get closer to your competition. This is especially true in face-off races. -Non-boost strategy- This is a strategy I've been using a lot recently which makes certain races a lot easier. The idea is take the lead and just barely hold it, without using a lot of boost. Just start the race as you normally would and try to take the lead. If you're close by you don't have to start driving like a maniac, just drive carefully and make sure you get the lead after a while, ideally you'd go for doing a takedown on the 1st or 2nd place opponent. After you got the lead, then just hold it. If you just did a takedown and have lots of boost, *don't* use it. Only use it to quickly accelerate out of turns and similar things. If you drive stable and don't crash you'll notice you'll be able to hold your lead fairly well. And if you do manage to lose your lead, then just try to get a little behind the opponent who just drove past you, line him up and then use the boost you saved to shunt him and he most definitely will go down. And just keep going, making sure you drive safely enough so you don't crash. You might even notice you'll get a lead with as much as 7-10 seconds even if you just about never use your boost. When you get near the finish line you might as well start using all the boost you have to make sure there's no chance an opponent can slip by. This strategy works surprisingly well, I've been able to do certain races with relative ease since I can drive more carefully than usual and only have 1-2 crashes in the entire race. This strategy won't work any well for people who just can't avoid crashing, since one crash will make you drop down to 4th or 6th place. It also obviously won't work for multiplayer, since it's based around on how the "rubberband AI" works. Well, the general idea of just barely leading and taking down anyone who gets in front of you with your boost might be a valid tactic for multiplayer, but I don't think it'll work that good. Unless you're really good at doing takedowns. -------------- --Game modes-- -------------- -Race- This is your typical race with 1-3 laps and with 5 opponents. Your goal is to end up 3rd or better so you'll unlock more events, or you can go for gold so you'll unlock the best stuff in the game. Races aren't usually that difficult if you're a good driver and know how to do takedown and then hold onto your 1st place along the race. -Road rage- Your goal is to get a set number of takedowns before the time runs out or before your car is totaled. I'm not sure how many crashes are allowed before it's game over, but just be aware that if you crash too much you'll quickly lose. In my opinion these are the easiest type of races to do. You'll get *plenty* of targets to mess around with and the biggest challenge is simply not to get too carried away and crash as you try to do takedowns. -Faceoff- These races can be pretty frustrating. It's just you and one other opponent, and these races are usually on tracks with no laps. And your opponent is really aggressive, he'll do anything to take you down, and he's *fast*. Do one or two crashes and he'll fly long ahead of you. My suggestion is to do what you have to get ahead of him, and then try to drive more carefully, he'll be right behind you *no matter* what you do, so trying to drive even faster will probably make you end up wrecked. Also remember it's the final part of the race which is the most important one. A crash or two isn't that harmful at the start of the race, but a crash by the end of it will *definitely* make you lose the entire race. -Grand prix- These are simply a mix of 2-3 races and you get an overall score from all those and if you get 3rd place or better you'll be able to move on. What applies to normal races applies to this too. -Time attack- These aren't actually called time attacks in the world tour but they work the same. They're usually called Preview Laps or Special Event. They're always one lap and you have to beat the record to get a medal. There's no opponents but there's traffic (except a few time attack events which are nice enough to give you very little traffic). And there's one big difference compared to normal races, you get boost *fast*. You start with a 4x boost bar and you can easily fill your boost bar by just going in oncoming and doing a few near misses. And you really need to use just about all the boost you can get to be able to beat that time record. These races can end up becoming really frustrating, especially later on when you get really fast cars and there's traffic everywhere. There's basically one thing to keep in mind here, don't crash! One or two crashes in the later time attacks is all the game will accept, anything more and that medal will be out of reach. Gold medals usually require you to drive the entire race perfectly with boosting all the time and never crashing. -Eliminator- These are similar to the traditional knockout races seen in most racing games. There's always 5 laps, and by each lap the car which is furthest behind will simply explode (which is actually quite neat to watch if you're the unlucky one). Even though these are the longest races in the game they aren't very difficult. Once the first 3 opponents are gone (which are usually easy to drive past, since they are afterall the weakest opponents in the race) then you're guaranteed 3rd place no matter how badly you manage to do it. Unlike normal races where you can get unlucky and crash a lot during the last lap and ruin everything. -------------- --Crash mode-- -------------- Crash mode is basically an entire game in itself. And there's a lot of levels for the mode, 100 in total. Though Criterion cheated a bit and you'll find that most levels are repeated twice only with the position of the pickups changed. There's also the Team Crush mode where two players try to get the best combined score, and there's even seperate high score lists for this mode. Just too bad there's a lot of slowdown while playing Team Crush, it's still a lot of fun though. Players who wish to fight for scores might want to head to www.cyberscore.net which has an online scoreboard for this game. Getting gold on most of the levels isn't that difficult. You'll find that if you do an acceptable crash while being able to get the 4x multiplier it'll ensure you a gold medal. There's some levels where the 4x multiplier is placed in rather awkward places though. I'll list some of the more difficult levels here and explain how to get gold. -Dead end- At first impression it doesn't look that tough, but the challenge here is doing a good crash while getting that 4x. If you drive right ahead at the 4X you'll get it alright, but you'll probably hit no cars at all. And if you drive straight ahead