(360, PS3; $59.99; Rated E10+ for language/violence; burnout.ea.com)
Criteron Game’s “Burnout” series has always been my type of racing game- I don’t concern myself with customizing my ride, modifying my engine, or finding the perfect racing lines. What I like to do is hop in a fast car and blaze through oncoming traffic at speeds so fast that you have to use The Force to navigate.
As a racing simulation, “Burnout Paradise” is anything but; as a fun arcade racer, “Burnout Paradise” is the ultimate- a pretty amazing accomplishment, considering that “Burnout 3” was one of the most solid and addictive racers ever.
“Paradise” strays from the series’ traditional menu-based racing structure by dropping players into an open world, all of which is instantly accessible from the very beginning of the game. Paradise City (complete with the Guns ‘n’ Roses track as its theme song) has a congested urban center, long winding mountain paths, a coastal highway, quarries, airports, railways, and anything else that sounds remotely fun to push pedal to metal. All of which hide hundreds of different shortcuts and back-alleys that make getting from point A to point B a quicker, but a heck of a lot more dangerous.
Getting into a race event in “Paradise” is as easy as driving up to a stoplight and mashing down on the gas and brake buttons. That’s right: every stoplight in Paradise City is a different driving event; and whether your driving in a flat-out race for first place, a “Marked Man” competition where all drivers are gunning for you, or a “Road Rage” competition that requires you to take out as many enemies as possible in certain time, all of the races will end at one of eight finish lines throughout Paradise City. Those finish lines, designated by the eight points on a compass, mean that it is totally up to the player to figure out the fastest way to finish- because unlike previous “Burnout” titles, there are no invisible walls or blinking arrows telling players where to go.
The amazing sense of freedom in “Burnout Paradise” is what makes playing the game so addicting. After finishing a race, you are only a short drive to the next stoplight for another event across town; “Just one more” can last for a couple of hours.
“Paradise’s” single-player mode only scratches the surface to how rewarding the seamless online play is. A quick button push launches players online and racing up to seven friends. If those friends have the Xbox Live Vision or PS3 Eye cameras plugged in, every time you cause one to crash and burn, the camera will snap at the moment of defeat for your pleasure. Let’s just hope you game with friends who wear pants.
The host of the online match gets to set all the rules, designating what challenges all of the players perform or what type of races everyone enters into. Because of the flexibility, the host can either pick a pre-determined race path, or create his own- but please don’t make your players circumnavigate Paradise City five times, those twenty-minute laps will just make you hated by everyone.
The only downside in hopping online into a quick match full of strangers is that you run the risk of having a host that doesn’t know how to keep the momentum of the game going. Bad hosting just means that players continually try to smash into each other without any real challenges or races being played. That may be fun for the first five minutes, but gets old quickly. If you are a host, just set races up regularly for your group, they’ll thank you for it.
These features, combined with the “Showtime” crash mode that keeps your car bouncing down the street as a steel wrecking ball in order to set a high score, and the ability to set speed records for every street in Paradise City and upload the record online for the world to see and beat, means that “Burnout Paradise” is one city you’ll want to visit over and over again.
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