Burnout Revenge hands-on

We must admit to being slightly worried by the fourth instalment in the Burnout series. The idea of being able to hit traffic just seemed so very wrong and threatened to take all of the skill away from the game.

But now, having had a play, we realise this is - thankfully - not so.

While Burnout 3 moved away from Burnout 2's points and boost combo-driven gameplay, favouring combat and aggression, Burnout Revenge seems to have continued towards crash-centric aggressive and combative gameplay - where hitting oncoming traffic is now encouraged - but has also introduced a Burnout 2 style points-based system.

Depending on the mode, hitting traffic rewards you with points equal to the value of damage you've just caused and by the time you reach the end of the race you've (hopefully) earned a massive score.

So what you're basically doing is racking up points by smashing into traffic within a certain proximity of each other to earn the maximum amount of points. It's rather like in Burnout 2 when you got more points for being able to link boosts earned - except here it's linking damage to other cars.

It's all quite fancy and ensures the skill is not lost from a franchise that could so easily have been dumbed down.

It looks like everything will be OK with the world after all.

Burnout Revenge will be released for PS2 and Xbox later this year