Ever since the Burnout series has come to an end, I have been on the search for a game to fill that void. Most racing games in the genre fell short one way or another. Well, now that void has been more than filled. Dangerous Driving is brought to you by a small team of some of the former members of the classic Burnout series.
There are nine different types of events you can work through to obtain a total of 69 vehicles. Six different car classes with a decent, not good, but decent variety of cars to choose from. Some of the events include: Pursuit, Heatwave, and GP, to name a few. You are required to medal in these events to progress further. Gold is not required, just 3rd or better, which is good news if you are finding a race particularly difficult. Also, the track selection has a nice variety to choose from. I did revisit them once I started a new class, but I never felt bored or disappointed from going back to a previous track. One feature I thought was lacking for me was multiplayer. I won’t knock the game too hard though because the devs have stated that it is coming in a DLC pack sometime in the future. If that’s holding you back, don’t let it be a deterrent.
If you are not aggressive in Dangerous Driving, then the more than competent AI will have no problems bumping you off the road and leaving you in the dust. Bumping, bruising, and outright trying to wreck your opponents are how this game is played. If you want a sim, you need to look elsewhere. The physics are borderline bizarre but consistent. The way you obtain your boost is by keeping the pedal to the metal and knowing the right time to drift, gain air time, and wreck the opposing cars. Drifting is extremely easy to catch on to as long you have the basic idea of counter steering down. Don’t let the speeds fool you either. Almost every class of car, and even the SUVs, have no problem taking corners at high speed.
If you’ve played the old Burnout games, then you will feel right at home here. There’s not much that is different or new brought to the table. Honestly, that’s exactly what I wanted. If you’re inexperienced with a game like this, then strap in, turn on some fast-paced music, and enjoy the ride. Speaking of music, that was a big selling point for the Burnout series. Well now, as long as you have Spotify, you are in full control. Just pick a playlist and go. It’s so ingrained into the game, that you are able to control the music from the D-pad. As far as features go, that’s pretty much the extent of it. The game is pretty barebones in this department. Not a crazy amount of options to pick from. You can’t adjust music, FX volume, or any of the things we are used to. That’s okay though, I’ll go easy on them here mainly for the team being extremely small and focusing on making a good game, which they did.
The controls in Dangerous Driving feel really smooth and tight. I felt like I was in control pretty much the whole time. Even when weaving in and out of traffic and while the opponent is trying to bump me into a huge bus, I was never worried about my car not reacting the way I wanted it to. The only issues I had were the edges of the tracks and vision. If I was scraping the outside of a corner, I would randomly flip in the air and crash or the “Wrecked” image would just appear on the screen. Not knowing what I’m going to get out of a game in this regard is very disappointing and makes it hard to play at times. As stated before, vision was the other major problem I had. The camera angle was challenging far too many times. At times the sun would be in my eyes, and I literally couldn’t see anything in front of me. Other times it would be going over hills, and I would smack into a car, causing me to fall behind. Those two issues could be fixed if I had more options to adjust my camera, but I only have two options: right above the car behind the truck or from the grill. Neither one of those are my camera of choice, so I found myself flipping back and forth between the two more often than I would have liked.
Dangerous Driving is a nice reentry into the genre of arcade racers. As a person who generally prefers sim racing games, I’m glad I checked this one out. Admittedly, it was part nostalgia, but that worked in their favor here! Apart from a few blunders, this is an action-packed, thrill ride from start to finish. Turn on your favorite playlist and give Dangerous Driving a go.
Developer: Three Fields Entertainment
Publisher: Three Fields Entertainment
Platform: PC, PS4, Xbox One
Release Date: 9th April 2019
