Burnout Paradise

Burnout Paradise is one of the best racing games I've played. The controls are simple, so it's easy enough for even my three year to play.

The open city to drive is great for just having some fun and there are so many challanges that there is always something to do.

Recently, the Bike Pack was released, allowing you to ride motorcycles within Paradise City. Criteron Games has committed to even more downloable content in the future as well.

For the $30 price, this game is a must have for anyone who enjoys racing games.

I had reviewed this once before. My review along with many others just vanished. Very curious. So, here it is again:

I like about 60% of this game. The racing is as fun as I remember from Takedown. The city looks amazing. The free-roaming aspect works pretty well. I've been busy tracking down super-jump spots. The races and road rage events (my favorite) are perfect, once you find them.

The Marked Man event feels like a race you can't lose, I've yet to be wrecked more than once by the cars supposedly out to get me. Maybe it gets trickier with a higher level license.

I do miss crash mode. It was too fun and too much a signature of the Burnout franchise to go away. Showtime is NOT a suitable replacement. Showtime is this awkward crash mode/aftertouch replacement that lets you tumble down the road smashing everything in your path until your boost meter is empty. Since you can build up boost as you crush cars, some of these Showtime rolls can go on for ridiculous lengths of time. It seems pointless; I'm not a fan.

Something I am a fan of is having to take down a car to add to your collection. After winning some events, the annoucer will tell you a certain make and model of car is loose on the streets, if you take it down (crash it) it's yours. I've had some fun chases going after these cars.

Now for my major gripes. I like roaming around and exploring. I'm fine with the open world. Just not all the time. Once in awhile, I want to hop on, run a few road rage events and be done. I don't want to drive across town to the previous (or next) event. That's a bit too much like reality. Why on earth did they remove the ability to jump to the start of an event from the map screen? Add the option to quick start events from the map when you don't feel like driving from point A to point B.

Also, you can't restart a race. Without the helpful arrows pointing your way, you will get lost, hopelessly lost. Staring at the tiny navigation map while trying to avoid a high speed crash is just frustrating. Granted, you will learn the routes given time, but as the races get tougher you'll need to repeat them in order to win. In Revenge and Takedown when you crashed early in a hard race you were better off restarting. Here, you're just out of luck.

It seems like the single player experience got the short end here. There's a hard to define fun factor missing. Which is a shame, because I loved the past couple games in the series. Each had the perfect splash of "arcade". Which is exactly what I'm looking for from Burnout, I want that constant motion; I want to be assaulted by speed; I want to careen around corners, blast opponents off the side of a bridge, and smash traffic ahead like pinballs. It just isn't here. So, I'm going to keep my money.

well, this game is a pretty good game, but you cant say its great if you've played burnout revenge. this game doesn't seem like it should be called burnout, its more like a normal racing game. one of the really cool things about burnout revenge is that when you crashed, you would explode your car and crash others. that was a really fun part of the game. but they seem to have took en that out in paradise. this is still a pretty good game. i recomend to buy it after you' beaten revenge. click the following link to go to burnout revenge.Burnout Revenge

The previous Generation 1 XBox game allowed players to rack up points by crashing. There's no more intentional crashing. This game has become much more of a racing game. The open design means that you have to use a GPS to find your way around while racing. You just have to drive around looking for street lights until you find the event you want. I don't want bother looking at a stupid GPS while I'm trying to race--it's too distracting. I've beaten the game on all levels but there was far more frustration than fun along the way. Also, finding stunt jumps during the "stunt" events is very difficult under pressure. I'm not sure why EA insists on making things more complicated when games are supposed to be fun. I'll go back to Burnout when the game designers get a clue.

I don't like many games where the driver can't get in and out of the car your driving but I was so pump when I knew a need for speed oops.. i'm sorry burnout was coming out. this francise was my favorite racing games the first one was ok and after that they ROCKED! because of crash mode I would get platium award on all of them and then play the rest of the game. when takedown came out with the takedown racing those are great too but, I drive to work, I drive to the store. driving games like gran tursmino (realistic)don't do it for me I like mayhem. I LOVED CRASH MODE!
I know the big thing about this game is the online gaming that's ok but again where's crash mode. I know they have "showtime" but it's not the same it's just a cheap version i would expect someone else to knock off this francise with. I mean there's no real objective to ityou just keep rolling and rolling which is lame, I guess and ironicly i like controlled chaos. I don't want realisic driving but some what realisic wrecking. yea it's fun to race with your buddies online but I like going two hunreds mph in to a tanker in slo-mo as it explodes and gracefully pirouette and pinball off of buses and cars instead of just bouncing off of cars like sonic or mario. for the next game they should have you and 3 of your friends at a oncoming and off going ramp of a interstate and see what happens.