Burnout has fun with physics

Burnout 5's speedsters will atomise stupendously during crashes, with more than six times as many breakable pieces in each car compared to Burnout Revenge. This will mean you can tear your car in half, rip the roof off or achieve other satisfying shunt stunts. And all of this carnage is down to one thing: Star Wars.

Well, not quite. But developer Criterion takes its inspiration from everywhere, and director of game design Alex Ward only wants fun from his physics: "Real physics don't make for great gameplay all of the time. If we want to blow the car up, we'll blow the car up. Like when they blew up the Death Star - there's no fire in space." In other words, expect ridiculously entertaining levels of explosions when Burnout 5 launches on Xbox 360 and PS3 next year.