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Since its debut on the Playstation 2, the Burnout franchise returns with each version to offer players something new from their last experience. Although it doesn’t create a new paradigm in the world of arcade racers, Burnout Paradise feels like the next logical progression for the Criterion favorite. The game does well in combining the familiar aspects of past iterations, while still keeping things fresh. New content and new ways of delivering it distinguish this year’s game from past titles, and does it in arguably good taste; however, nothing’s ever perfect.
Unlike the franchise’s past games, Paradise ditches the menu system for an open-world, sandbox approach. From the start, players have access to the entire city complete with a bustling downtown, rural country clubs, and mountain get-a-ways. Although it’s possible to traverse the entire city in a matter of minutes, the way it is designed makes it feel much larger than it actually is.
With so much to explore the game caters to both casual gamers and hardcore gamers alike. While there are hours-worth of hidden paths, jumps and destructible billboards to find, the goal of the game is compete in various races, to acquire new cars, and to earn your Burnout License. To accomplish this, instead of navigating through various menus with laborious load times, there are over 120 stoplights which act as the starting points for events.
By pulling on the gas and break triggers while at intersections, you’ll start one of five different events: Race, Road Rage, Burning Route, Stunt Run and Marked Man. The latter two are all-new game types which, respectively, require you to beat a certain score by performing tricks, or make it from one point to another without having your car totaled by pursuing, headhunting cars.
To make the events engaging, it requires more than just great gameplay. True, Axel Rose wasn’t singing about racing cars around 30 square kilometers of a virtual city, but it should come as no surprise that "Paradise City" is the title track to Burnout Paradise, and complements a fairly strong soundtrack—there are few exceptions, but chances are you’ll be more concerned about crashing, then what song you’re listening to. Added to these catchy tunes are believable engine sounds, crumple effects, and honking horns as you fly by wary city drivers.
The entire game is based around the cars themselves, and just like other titles that allow metal to be twisted, chassis to crumpled, or roofs to be smashed, Paradise does not have any licensed manufacturers. However, each car is easily recognizable to its real-life counterpart, so there really isn’t cause to complain. To build up your collection, cars are put in junkyards—acting as your garage—and are earned by taking down cars cruising through the streets or by progressing through licenses. There are over 75 to unlock, with a majority of them being upgraded versions of cars earned by completing Burning Routes.
I stress the fact that cars are the opponents in game, and not drivers. While the game may be arcade-focused, Paradise seems to have edged its way into a gray area between the realms of simulators and pure fantasy. Everything in-game looks fantastic and moves seamlessly, even at fantastic speeds. Big crashes are still a main feature to the game, but once you have wrecked and the doors to your ride are missing, it suddenly hits you: where are the drivers?
There are absolutely no people in Paradise City. Obviously human beings exist in the fictitious city, as the somewhat annoying DJ Atomica exists and updates you about various activities of random people, but still, there is no one to be found. If the push is for more realism—with beautifully looking cars and believable surroundings—then there should at least be a driver steering you car, or actual patrons visiting the mall. This is where the worlds of arcade and simulators collide, but it is all excusable, especially for the sake of retaining an “E for Everyone” rating.
The lines between arcade and sim are further blurred with the reinvention of Crash Mode. While past games had players navigating menus to attempt to accumulate enough points to complete a crash game, the new Showtime mode allows players to crash any time, anywhere. These incredible spectacles can be accessed by turning on Road Rules via the in-game menu system—one that does not require exiting the game, and operates fluidly with full functionality. With the press of a couple of buttons, over-the-top, controllable crash sequences ensue.
While the action is completely gratuitous it is nonetheless exciting and fun to see how much damage you can do. In spite of its accessibility however, the entire puzzle element is gone, along with seeing how much damage was done from the destruction recap. Unfortunately, this tweak turned one of the more challenging parts of the game into a more casual-friendly mini-game.
However, the bulk of the single player experience remains exciting and open-ended with the new approach. It can become frustrating as races cannot be restarted instantly—you have to return to the original stoplight to start anew—but it’s easy to overlook as wherever you end up there’s a new race. One of the only other issues with the new design is accessing cars. Rides can only be changed in the junkyards which take time to get to, and becomes a bit tedious as you look to have the right car for different events; also, load times while trying to view your cars are on the slow side.
The single-player side of things is filled with hours to do and is really a game in itself, but complemented to that are multiplayer games. Everything that can be explored alone can also be done with up to 8 players online. While players can create routes to race on, the majority of time can be spent in Freeburn with the entire city open to all players in real-time. Also, to keep things interesting, there are challenges to complete for a varying number of players. As a fun feature, during online sessions, snapshots can be taken of players after takedowns via the LIVE Vision camera (Xbox 360) or a Playstation Eye (PS3).
A relatively minor issue with races—both online and off—is they can become confusing, as there are numerous twisting streets and shortcuts that can divert you from your goal. The on-screen map helps only a little, and the course direction mechanism is so subtle that it’s easy to miss your turn completely. With that said however, it becomes that much more important to really learn the ins-and-outs of the city before racing others.
Cruising around Paradise City with up to 7 others is fun and full of surprises with interesting challenges, but it would be nice to see additional events added for multiplayer games to keep things exciting. Also, the lack of offline multiplayer is disappointing, especially when there is more than one person in the room wanting to play. The multiplayer aspect is a good start, but there is still plenty that could be added to the overall experience.
For the sake of keeping things original for the franchise, Criterion have made a bold move with Paradise by taking a game based on menus and re-imagining it in an open-world system. In the end however, such a move has turned out to be a well executed venture. For some, the inability to instantly restart races may turn out to be frustrating and the new Showtime feature may feel a bit too gimmicky, but these design choices really complete the open feel of Paradise City and allow the player to keep exploring. There may be some issues that need to be addressed for the next title, but Burnout Paradise looks great, runs smoothly, has unbelievable crashes, and certainly is the first must-own of the New Year.
Gameplay: 9.0
Graphics: 9.0
Audio: 8.5
Lasting Appeal: 9.0
Overall: 9.0
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