Danger Zone 2

Last summer we were given a game called Danger Zone, the spiritual successor to Burnout's legendary Crash Mode, which let you collide with a number of cars to cause chaos and explosions aplenty as you searched for the highest of scores. Developer Three Fields Entertainment hasn't taken their collective foot off the gas, however, since we've been given a sequel this summer that once again puts us back in the driving seat, this time with a few more bells and whistles.

Something that dragged the first game down, as we mentioned in our review, was the really bland environments. The original took place inside a dark test facility that looked like a warehouse, and so we were pleased to see that in the sequel we're let loose on the tarmac of the real world, swerving and slamming our way through highways and junctions from LAX to the desert.

While you'll be whizzing past trees and wind turbines as a nice change of scenery, the premise is the same: you drive fast, you hit cars, and you get points. The same bonuses Danger Zone (and Burnout) fans expect are still there too, whether that be extra explosions (or Smashbreakers), extra money for high scores, or a boost to get a bit more bang for your buck. It's easy to learn but hard to master, and getting all of these pickups in one is the key to getting into the upper echelons of the leaderboard.

It's not just about the 100-car pileups though, because to get more money you'll have to complete the extra objectives on the run-up to said Danger Zone (where the carnage takes place), which range from hitting all the checkpoints in a Formula 1 car to taking down all the caravans en route. These extra objectives help spice up not just the core experience but also the very long routes to the Danger Zone, and although the physics are wacky and over-the-top, with cars launching into the air at a mere brush, it's an arcade experience which we can get behind, especially since you can use Square or Circle (on PS4) when shunting someone from behind to choose whether they fly off left or right.

Another thing that fell flat in the first game is that there was just one boring vehicle that you could use, but now things have been switched up with the addition of big lorries, F1 cars, and other vehicles you'd much rather be slamming into traffic with. Being able to choose your ride would have been nice at times, rather than just taking whatever had been assigned, but at least it's a step in the right direction.

With three different regions to play through, as well as a handful of bonus and training levels, the game feels a bit light on the content side of things, and it's not too hard to hit the lowest score necessary to progress, meaning you can easily finish the whole thing in one sitting. Sure you can go back for high scores, but in terms of all the levels included this will probably leave some fans wanting for more stuff to see, do, and of course explode.

That's not to say it's a breeze to dominate each level because if you want to get the best scores possible it'll be a nightmare to try and get the optimal conditions, since on the one hand you need to manage your speed in the pre-crash drive as well as pick your entry point into the Danger Zone, while at the same time making sure you go wherever you need to once you've crashed, making use of the Smashbreaker explosions to launch your car into more and more vehicles and bonuses.

There are a few niggling bugs that came up as well, like cars appearing out of nowhere and instafail crashes that make you retry the course even when you're at the point you're meant to be crashing into traffic, but all-in-all Three Fields Entertainment has done a great job looking at where the first Danger Zone struggled and turning it up a notch for the second. The environments are bigger and better, the vehicles are exciting to drive, and it's now one step closer to being the spiritual successor to Burnout's Crash mode that it aspires to be.