I’m currently staring at my worldwide rank in the Live Revenge lobby of Criterion’s excellent port of Burnout Revenge. I’m ranked number 263 in the world. Not 24 hours ago, I was ranked number 6. As you can tell, things change pretty rapidly and as the game gets snapped up by more and more burners -- most of whom seem to be au fait with the nuances of the game -- my ranking is constantly under more threat as every hour passes. I want revenge on those suckers that are ranked higher than me, and I intend to get it.

And that’s the major difference between the 360 game and the PS2 and Xbox versions that were released late last year. It’s all about the improved online experience. Sure, Burnout Revenge on 360 still has the same hugely engrossing single-player world tour mode -- which will challenge even the most die-hard racers out there -- and it’s got some nice graphical tweaks and the whole high definition thing going on, but pound-for-pound, Revenge is now all about being the best of the best online. And it’s all thanks to Xbox Live.

I’ll get to the guts of the game in a while, but there are a couple of technical issues I need to mention first which held me back from bestowing a full five stars for the score. While the load times are now significantly improved over the beta builds of the game, I have been noticing a couple of bugs here and there, in the single-player game especially. On more than a few occasions, my car has dropped through the tracks out of the game world, or clipped through supposedly solid object like walls and buildings. Other times, the frame rate has taken an odd hit, causing the game to drop below its usual 60 frames per second.

The online game seems to be pretty solid, but yesterday and today there were one or two moments where I couldn’t connect to EA’s servers, or I got disconnected while idling in the lobby. I’m putting these connection issues down to the fact that the game only just hit the streets and its online population is growing at an exponential rate. I have no doubt these will smooth out, and they never resulted in any gameplay-altering results for the better or worse. Lag when racing online was barely apparent -- maybe once in two days did I witness another player’s car briefly warp around in front of me -- so on the whole, Revenge online is stable.

The aforementioned glitches are niggling but forgivable. The overall package on offer more than makes up for these issues and Burnout Revenge has now officially become my favorite game for the 360 (yep, I like it more than Ridge Racer 6, and for me, that’s saying something).

Undoubtedly, most burners will pick up Revenge and tinker with the online game, but ultimately spend most of their time in the world tour single-player mode. Here you’ll find classic Burnout challenges spread over a huge number of worldly locations. Included in the race types are traffic attack (nail as much traffic as possible), burning lap (boost for the win), road rage (hit a certain amount of takedowns), eliminator (don’t be in the bottom spot when the timer runs out), preview and grand prix race.

And finally, there’s the hallowed crash modes too. We all know and love crash mode like a kid brother, and thanks to the 360’s graphical grunt, it looks even better than it did before. That’s to say that I don’t think I’ve ever seen such spectacular explosions in a video game. The awesome crash-breaker feature makes sure that it’s reasonably easy for newbies and pros alike to craft some wicked explosions with relative ease. Shards of metal fly, engine blocks detonate and multiple cars and trucks fly through the air like some sick ballet of automotive carnage. It’s a wonder to behold, and tons of fun to participate in. It’s also quickly worth noting that the "golf swing start meter" seen in the PS2 and Xbox crash modes is now gone -- something that I believe to be a wise move.

The purpose in world tour mode is to chug your way up the ranks from harmless all the way to the top. Beating out all the challenges (and trying for perfects wherever possible) will make this an easier goal to achieve. The gameplay revolves around the notion of revenge. You’ll want to takedown the other CPU guys as much as possible in order to gain maximum boost, snag trophies and medals, and unlock new events and cars. In this respect, it’s the same game as the PS2 and Xbox versions. And it’s still a huge amount of fun.

The graphics are now even juicier on the 360, with car models sporting new paint scratching effects and speed blurring effects taking the sensation of speed to new heights. In fact, I personally think Revenge on 360 gives the fastest sense of speed of any racer to date. It’s truly amazing, but at the same time, completely controllable -- something which plagues other racers for sure. Techniques such as drifting, driving into oncoming traffic, drafting behind other racers, and slamming into traffic moving the same direction as yourself all add to your boost meter, meaning faster speeds, lap times and better rankings. It’s a racing maniac’s dream come true.

Revenge offers a huge range of insane tracks too, sporting multiple routes and shortcuts, along with ample ramps, jumps and other ways to perform killer vertical takedowns on chumps. The tracks are as brutal as the other versions of Revenge and will take some time to master fully. Knowing the most direct routes to take is pretty key to nailing some of the more difficult time-based challenges fully. Needless to say, the replay value of Revenge is on the high side.

And so my attention turns to Revenge Live and the save and share options of the game. The save and share stuff really boils down to players being able to record clips of their exploits from the offline modes and upload and share them with their friends over Live. Mostly interesting for bragging rights, players can share up to 20 clips and download other clips from the EA servers to check out other gamers’ crazy skills.

Revenge Live, however, is where it’s at. Sure, the game features some decent offline multiplayer racing (limited to two-player unless you’re talking about crash party or crash tour where up to six can share the action), but really, the offline multiplayer might as well not even exist. It’s all about nailing punks online and building a reputation of being a complete bastard, which’ll drive you to strive for a high ranking online. The beauty of Revenge Live is that the game persistently tracks who you’ve nailed, and who’s nailed you.

This means that huge vendettas can be created against players over Live, leading to epic battles for takedown supremacy. Players have the option of racing either ranked or non-ranked matches, and can select to hit up quick races, create their own custom games or check out the worldwide and personal scoreboards to see who’s on top. There are race, road rage, crash party, crash tour and crash battle modes to hit up online, but one thing that’s missing are the aftertouch takedowns -- removed for obvious real-time limitation reasons. If you join a race that has a rival, you’ll get a notification telling you that either he’s gunning for you, or you need to be gunning for him. The whole rival presentation really gets your blood boiling for revenge, and this is where Revenge on 360 really shines through.

In the time it’s taken me to put my thoughts down for the review, my worldwide ranking for Revenge Live has slipped from 263 to 276. I guess things are really heating up out there. Burnout Revenge has taken the 360 crown for best arcade racer to date, and it’s going to be quite some time before another game steps up and tries to grab it back. If you’ve already played the crap out of the PS2 or Xbox versions of Revenge, then the new online tweaks and overall spit and polish might not be enough to make you want to do it all over again. On the other hand, if you’ve never played Revenge before, you absolutely need to get it. Maybe I’ll see you online, and maybe you’ll be my next rival. Either way, I’ve wasted too much time here, and there’s at least four players out there that I owe some pain to. It’s on.