At its heart,
Burnout is a racing game and not much more. More emphasis has been put on vehicular collisions than in most other titles of the genre, but once you get right down to it, your main goal is to get to the finish line as quickly as possible. An old idea that is tried and true for sure, but when that's all the game is, you're basically playing a better looking
Pole Position instead of a next generation title.
There are several different types of races you can compete in. The first and most important are the Championship races. Here you race on three different courses, and you must achieve a certain place at the end of each course in order to advance to the next Championship race.
Finishing a Championship race opens up other racing modes, which leads us to Survival and Face Off. In Survival mode, you get to race one on one with a special hidden car. Beating the race unlocks that car and allows you to use it in any mode offered. Survival mode has you racing solo on any track you like, but one wreck and it's all over. You can't take your sweet time either, as you have to hit checkpoint after checkpoint in the time allotted. This isn't easy. It's also not very fun.
The rest of the races, like Single Race, Time Attack and Head to Head, are all very generic and offer little more in the way of gameplay. They are basically attempts to add replay value, but were too weak to accomplish anything other than to take up space.
