Burnout Paradise

Kombo’s Review Policy: Our reviews are written for you. Our goal is to write honest, to-the-point reviews that don’t waste your time. This is why we’ve split our reviews into four sections: What the Game’s About, What’s Hot, What’s Not and Final Word, so that you can easily find the information you want from our reviews.

What the Game’s About
Burnout Paradise is the first true next generation version of Criterion Games’ seminal arcade racing series. The 2006 release of Burnout Revenge on the Xbox 360 was merely a port. Burnout Paradise is built from the ground-up to take advantage of the abilities of the new next-gen consoles.

You are given free reign in Paradise City. With the exception of a few events that have prerequisites, nearly every race and objective is available to you from the opening of the game. On the outset, Burnout Paradise simply feels like Grand Theft Auto with just cars. The longer you play, the more you will start to feel the game’s various nuances shine through.

Like most Burnout games, there is no set storyline other than to dominate the road. Each of the 120 traffic lights in Paradise City offer up a different event. You can compete in traditional races, marked man races, burning routes, road rage, and stunt runs. Winning in certain events unlocks new vehicles. You have to take them down in the free roaming mode in order to add them to your collection.

Each car is rated according to the three car classes: Stunt, Aggression and Speed. The boost meter fills differently according to the class of car you are driving at any one time. Normal burnout tactics will fill your boost meter, but the keys to mastering each class lie in knowing which methods are the most effective. Stunt cars gain boost through precarious driving, such as jumps, power drifts, near misses and the like. Aggressive cars are most effective by scoring takedowns on your rivals, and speed cars excel by drifting and chaining burnouts.

You begin the game with your learners permit and after clearing a set number of events, the rank of your license goes up. By obtaining each class of license, more advanced cars will be unlocked as you clear events. Each new license will reset all completed events and allow you to complete each one again at a higher level.

What’s Hot
Like most free-roaming games, once the game initially loads you will experience no further loading times to distract you while racing through Paradise City. Considering the fidelity of the graphics, speed of the game and the amazing draw distance, this is a major feat. Unlike most free-roaming games, you will not notice the same five cars, or buildings over and over as much. Thanks to the updated graphics and the new physics system, your time in Paradise City will be filled with crashes that make even Burnout veterans wince and cringe. Some of the more spectacular crashes and jumps will have you yelling expletives of joy at your screen.


Burnout Paradise
Traditional races are precisely what you would expect from the series. You get to race from one point on the map to one of the eight finish points on the map. Normal Burnout rules still apply; you gain boost by through risky driving and stunts, burnouts, or via takedowns; forcing your opponents to crash. Marked man events require you to reach the finish line in one piece while all of the other racers attempt to take you out. Each car in the game has a burning route devoted to it. If you can make it to the finish using the required car within the time limit will net you access to an upgraded version of the same car. Road Rage requires you to get a set number of takedowns before time runs out. Stunt runs task you with chaining together various stunts into a combination in order to get the highest score possible within the time constraints. Think: Tony Hawk or SSX with turbocharged drifting and barrel roll jumps instead of board grabs.

In addition to these, you can also compete in Showtime events, practice parking and search through the city to find all of the secrets.

Showtime replaces Burnout’s traditional crash mode. Pressing both top shoulder buttons during any crash will put you into Showtime mode. You get to try to aim your wrecked car into as much traffic as possible in order to cause as much damage as possible. Thanks to the game’s emphasis on remaining open-ended, you could in theory chain your Showtime rampage across the entire map. The only limiting factor in this mode is your boost, as it gets used up to propel your car once it loses momentum.

When you are not in the mood for any of the events, you can practice power parking, or you can search out any of the games’ hundreds of secrets. In a game that prides itself on speed and destruction, parking can be one of the tougher parts of Burnout Paradise. While not quite a true event, Burnout lets you try to power-park your car. You are given a percentage rating for how well you are able to use your car’s emergency brake to spin your car into a parking spot. Paradise City is huge and so are its secrets. You can search out all of the various drive-thru junkyards, paint shops, repair shops, gas stations, parking lots and a few hidden stunt areas if you know where to look. In addition, you can scour the city breaking through more than 400 ‘smash’ gate shortcuts, bust through the hidden burnout billboards, or search for the many concealed ‘super jump’ ramps. Due to its massive size, you will never feel like there’s not enough to do in Paradise City.


Perhaps the most alluring new aspect of Burnout Paradise is its seamless online aspect. At any point you can press the right directional button and enter into Freeburn online mode. Freeburning online works almost like a small car-based MMO game. Daily road, race, and statistical records are yours to beat. You can play against your friend’s or stranger’s offline scores or against them online. From this mode, you can host your own custom races or everyone can continue to Freeburn on their own while the other players online occasionally zip across your screen.

