Burnout: Paradise
Review
Strap in and hold on for a ride
by Liquid306
reviewed on X360
The Right Car for the Right Job
Burnout Paradise introduces a license system that unlocks new cars that you get to race around with. With every win, points are put on a particular license. An ‘A license’ takes 40 wins to upgrade, an ‘Elite license’ requires 115 wins and so on. Every new license comes with a new car, but another way of unlocking cars is by winning events.
Each of the 75 cars that can be unlocked has its own ‘personality’ and it is important to match your car with the event that you are entering. Burnout: Paradise has three different categories of vehicles: Stunt, Speed and Aggression. Each one is designed for different events and handles differently. You will never be forced you to change your vehicle and you can enter a race in your favorite Aggression Van if you choose. It is unwise, but definitely possible. The only exception is when you are trying to do a burning route. You will most definitely need the fastest car available then.
Stunt vehicles are best used for Stunt Runs, being very light and responsive. Speed vehicles are best used for Race and Marked Man events. Fast and light as they are, they are also the weakest. Boosting in a speed vehicle requires you to chain boosts together for success. You have a small gauge and when it is full you can activate Boost mode. Should you let go, you can’t use the excess Boost time until it is full again. The biggest Boost chain I was able to get X9 but there is an ‘achievement’ available for getting X25, madness!
Aggression vehicles are the heavy weights. These usually slow vehicles are also the strongest beasts. They are best used for Road Rage events. Boosting with Agression vehicles is similar to the way Boost was handled in Burnout 3: Takedown. The gauge is displayed in 2X form when you start and you can take from the gauge as you see fit. Getting a Takedown fills up the gauge again, tops out at 4X and if you get taken down, it may fall back to as low as 1X.
Burning Online
Online play in Paradise City is easily the best in the series. Starting a multiplayer game can be done straight from the single player part. A simple button combination opens up a slide menu to show you the available options. The first time you do this you will be awed by how intuitive and streamlined the new system really is. Switching back puts you right back where you were when you left the single player game. Cool!
The online options are quite versatile. Not only is it possible to set up a single race against other players, you can also set up small tournaments. But wait, it gets better; you can even plot your own routes. No matter what multiplayer option you take, everything generally runs very smoothly. On one occasion I did notice some lag when another player had some problems controlling his car at 200mph and jumped all over the track but I have not experienced that again since.
Bumpy ride
Crashing your car was never this much fun. Your rides bend, contort and mangle around while flying through the air and hitting traffic along the way. Telephone poles, billboards and concrete walls aren’t safe either and –should you proof the more skilled driver- offer a lot of satisfaction when your opponents drive into them. A good crash causes the front-end of the car to be pushed into the front seats and you may even end up seeing the engine drag on the ground.
Worth noting is that your opponent’s cars show less damage in online games. That doesn’t mean they have taken less damage. It is likely that, for performance sake, the developers decided to only show the full damage done to your own car. Leaving the other cars relatively unscathed will be easier for your console to handle.
This game supports the Xbox Live Vision Camera which can offer quite some entertainment. The loser of a race is given 3 seconds to pose before a shot is taken. These mug shots can be collected and gloated over at a later time.
Paradise
Burnout: Paradise is a prime example of a game with layers upon layers of polish. The developers took their time to deliver a top-notch game that should please fans and newcomers to the series alike. The credits rolled onto my screen after about 12 hours, with 47% of the game complete. Plenty of things to do still. Burnout: Paradise is definitely beefy and will keep you occupied well beyond the single player game. If you enjoyed the previous Burnout games or are simply a fan of racing games, you owe it to yourself to check this gem out.
9.0
fun score
No Pros and Cons at this time
