Burnout Opens Up

Published February 6, 2008

Electronic Arts' and Criterion's Burnout franchise introduced the gaming world to crash-happy mechanics and blazing speed in a hyper-realistic real world setting. Here's a franchise that celebrates eye-popping vehicular carnage, rewarding you generously with extra speed for obliterating the competition. Fun! With Burnout™ Paradise, the thrill of the crash and the chaos of the roadway have been taken to never before seen heights.

Boost is beautiful.

No More Menus

Developer Criterion has held firm to all that has made the series so popular while simultaneously reinventing the way you interact with the game. Gone now are the cumbersome menus that required time consuming navigation and load times to access events.

In its place is Paradise City, a sprawling, load-free metropolis that ranges from urban downtown streets packed with intersections, skyscrapers and dense traffic, to rural highways that extend on and on through gentle curves, steep hills, tunnels, and much, much more.

There are no set routes or rules, so it's entirely up to you to find the fastest path to victory.

It's from the actual city streets that you'll access every event. Drive up to an intersection highlighted by a colored event marker on your map, then floor both your brake and gas (Left and Right Trigger) and you'll activate the event. With the entire city and its outskirts peppered with markers, you're never at a loss for a race, stunt trial, Road Rage event, or Marked Man challenge.

Deep Exploration

Even if you're not up for an event, the city itself is packed with hours of easy to find exploratory fun. Scattered throughout Paradise City are a number of unique landmarks, including a rock quarry, abandoned airfield, baseball park, naval yard, and other interesting settings tailor-made for vehicular hijinks.

Beyond these landmarks, the city is densely littered with alternate paths, launching ramps to soar from, billboards to crash through, and gates to knock down to discover secret routes. Also, every single road boasts both a Time Trial and Showtime (Paradise's crash mode) high score to break, all of which (including billboards and gates) are tracked in the Driver Details menu.

Why drift when you can notch a Takedown?

Several useful shops and drive-thrus are peppered throughout the city to aid you in your quest for blazing fast mayhem. Swap out cars at the junkyard, repair them at a garage, earn a full boost meter by rushing through a gas station, and you can even score a new look by driving through paint shops.

Modes of Play

Exploring Paradise City is a lot of fun, but it's the primary game modes that will no doubt receive the bulk of your attention.

• Race: These traditional point-to-point races take on a whole new meaning thanks to Paradise City's wide open layout. There are no set routes or rules, so it's entirely up to you to find the fastest path to victory. Use your mini-map, your compass, shortcuts you've found, or even pause the game mid-race during single-player races to handpick your turns on the Back menu map. It's your choice.
• Stunt: These point-based challenges require you to drift, jump, flatspin and barrel roll your way to high scores within a set time limit. While you can find a great deal of stunt opportunities on Paradise City's primary thoroughfares, it's the shortcuts and landmarks that offer the biggest bang for your stunt buck.
• Road Rage: Want to set aside your racing gloves and get right to the shenanigans? Road Rage has got you covered. It doesn't matter where you go or how fast you get there, only that you score as many vehicle shredding Takedowns as the challenge requires.
• Marked Man: A variation of Road Rage, Marked Man asks not that you wreck the opposition (you can though) but simply that you survive to the finish line without totaling your ride of choice.
• Burning Route: Many of Burnout Paradise's signature vehicles boast an upgraded counterpart that can be unlocked by completing a Burning Route, essentially a time trial from one section of the map to the next.
• Showtime: If you're wondering where Crash Mode has gone, it's called Showtime. Burnout Paradise allows you to engage in Showtime at any point in the single-player experience, even in mid-race. Press the LB and RB buttons at the same time after you wreck, and the game will switch to slow motion, allowing you to roll your heaping wreck of a car into anything that crosses your path. The trick here is that you must use a bit of your boost meter every time you roll your vehicle, though you gain a bit more boost with every successful collision. This mode can last for minutes at a time as you deftly bounce and roll your way into surrounding traffic.

So sleek and pristine … for now.

Burnout Paradise has accomplished a remarkable feat by using its city-based mechanic to ensure that nearly every second spent in-game is spent playing and not twiddling about choosing options or spending idle time on load screens. And you may be asking, "Well that sounds fun single-player. What about multiplayer?" Yep, the game has you covered with multiplayer built seamlessly into the game, so be sure to check out our feature on multiplayer mode. And enjoy your time in Paradise City.

Article by Ryan Treit