When you are not Freeburning online, you will notice that the offline racing A.I. has received a very noticeable upgrade. Your racing opponents are more aggressive than ever before. Particularly if you are not using a car with a high aggression level, the computer controlled competitors will toss you around .

What’s Not
There isn’t much that can be said about Burnout Paradise that is bad. Newcomers to the Burnout franchise will quickly find out what the buzz has been about. Veterans of the series will find issues with the removal and alteration of various Burnout mainstays.

The most obvious omission is the fact that you no longer have access to the series’ signature Aftertouch. During a crash during an event, you can no longer enter Aftertouch slow-motion to direct your wreck into your opponents. Although this makes for faster races, and emphasizes more careful driving, the loss of such a feature almost makes Burnout Paradise feel like a different series. Along with Aftertouch, Criterion has transformed Crash Mode into Showtime mode. It is definitely fun to rack up the damage points in Showtime mode, but it lacks the puzzle-like feel of the old Crash Mode.

The new, more realistic physics system is a high point for Burnout Paradise, but you cannot help but feel that sometimes the crash physics are slightly finicky. Trying to check traffic is as much a game of luck as it requires skilled driving. Some of the more vicious collisions will only result in minor a drive-away crash, but sometimes light bumps against jutting objects or scraping against the wall at the wrong angle will result in your car being wrecked. The physics system is a great addition and by no means is it detracting, however the only issue lies with it being inconsistent.

Taking a cue from the Midnight Club series, Burnout Paradise no longer constrains races on a preset course. From the start of a race until the end, your path is up to you to decide. It’s a great feeling to reach the finish line coming from the direction opposite of all your opponents head-on. Burnout Paradise will still suggest a path using the street sign HUD as a turning indicator, but it is up to you to follow the recommendation. The suggested path will always forego with time saving shortcuts. Even worse, the turn indicators will often inform you of an upcoming turn either too early, or too late. Until you learn the map, you can count on missing many turns. Thankfully, missing key turns isn’t always a frustrating situation since they will often result in you finding shortcuts or quicker routes.


Burnout Paradise
Speaking of the games’ HUD, it can be notoriously difficult to keep track of everything going on at once due to the breakneck pace of the game and the way overwhelming display. Earlier Burnout games have been just as guilty having overdoing the game display interface, however due to the free-roaming nature of Burnout Paradise, you have to rely on the interface a lot more than before. Having to look up to see which direction the beeping turn indicator is telling you to turn while comparing that to the mini-map to find the optimum route, while watching your boost meter, what place you are holding in the race, which song the game just switched to and the running total of billboards or gates you’ve crashed through all while boosting at top speed into a drift in the oncoming traffic lane while trying to avoid being tossed about by your sadistic computer rivals. This may seem like an extreme example, but you will find yourself in the above situation during each and every race. Luckily, once you gain some familiarity with the routes throughout the city you do not have to worry about taking your eyes off the road to watch the map as much.

Burnout games have always been known for their great soundtracks. While still great, Burnout Paradise’s soundtrack may not reach expectations. Whereas earlier games in the series were known for their slew of great licensed tracks, Burnout Paradise seems almost like a greatest hits package. While they are great hits, most of us have probably heard and are already tired of half of the Burnout Paradise soundtrack already. There are a few great new tracks, but EA has brought back select songs from each of the previous games to make up a large chunk of the soundtrack. Fans of Burnout: Dominator should be aware that a certain Avril Lavigne song makes a reprise here. Thankfully, it is only available in one language this time, and can be disabled via the in-game options. Likewise, you will very quickly find that repetition of the games’ namesake song by Guns N’ Roses will begin to annoy you just as much.

Although it has been hinted to be released via a later game patch, Burnout Paradise does not currently allow PlayStation 3 owners to import their own playlists. Given how much time is spent in this game just driving from point A to point B, the option to play your own music would have been a welcome addition.

Final Word
Burnout Paradise has taken several huge gambles in altering the already-winning formula of the franchise. For the most part, Criterion and EA have a winner on their hands. Veterans initially put off by the changes to Crash Mode and Aftertouch will find that Burnout Paradise is just as good as any game in the series, and in many respects Paradise is superior.

In a sub-genre dominated by third-person adventure games, it is ironic that a racing game would set a new precedent for free-roaming games. The transition from racing offline, to racing while being aware of what your friends are currently doing in-game, to being able to seamlessly run into players online in the streets – all without skipping a beat or waiting through a single loading screen – is an amazing experience. With so much to do, unlock and complete, Burnout Paradise is a blast.