There is a car on the street that seems to be slightly out of control. It’s going way too fast, with flames licking out of the exhaust. It makes a slight course correction to avoid a parked car, and that’s the end; over-correction at this speed is fatal. Soon enough, the car slams into a wall, and we see everything in slow motion: the hood crumples, the glass blows out, and finally, the car flies upwards and slams onto its hood. The camera zooms into the seat: there is no one there.
Burnout has always been about barely-controlled chaos and spectacular crashes, and Paradise is no exception. Criterion doesn’t model drivers; to do so in a game like this would make this a little too disturbing… these aren’t crashes anyone would ever be able to walk away from. This is the first Burnout that includes a free-roaming city instead of a hub of menus, and it’s also the first Burnout that has been built from the ground up for the newer systems (and avoiding the cliché of EA hating the PS3, the game actually looks better on Sony’s system—although the difference is slight). Burnout Revenge for the 360 was merely an update to the current-gen versions of the game.
Now you have an entire city to play in, and the crash mode is done for. There is no traffic-checking, so be careful when you’re in traffic. You find races and other events at intersections. If you fail once, you have to turn around and drive all the way back; there is no easy restart function to allow you to try again. This isn’t the Burnout you’re used to, and we were quite taken aback by the changes when the demo was first released. When I began writing this review, Ars’ Managing Editor Eric Bangeman jokingly suggested the title be “How EA ruined Burnout.” I’m not sure what my expectations were when I began to play the retail game, but it’s important to look at what kind of game Burnout Paradise is, not the Burnout we wished it was.
Then I started to play in the city, watching all the driver-less cars bash into each other, racing and jumping and screeching around, and it felt like the Burnout I remembered. Paradise City is merely a playground for the insane and reckless, and by removing the drivers, the consequences are also removed; you can feel free to use the other cars as your playthings.
This is a bold move for a very well-respected franchise. Messing with a proven formula is a dangerous game, but Burnout has never felt safe. Oh, won’t you please take me home?
If there are no people in these cars, why is it so disturbing to see a car seat in one?
Don’t worry about the races, not yet. Take the time to just zip around. The city is huge and open: there are urban sections, warehouses, parking garages, hills, rural areas, you name it. While the game takes place in one open city, there is a very respectable amount of variety in your surroundings, and being able to drive from one to the other in a way that makes sense gives the game a more cohesive feel than the previous entries in the series. You’ll also see areas blocked off with yellow barricades, smash through those for shortcuts and more demanding terrain. The yellow lights? Those show you where the big jumps are. The Burnout billboards? Find a way to jump through these throughout the city. There is much to see and do before the first race.
The races and events are found at the intersections, and most of these are in the more downtown-type areas of the city. If you see an event you’d like to take part in, slow down at the intersection and hit R2 and L2 to begin. The map then comes up to show you where the goal is. Suddenly, other cars zip out of nowhere to take you on. This is where you’ll start to realize just how differently the game is played in this huge city.
You see, it’s easy to know where the races begin and where they end, but there are many ways of getting between the two. In fact, at the beginning of my play time, I got lost more than a few times and had to pull the map down to plan my next few moves. This disrupts the frantic nature of the races, but with practice you begin to get a feel for the streets and need the map less and less. Feel free to go off the beaten path while racing; there is no out of bounds. This may be disorienting to people used to Burnout races being linear affairs, but it deepens the game play significantly. Wait until you see some of the crazy paths you can take to win races; finding the best route is half the fun.
Of course, there is no way to restart a race. This is a problem for players who are used to trying races over and over until they are perfected. Now? If you fail a race, just get used to wherever it spits you out, and try an event or two there. It’s a more laid-back way to play Burnout, and while it may annoy some, it leads to more exploration-based play.
One of the things that does tend to be annoying in the long wrong is the need to go to junkyards to switch cars, paint shops to change the paintjob, and autobody shops to repair yourself. In some ways this is fun, blowing through a gas station to get extra boost in a race is a good time, but in others it can be annoying to have to go to one of only a few places in the city to switch cars out to complete a burning route. The open-city aspect of the play is more fun than expected, but having to drive around to switch cars can get tiresome.
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