i don’t usually like taking drugs, even prescription drugs, since i think doctors tend to overmedicate their patients just to get them to shut up. (for example, my doctor prescribed both amoxicillin and some allergy medicine fior me). i feel like somehow i will singelhandedly be the cause of the uprising of anti-bacteria immune diseases and microbes that will take over the world, invader zim style. but, this time, i’m all about the Rx. i went to the doctor last friday and got prescribed Augmentin, which is amoxicillin, and the allergy stuff. I decided to take the antibiotics first, and if that didn’t work, then i’d take the allergy stuff. So, I started taking the amoxicillin on Sunday afternoon (i didn’t want to start off the prescription with a night of drinking, so i waited a day). by monday evening my throat was feeling pretty much a-ok. i’m still coughing a little bit right now, but my throat feels wonderful, better than it has in the last 3 weeks. Looks like i won’t be taking the allergy medicine.
If you were to look up “the shit” in the dictionary, you would likely find this picture next to the definition.

Burnout 3 is really really fun. i’ve been staying up past 2 in the morning playing it pretty much since i got it, except for when i had stuff to do like have a party. Well, i’ve also been staying up because i have to take the drugs at 12 hour intervals, and i started taking it around 4pm on sunday (i’m s-m-r-t) and i’ve been trying to shift it over to 10 or 11 am/pm by doing 11 hour increments, and i took it late yesterday, so i had to go back to 2:30 last night. i’m currently at 12:30, by tomorrow i should be at reasonable times.
Burnout 3: Takedown is basically the funnest part of most racing games - going hella fast and crashing. oh, and making your opponents crash by slamming them into walls, cars, fences, etc. you get small amounts of boost by doing dangerous things - drifting around corners, driving toward oncoming traffic, and narrowly avoiding other cars, and you get a full boost meter plus a bonus if you “takedown” an opponent.
i’m having a lot of fun with pretty much all the modes, all except for Burning Lap, which is just your car doing a time trial on the course; no one else to crash, in fact you don’t want to crash, or it’s impossible to get a gold. And i must have gold.
You’ve got your basic Race - 6 car race to the finish;
Road Rage (my favorite) - you drive around the course, and your goal is to Takedown your opponents as often as possible (i.e. bronze for 6 takedowns, sliver for 10, gold for 15);
Crash Junction - you start a little ways away from an intersection or highway, and your goal is to cause the most expensive crash possible. There are crash powerups you can pick up like cash bonuses, speed boosts, score multipliers (2x and 4x), and a Crashbreaker which can be triggered by involving enough cars in the wreck, or picking up a crashbreaker powerup. Crashbreaker basically just explodes your car in a huge fireball and launches it into the air. While your car is crashing, you can hold down A to slow down time and you can use Aftertouch to maneuver your car as it’s flipping and flying around so that it’ll hit more cars, or to pick up more powerups. Aftertouch also works in non-crash gametypes so you can try to hit your opponents. Doing so scores you an Aftertouch Takedown, so crashing isn’t always a bad thing.
Burning lap, explained above.
Face-Off - you against one opponent, in a car you don’t have - if you win, you unlock that car.
Your reward for doing well is unlocking cars and more events, and there are a shit-ton of goals to get. First you’ve got your regular gold medal on every race. As you get more gold medals, you’ll be awarded a car every once in a whiel (20, 40, all golds on races, all golds on crashes, etc).
Then for crash mode, once you’ve accumulated enough crash money, you’ll unlock a big crash-worthy car (say, $50,000,000 unlocks a UPS style delivery truck). Also, if you top a certain threshold on each location, you’ll get a crash headline (i.e. “Massive crash shuts down pier” if you get $750,000+ on Waterfront). Get all the headlines, and you get.. that’s right, a new car (the fire engine in this case, nice!)
Then you’ve got Signature Takedowns - these are takedowns in specific locations on the courses; slamming someone into the wall near the dock gets you “Ship Wreck”, and crashing someone in the right tunnel on a few tracks gets you “Tunnel of Shove.” When you performe one, you earn a picture of the crash; collect all the pictures, and you can guess what you are awarded.
There are Special Events which are usually hot laps with special cars (F1 racer, NASCAR type car, cars from Burnout 2). When you get gold on a special event, you’ll get a Postcard from that event. I’ll leave it as an exercise to the reader as to what you get for collecting all the postcards.
There are also takedown challenges, which are global for all races. There are four levels ranging from beginner (get 5 takedowns in a race. get your first revenge takedown, etc.) to the advanced ones (get 40 takedowns in a road rage, get 3 bus crashes in one race). once you complete all the challenges at each level, new car. basically, there are lot sof cars to get.
And that’s just the single player, for which i’ve surely missed a lot. Burnout 3 has online play on Live, which is pretty cool too (though i prefer single player, since i’m generally playing with random people). Race - up to 6 player race, Road Rage - up to 6 players, red team vs. blue team, blue team flees, red team tries to takedown blue team before they reach the end; Party Crash - up to 8 people, everyone does a crash event, highest score wins. Double Impact - 2 players, on the same crash, try to get more than the other guy, and Team Crush, which is a cooperative version of double impact.
all in all, burnout 3 is ok. well, i guess it’s a little better than that…
does the noise in my head bother you?