I played the original Burnout. My brothers and I all had great fun with it when it hit the PlayStation 2 in 1998. I was nine years old, and what a precious childhood memory smashing up cars with my siblings. A true treasure. Well, Burnout survived, and it persisted. Criterion Games has made eight Burnout games total, the penultimate, and fan favorite, Burnout Paradise dropped in 2008. I didn’t play it then, and I didn’t play it ten years later in 2018 when they released the remastered version. But then, EA Play got added to Xbox Game Pass, and when I saw Burnout Paradise Remastered in the bunch, I downloaded it immediately. And while this game has shown its age, I was not disappointed.
Burnout Paradise takes us to the fictional Paradise City, an open world where all you must do to start an event is burnout at any intersection. There is literally something at every turn in this game. Events include races, car specific time trials, stunt runs, events where AI racers try to take you down, and events where you try to take down AI racers. There is enough to keep it fresh, my favorite events were races. The Road Rage events where you take down a number of opponents by crashing into them are great fun as well and you can pretty easily murder the target goal in these.
Paradise City has some sights to see. There is the city proper, where you can expect more grid-like racing, then there is the countryside. There are special landmarks all over the map that the game uses for reference like the Country Club or the Observatory. The environment serves its purpose for the most part. My two big gripes with Paradise City are the confusing map which often leads you to believe intersections exist where they do not, and the fact that you cannot fast travel. They did make it easy to quit a race, just pull over and don’t push any buttons for a few seconds, but then you have to drive all the way back if you want to restart your event.
There are things in this game that could’ve been improved further in this remaster, I feel. There is no photo mode, and taking photos is exceptionally hard I apologize for not the usual screenshot quality in this post. Then, they could’ve fixed my two gripes with the city, the fast travel and map. If they would’ve done those things they would’ve had an absolute home run with this remaster.
The graphical fidelity makes this game feel very dated. It is funny because going back to NFS Hot Pursuit Remastered, that game looks fantastic and is two years newer. But as I said, the graphics do their job and this game is not exactly an eye sore. The crashes are still a big part, you will see fictional vehicles completely decimated in thrilling crashes. I wish they still had the mode where you try to cause the biggest crash possible as in old games.
Criterion made this game two years before a game I previously reviewed, Need for Speed Hot Pursuit Remastered. The control style is very similar. You only use the handbrake for radical changes in direction. Most drifting in races should be done with regular brakes. Once you’re used to the style of this game, it is satisfying to race and race aggressively.
The driving is loads of fun in this game. You could not conceive a more arcade-style experience. There is not even a speedometer you should just intuitively know how fast you are going by how your car is behaving. It is a slow build to really fast cars, even with the enhanced content of the remaster that contains DLC. There is a big turbo gauge, however. Different cars fill this different ways, I prefer “Stunt” cars where it is the classics like oncoming traffic driving, drifting, takedowns and things of that sort.
Burnout Paradise also uses a “make-your-own-route” approach to open world racing, where they merely give you a start point and an end point and you use the open world to get there as fast as possible. This can be fun, and it can be detrimental in my opinion. If the map were better it wouldn’t be as much of an issue. You spend a lot of time during races pausing into the map to see where you are and where you need to go.
The soundtrack in this game is really fantastic. You can select which songs you want and don’t want, which is something for a game which doesn’t even have a control map screen. Every time you boot up the game Guns & Roses’ “Paradise City” pulls you into the insane world of Burnout Paradise. There is also composed music for the game, and classical music which not only plays when you’re AFK, but also feeds into game songs as well. Other favorites of mine include Jane’s Addiction, Soundgarden, a NERD remix and a song I have actually seen performed live: “Coming Down to Beijing” by Brain Failure, a really cool punk band from China back in the day.
I feel all this game’s problems really boil down to one thing: they need to make another Burnout game! Modern tweaks on this formula could be a lot of fun, especially if they make the crashes a big part of the game. Let’s face it, we don’t care if real car companies will license their real cars to be crashed at high speed, we just want the carnage of familiar car shapes being twisted and brutalized in spectacular fashion. Also, it is crazy to imagine how modern graphics would make this arcade vision come to life. Burnout has always had an over-the-top style.
I recommend Burnout Paradise Remastered. The play is a little repetitive in that you complete events to get a better license grade, and once you get a better license grade all the events you’ve won reset and can be won again. You need wins to get points on your license. That known, it isn’t the end of the world as you will find events you really like. I’m not terribly far in the game, but I suspect I will only play it a limited amount. Try to find this game on sale, or get it on Xbox Game Pass if you can, because if you can, it is definitely worth a play.
Credit: Burnout Paradise Remastered. Screenshots by me.
HereticDerek 