Burnout: Paradise
Review
Strap in and hold on for a ride
by Liquid306
reviewed on X360
Burnout
The Burnout series has always been known for its way-over-the-top crashes and insane sense of speed. Each Burnout has had a different gimmick such as the Takedowns, After Touch or Crash mode. This new Burnout seems to be a mold of all that is great about Burnout and adds an extra layer of ‘awesome’ to top it off.
Many Ways to Burn
Burnout: Paradise is an open world driving game. There are no busy menus to sift through. It gets right to the action from the get-go. Go to a junk yard, get a car and you’re off. You can roam the streets of the fictional stomping grounds called Paradise City as much as you want. When you are bored of driving around, pull up to a set of lights, do a burnout and the event starts. There is barely any loading, even with a lot of action going on.
All these events are broken down into five categories: Race, Marked Man, Road Rage Stunt Run and Burning Route. In a Race you start out at the back of a pack of cars and make your way from point A to B. There are no set tracks in this game so you just race around the city, with no barriers or point arrows to show you where to go. If you go off the beaten path, a blinker goes off to tell you which way to go. This doesn’t work when you are going very fast. A blinker that shows up only half a second before you turn is really no help at all. Maybe an arrow guide such as the one used in Midnight Club would have worked better, even if it would lessen the open world illusion a bit.
In Marked Man, you race from one point of the map to another. Fast, black cars try to take wreck your car before you reach your destination. The Road Rage mode is back and better than ever. The rules are simple: take down the other opponents while trying not to get taken down yourself. This is the mode that really makes this game shine, piling up three or four cars at 200 mph with the 5.1 sound drumming in your ears and ‘Killswitch Engage’ playing in the back… what a rush! It is an experience that no other game offers.
The objective in Stunt Run is to hit as many jumps while going as fast as possible. Scoring is simple, but not easy: Barrel rolls, 360 spins in the air, they all count in this mode. Burning Route is the one event that it is vehicle specific. Every vehicle you get has its own ‘burning route’ which is basically a time attack on a specific track. If you succeed at defeating the record time, you get a tricked-out version of the vehicle you were driving. These vehicles have upgrades on them that increase the car’s boost, strength, speed or all three. They also get a new paint job that make a rust bucket look new or a stock car look tuned.
Crash mode was a fan favorite from past installments and at first glance it seemed that it had not made a return. It is there though, tucked away and not a very big, but it is still around. The new name for this mode is Show Time Mode. Pressing LB+RB activates it and turns your vehicle into a wrecking ball, throwing itself down busy city streets and destroying everything in its path. This mode’s only real purpose is to compare scores on the leader boards with your friends. To be honest, I would have preferred this mode to have remained unchanged. I had far more fun with it in previous installments.
9.0
fun score
No Pros and Cons at this time
