It's Paradise For Reckless Driving - Burnout Paradise

It seems that someone flipped the switch on EA's two major racing franchises. After a few years of open-world adventures, Need for Speed Pro Street took the series back to menu-driven progression. On the other hand, Burnout, a stubborn holdover of the same kind of progression, has been taken sandbox with Burnout Paradise. In reality it's a natural progression for the game, offering the ability to get into crashes and races anytime, anywhere. And really, it works very well with Paradise, offering a large (but not too large) city to traverse with plenty of events and secrets to find. To take this step forward, however, a step backward has been taken too, leaving Burnout Paradise a game lost in transition at points. Make no mistake, the racing action is as intense as ever, with numerous added sprinkles to the usual sundae, but some parts of the game simply don't work that well and become more frustrating and/or dull to be enjoyable.

Take me down to the Paradise City, where the grass is green and the girls are locked in their homes
Burnout Paradise takes place in the fictional Paradise City (and yes, the classic Guns N Roses song is here in all its glory), a haven for Burners, where almost every intersection of the city has an event. The open-world format means every race can be accessed right away at whatever your License level, something that gradually increases as you win a specific amount of events. The game simply adjusts your opponents to your own vehicle's abilities, making it possible to complete most of the race events without actually getting a different car aside from your free starter car. The variety in Paradise is surprising, as there's the usual grid-like downtown area, a circular bypass to really hit the high speeds, and a huge, curvy mountainside area, and that's just for starters. Paradise City isn't huge; it's probably about as large as Liberty City from Grand Theft Auto III. But the design makes up for whatever lack of square mileage doesn't. Because of the open world structure, it's possible to simply drive around and discover secrets, like billboards, “smashes” which show off shortcuts/alternate routes, and more important things like gas stations for refilling boost, and repair shops to fix your damaged car.

Veteran Burnout players will recognize most of the events; typical races are the most common, but even they've received an overhaul. Instead of a lap based, direct path grind, everything is point-to-point, Midnight Club style “just get there, we don't care how” racing. Initially I found this really frustrating because of the speed being so fast at points that you miss turns which pretty much blows things against aggressive AI. The trick ends up being your own ears, listening for the turn signal indicating the road you should take. It makes things a whole lot easier until you learn where all the finish points are but even then you're almost always given the fastest route. Road Rage also returns, with the usual rules in place, but a couple added quirks. Unlike the races, it's totally open as to what direction you can go, as there's always opponents nearby to tussle with. New to Road Rage are the time bonuses for each takedown, extending the event, and the ability to repair your badly damaged car at a repair shop, saving you from prematurely evacuating from the event. Unlike past Burnout's where you get a set amount of takedowns to win, every time you complete a Road Rage, the amount necessary increases by one, making each one more challenging than the last.

Aside from these staples, everything else is either new or vastly renovated. Burning Route time trials are now tied to specific cars, making them unavailable until you unlock the corresponding car. This in and of itself is a game within the game – as you progress, cars join the fray and begin racing through the city. Find them and take 'em out and they go to your “junkyard” where all your vehicles are stored. Finish a Burning Route unlocks a trumped-up version of the same car, so it's worth the trouble aside from the whole “get 100%” thing. Brand new to Burnout are the Marked Man and Stunt Run events. Marked Man places you against a horde of very strong cars out to take you out (hence the Marked Man name), and you have to reach the designated finish line before they can do so. Like Road Rage the use of repair shops can be a lifesaver. Stunt Runs make you show off your ability to find shortcuts and make some crazy jumps, and to be successful you have to be completely aware of your surroundings. It's actually why the events themselves can be very frustrating, with such short time limits and in some spots, a lack of opportunity unless you go hunting, which in turn wastes time.

Burners wanted, but with some brains this time
In the past Burnout games usually haven't placed importance on choosing vehicles; all of them usually could do their job. Not so much with Paradise. This time, the car you choose can actually affect your performance. For instance, if you do a Road Rage event, taking a “racing” class car isn't a good idea, as the lack of weight will equal getting pushed around a lot by the larger cars and trucks (yes, trucks), and being unable to really bother them when trying to perform takedowns. Same in a Marked Man event...you'll simply get slaughtered even if you have an extremely fast car because they can still catch you. Similarly, you wouldn't want to take a large, immobile car out into a Stunt Run because they won't be able to make some of the jumps or turn fast enough to take shortcuts. It's a surprising layer of depth. Criterion even adjusted how boost works – the racing models have the old-school Burnout method of building up boost, being unable to use it until it's maxed, the stunt class vehicles can use it any time a la Burnout 3 and Burnout Revenge, and the big bruisers can get boost like the stunt class, but only they can get traffic check boost.

