Three Fields Entertainment’s Danger Zone is so close to what we want from a successor to Burnout’s crash mode.

You can skip this next paragraph if you’ve read the last thing, but just for anyone who doesn’t know the context around Three Fields Entertainment’s Danger Zone, here it is:

Burnout was a fantastic game series that I loved, it had arcade-style racing that rewarded you for driving into oncoming traffic (and other absurd stunts) in its races or crashing into as many vehicles as possible in the crash mode. Sadly, that game series is dead and the last big game in the series, Burnout Paradise, had a crappy version of crash mode that isn’t worth talking about.

Danger Zone is all of the good crash mode. You drive a car into an intersection, or series of intersections. Once your car hits a certain number of other cars you get a bonus that lets your car explode and then you can roll your car into more vehicles and more power ups, some of which let your car explode again. There is some thought you have to put into it when you figure out a path to hit everything just so. Do it right and you’ll get a great score by causing the most destruction. It’s a little puzzle of planning out pain.

That stuff, it’s almost all there in Danger Zone, the crashing, the rolling your car through the air to hit other intersections. What they’ve changed from Burnout is the virtual environment Danger Zone takes place in instead of the ostensibly real world that Burnout inhabited. Danger Zone trades cities and their highways for roads that appear to materialize before you after the level loads. All the cars you drive are emblemized to indicate that they’re similar to crash test cars. It’s a mix of the holodeck from Star Trek and the IIHS crash test videos.

The simulation of roads and vehicles lets the level designers get creative and make layouts that could never happen in real life. There are some truly ridiculous levels as you keep playing through the game. Intersections full of the smashbreaker rewards that let you keep rolling on to other roundabouts that float in the air.

Here’s an example of how ridiculous these Danger Zone levels get. In the last tier of levels you’ll find one that has taxi cabs hovering in the sky. They rain down and explode as you drive under them to add a challenge to getting just the right path for the highest score. It looks cool to see them hanging out above the ground with the stars above them, but it isn’t fun to avoid them. Your car’s handling is so close to good, but it ended up being incredibly frustrating to try and dodge these cabs.

The other levels in the final tier get even crazier with drives through the center of spinning roundabouts while you do hockey-checks and push cars into disaster.

As ridiculous as the environments can get, Danger Zone only really has two or three different styles for them, with a few different lighting conditions. There’s a virtual holodeck world in a huge metal box, there’s one with an outdoor open air skybox with a scuffed white paint job on the walls above the laser grid, and one final mode with the same holodeck as the first but with a starry night skybox instead of a boring warehouse ceiling.

It really makes me miss the urban disasters of Burnout and wish for something in-between. Without the simulated test facility vibe, it’d be incredible to play a similar game that featured these crashes in a semi-realistic environment of Burnout that gradually changed into a completely bent world with the same layouts that you have in Danger Zone.

Those ridiculous levels at the end of Danger Zone would be so much better if there were city blocks teeming with life spinning around the path you’re driving through. Or farmer’s fields with cows, or whatever. It could be an amazing trip, but the virtual environment ultimately detracts from the fun that is hidden in Danger Zone. Almost every roadway in the game has minimal or no barriers to prevent you from falling off of it, and then landing onto a grid that slowly eats your car and forces you to give up your progress and restart the level.

Just got a grand slam (all of the medals on the level in order) but your car is teetering on the edge of a road? Too bad, it’s going to fall off into the grid.

That grid, and the long load times to restart each medal attempt, really ruin the fun of trying to achieve the best score on each level. This game needs a more dynamic core that is capable of fast restarts when the game ends.

The camera controls are also incredibly frustrating, that the game doesn’t even let you tune the sensitivity for the right thumbstick is ridiculous. It can be incredibly difficult to pan around and figure out where you need to roll your burning wreckage next before the car just starts going without your input.

While I could spend some time trying to get better medals on each level I don’t think I’m going to try. It’s a fun game if you are looking for the most bare-bones experience and are incredibly desperate for some more crash mode without resorting to emulation or hooking up an old console. I hope that Three Fields keeps improving this formula, it’s so close to a fantastic crash mode game and already much better than their last attempt at it with Dangerous Golf.

3/5 burning limousines for Danger Zone

Danger Zone is $15 and available now on the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Steam for Windows.