Burnout Paradise: Game Review

If you haven't heard of at least one Burnout game, then where have you been. Burnout is a series of racing games, revolving around speed and crashing, with multiple cars to choose from and different tracks to race.

Burnout Paradise is different from the others, being a free roam game. You activate different events found around the city, and can go into crash mode at any point while driving around. Paradise kept the charm of insane crashes and speed from the past games, but added a wider range of vehicles to choose from.

There are three vehicle classes in the game. Each class has a specific way to earn boost.

• Speed Class: these vehicles are the more sporty, low to the ground type vehicles. Keep up high speed long enough, you earn more boost.
• Stunt Class: these cars are made for stunts. Barrel rolls, jumps, flips....more stunts you do, faster you earn boost.
• Aggression Class: the meanest of the mean cars, sturdy and vicious, these vehicles are meant for knocking others out of the way and breaking everything. My personal favorite. The more chaos you cause, the more boost you earn.

There are a total of five events to find around Paradise City.

• Race: your basic point to point race, but no closed course. Find the fastest route to the finish.
• Stuntman: rack up as much points as you can before time runs out by performing different stunts.
• Marked Man: your being hunted. Survive against the hunters till the finish line.
• Burning Route: this is a time trial type race, but you can only use a certain vehicle per burning route. Beat the set time to win.
• Road Rage: your typical take out as many opponents as you can before time runs out.

Since it was first released in 2008, Paradise has gone through significant changes.

First major update, codenamed "Bogart", fixed several glitches in the game. After the release, it removed store exclusive cars from being obtainable.

The next update, Cagney, introduced three new multiplayer modes; Online stunt run, Marked Man and Road Rage. In addition, there are also 70 new online challenges, which are timed. Cagney also brought custom soundtracks and 1080i support to the PlayStation 3 version.

The Bike Pack, Davis update, would include motorbikes and a day night cycle, along with tailored locations, challenges and game modes. Update would also feature a dynamic weather system, two started bikes in the players junkyard, 70 new bike only challenges, and special 'Midnight Rides' challenges that only appear at night.

Multiplayer is accessed through Easy Drive. While driving, players can push right on the D-pad and the Easy Drive menu appears in the corner of their screen. From there they can invite their friends and choose the events to play.

Yeah it is! Most Burnout games are great though, and really get the blood pumping. Paradise takes it to a whole new level with the free roam and more choice of cars. A must have for anyone who loves the Burnout franchise and racing games.