Nice wheels
Of course, the vehicles play a huge part in Burnout Paradise and as well as looking visually dazzling they now have manufacturer and model names loosely based on real-world cars. There’s the usual mix of muscle cars, exotics, hot rods and even supercharged SUVs, all of which are built differently to be used in different events depending on whether you’re looking for a speedy or aggressive ride, or maybe just a car that can flip and spin against the best of them.At 60 frames per-second the feeling of speed is electric and the cars have an amazing way of making you feel as though you’re never 100% in control of them. Far from being a negative point, this is what puts you right on the edge of your seat as you speed around the narrow streets. It tests your nerves and skills to the max and it’s this feeling of being slightly out of control that really gets the adrenaline flowing through your veins.
The new open-world style of Burnout Paradise isn’t without its problems. The first couple of hours or so of playing Burnout Paradise were enjoyable enough, but I did suffer from bouts of boredom as I drove around the new open-world environment and experienced pretty much the same detachment that I felt when I first played Test Drive Unlimited a couple of years ago. I’d put my foot down and race off down the road weaving in and out of traffic, admittedly enjoying the views, but not really knowing where I was going or what exactly I was going to do when I got there.
Click for larger image
Click for larger imageThe lack of real focus isn’t helped by the in-game map. The locations of events, petrol-stations, junk-yards or paint-shops are all labeled clearly enough, but you cannot place markers on the map, so it means that unless you have the patience to learn the streets like the back of your hand, you’ll need to keep referring to the map in order to get to your desired location. Alternatively, you can do what I did during my first few hours of gameplay, which was to blindly drive around the streets and stop at the nearest set of traffic lights and take up whichever challenge it offers. This works well enough, because it’s never really a long drive to your next event, but nevertheless if I was seeking a ‘Road Rage’ mission, rather than a ‘Stunt Man’ one, I’d still have to go searching around to find what I wanted.
Another bone of contention is the fact that you cannot restart a race if you lose it, but instead you need to drive all the way back to the starting point. Due to the new open-world environment, the option to place a map marker and then be guided back to the destination via the excellent navigation tool (that works once you’ve began an event, but stops once you finish it) would have been a welcome addition. Luckily, it never proves to be a huge issue because the next set of traffic lights and the next event is always barely 30 seconds away, but still I'd have liked the option.