where there's most traffic it'll be *very* difficult to get the 4x. This is how I got the gold medal, I started with a boost start and went straight for the boost pickup, after that I went further right so I was headed to the bronze cash pickup. I pickup that up and went on for the gold cash pickup, and here came the tricky bit. After this I quickly turned a bit left and crashed into one of the nearest stationary taxi cabs, then I used my aftertouch so I was headed straight forward but leaning to the left so I got the silver cash pickup. While I was doing this the taxi cab was flying straight into the traffic causing havok. And when enough vehicles are wrecked I used the crashbreaker to fly straight onto the 4x. But this isn't any sure way of doing it, I had to do about 5-7 tries using that tactic before getting it right. Most of the time I got the silver pickup I got kicked back by the truck driving right infront of me, and that made it impossible to get the 4x multiplier. But when I did get it right, I got about 641,000 in points which was more than enough to get that gold medal. -Leap of faith- This is perhaps the trickiest crash junction in the entire game. You'll notice that the 4x is placed under a bridge which seems to be impossible to reach. There's also a ramp to the right of you as you start the crash junction, and it does have a few tempting pickups, but this is just a red herring. Your goal is to start driving straight ahead and along that bridge. There's some oncoming traffic there, and a crashbreaker you can pick up. You're supposed to get the crashbreaker and then use your aftertouch to steer your car to go left and straight down on another crashbreaker which lies beside the 4x multiplier. Once you're this far, you can easily get the 4x with your aftertouch, though the camera may be rather evil sometimes and give you a rather confusing angle. It's important to get that crashbreaker on top of the bridge while having a low speed. Otherwise you'll just fly straight ahead and onto a completely different road. The best way to do it is by crashing into one of the first cars on that bridge, and then slide onto the crashbreaker. Then you'll much more easily be able to get down and take that crashbreaker (or if you're lucky, just go straight for the 4x) -------- --FAQs-- -------- Q: How do I perform a boost start? A: Once the timer start counting down you start to hold the acceleration button and press the brake button once (doesn't matter when you press brake just as long as it do it once will suffice), and when the counter goes down to 1 and just before it gets to GO you let go and quickly re-press the accelerator button (just before the GO appears). It has to happen pretty quickly, and it'll take a while to get used to it, but at least Criterion made it a lot easier to do in Burnout 3 than the previous games. Q: Does the AI cheat? What does the phrase "rubberband AI" mean? A: Yes, the AI cheats. Once you get ahead of your competition the AI will magically match your speed and stay very close behind you, this is what the "rubberband AI" is. This is why getting ahead with more than 5-8 seconds is *very* difficult to do. I'm not quite sure how it works specifically, since there's been a few times I've actually been able to get ahead of the enemy with more than 10-15 seconds. You'll notice that the AI in faceoff races is even worse, since it's near impossible to get ahead at all. On the bright side the game gives the player an advantage if you get behind with more than 5-6 seconds or so since you'll be able to acquire boost faster. Q: Does this game work with HDLoader? A: Yes, just install the game and while highlighting the game press Select, and then activate Mode 3. After that it'll work just fine (although online mode and the Need for Speed demo will make the game freeze) Q: Which version is best, X-Box or PS2? A: I haven't tried the X-Box version so it's difficult for me to answer. But I can highlight some of the differences I know about: -No version of the game supports changing the controls, and the X-Box version uses a rather abstract default button layout. Giving the PS2 a slight advantage for those who like a simple button layout. -X-Box has faster loading times (unless you're playing the PS2 version with HDLoader) -X-Box has slightly better graphics -X-Box supports custom soundtracks -PS2 has free online mode. Q: Why does the game sometimes add more cash than what the crash junction total says? A: The event total only shows how much you got in your last retry, but it adds the total of your all retries to your crash total. For instance, if you play once and get 400k but you hit retry because you didn't get gold and then get 600k then the crash total screen will say you got 600k in total, but it'll still add a 1000k to your crash total because that's how much you got for all the retries. Q: What is best to use, 1st or 3rd person view? A: That's mostly subjective. I personally use 1st person because I feel I get better control from that view. But on the other hand there are obvious advantages with using 3rd person, you'll get to see more around you which helps for doing and avoiding takedowns. And it simply looks better. If you do use 1st person there are a few things you should master, first of all you should learn how to hear if another opponent is close by you (even better, learn which side he's on, though that's difficult unless you use headphones). And you should learn how to quickly use the L1 button to look behind you to see exactly where you opponent is, this will help you to avoid enemies taking you down. --Contact information-- If you have any questions or whatever you can email me at remi(at)strategyplanet(dot)com. You can also post on the gamefaqs Burnout 3 message board with any question you have (though I'm not always around there to answer, there's always other people who can answer your questions). --Version History-- - v0.8 - First version --Disclaimer-- This may be not be reproduced under any circumstances except for personal, private use. It may not be placed on any web site or otherwise distributed publicly without advance written permission. Use of this guide on any other web site or as a part of any public display is strictly prohibited, and a violation of copyright. All trademarks and copyrights contained in this document are owned by their respective trademark and copyright holders. --Credits-- -Thanks to Criterion for making this wonderful game (although those guys really should learn how to write an AI which doesn't cheat) -No thanks to EA for being evil enough to buy Criterion and put their annoying ads and awful music into the game -Super hyper special thanks to cyphie Copyright 2004 Remi Spaans