The Burnout series, which I was introduced to by Revenge, was one of the only game franchises I religiously played growing up. Each game has its own charm to it, its own unique spin on what makes this Burnout game a little different than the rest. Ultimately, I was best at Burnout Dominator, but my all-time favorite game was Takedown.

The Burnout series has long been known for two facets: , and ridiculous crashes. While even modern car games , Burnout 1 was at the very dawn of the PS2/Xbox era. Burnout 2,, gave us the addictive , where enormous pileups and maximum carnage were the name of the game. But Burnout 3 was where the series really nailed its stride.

Behold, the introduction of the Takedown. No longer were you an inactive participant in the fates of your competitors; you could directly murder them yourself, simply by using your supercar of choice as a giant sledgehammer. Smashing opponents was directly rewarded with more Boost, which was the Burnout equivalent to infinite nitrous oxide that replenished by driving dangerously. With a split-screen mode included with the game, I would wager this game has a friendship death toll rivaling Mario Kart. If that’s not enough evidence to convince you to dust off the disc and start slamming into traffic with reckless abandon, it was the , with Metacritic bestowing it the title of “Universal Acclaim”.

So dust off the PS2 (again - you can probably see what my childhood was centered around), and get to some Road Rage.