Alas when you get down to brass tacks, Burnout Paradise is flawed. You might notice the lack of a Crash mode; indeed, it's not there. In it's place is “Showtime” something you can activate at any time. In Showtime you can bounce (really) and hit other cars to create a chain reaction crash, but it's actually quite dull. It lacks that puzzle game element that made it so much fun in the past – especially in Burnout Revenge – and thus I can barely be bothered to use it. Even in the open-world format, something else could have been done to keep Crash in its previous format. Also, sadly, some of the cars just don't handle well. Some of them feel like you're driving on ice, slipping and sliding and full of understeer leading to a lot of blown time and/or accidents from trying to avoid traffic. It's almost better to stick to the earlier, less demanding cars for most events just to keep a grip on them. Most importantly, where Paradise will drive most nuts is the complete lack of a “retry” option during an event. It's understandable as to why they didn't implement it, to preserve the whole open-world, load time free universe, but when you get this lengthy race and you screw up halfway through and lose...guess what? You have to go all the way back to the race (if you can even find it) and restart. It's the kind of thing that makes you stop playing after a while.

The awesome thing about Paradise is its online implementation. In a slick setup, hopping online is as simple as pressing right on the d-pad and logging in, transferring you to an online version of the city where you can do races and challenges with others. It's somewhat like Test Drive Unlimited, only there is a legitimate separation between online and offline, but the way its set up really works well, and hopefully more racing games will use the hop-in, hop-out style organized here. It highlights the truth that they really did a great job with Burnout Paradise in terms of creating this great city to explore, and despite some mediocre design choices and some boring game types, the game ends up remaining fun because at its core, it's still Burnout, the fast paced, frequently terrifying racing game that's all about the adrenaline rush. For a next-generation debut, with clear ambition, it turned out quite well and leaves a lot of promise for the inevitable sequel.

Blink and you'll miss that car you just crashed into
At this point it's probably old news, but these Burnout games...they're really fast. Paradise in particular is insanely fast, with other cars and landmarks completely blown off the map as you race by. And there's nary a hint of slowdown the entire time. I already mentioned the variety of Paradise City, but really when you sit down and play the game, you see the forested rural areas which contrast the urban sprawl of downtown and its outlying areas. But perhaps the most important visual touch are the crashes. In the past Burnout crashes have been the star of the show, and that remains the case here – just magnified by like a zillion. Intense slo-mo showing everything bending and shattering, cars getting piece of it flown all across the road, cars flying off cliffs when taken out... it's all spectacular. It's so brutal they didn't even put drivers in the cars – when the windows are smashed and the doors are removed, you'll see that every car comes from the KITT family – they lack someone actually driving. Sweet.

The audio tends to match the visuals, in terms of the crashes; not only do you see your car getting bent, you hear the crunching of the metal and the slamming of other cars in a sometimes sickening thud. It's beautiful. The soundtrack is massive, featuring not only a bunch of current tunes to appease the kiddies, but some older stuff, like GNR and even Twisted Sister. There's also a ton of old Burnout original BMG thrown in, so if you were a fan of the cheesy tunes from the original Burnout, knock yourself out. Not that I'd ever want to hear that almost-country theme from the first track in that game ever again or anything like that. Like Burnout 3, Paradise has its own DJ, DJ Atomica...or however it's spelled. Either way, you get a more subdued, almost tolerable voice pointing you around the city and giving you info when it's needed, and it's a huge improvement from the last time they did this, with DJ Stryker who most Burnout 3 fans wanted to sacrifice to the heavens by setting him on fire. When you've reached the level of “tolerable” you've accomplished some sort of miracle when it comes to gaming. Though it would have been awesome to get Tommy "Nightmare" Smith from GTA San Andreas...only because he was played by Axl Rose. Because of the whole GNR thing.

The Closing Argument
For veteran Burnout fans, Burnout Paradise will be equal parts awesome and equal parts disappointing, if that makes any sense. The move to the open world turned out better than expected, and in almost all regards the game is as fun and addictive as it's been in the past. It's just that some of the design choices and replacements for a couple beloved game modes don't quite work, and the whole event restarting thing could be covered in a 10 page thesis. Yet despite that, Paradise delivers the sort of intense, often terrifying, racing experience that we all have come to love from this franchise. It holds hope for the future of the franchise, as the development team gets a handle on the next-generation and builds upon what's been established. The same thing happened in the PS2 era – the leap from Burnout to Burnout 2 to Burnout 3 was tremendous. So despite any disappointment, Burnout Paradise is still a must-play for fans, and it's a great way for new players to get into the mix as well.