Explosive Burnout 5 Images

Get a look at Criterion's new driving game and find out why it won't be coming to the Wii.

If you're a Wii owner, you're not going to like what Alex Ward had to say recently about the fate of Burnout 5 on the console. Speaking to Newsweek's N'Gai Croal in October, Ward said straight that his team at Criterion never does ports. "We'd have to build something bespoke."

So that leaves PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 then. But what can people expect from the latest game in what has become one of the most popular series around?

Like many of the pretenders that sprung up after Burnout's success, Burnout 5 is going open world. No more funnelling down set paths or fiddly menus to ruin your fun. As EA explained at the game's announcement last year, "Every intersection is a potential crash junction and every alleyway is an opportunity to rack up moving violations."

But ask Ward what the main feature is and he'll point elsewhere. "The big thing for Burnout," he told Newsweek, "is not open world this time. For us, we're going back to basics on the car crash, and I think that's where we're spending all our time."

That idea is evident in the complexity of the vehicles. Instead of the mere 12 parts that made up the cars in Burnout: Revenge, the ones in Burnout 5 will have 80 parts, according to an article in the Official US PlayStation Magazine.

Criterion is also including a full physics system, built to thrill, for not only your car but also the traffic too.

"The first crash you see on PlayStation 3 has got to go way beyond everything you've ever seen," Ward said, "beyond anything that we've ever done."

Look for Burnout 5 only on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 later this year.

Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo