Video Gamer: Welcome to ‘Burnout Paradise’

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Wednesday, February 13, 2008

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By AIMEE GREEN
For the Register

One good thing came out of the post-holiday release slump: I had plenty of time to play “Burnout Paradise.”

The arcade racer definitely calls for a lot of time, as developer Criterion has converted it to an open-world, online experience.

That’s not to say you can’t play it offline — there is a full offline mode in which you win races to increase the rating of your driver’s license. But a lot of the fun in “Burnout Paradise” comes from sharing the world with your friends.

If you haven’t played a “Burnout” game before, know this: It’s not your typical racer. Crashing into other cars is not only accepted but a goal. A large chunk of the game involves trying to crash as many of your opponents as you can. Even when you’re trying not to run into anything, each crash unfolds in slow motion so you can see your car being smashed into small pieces in all its majestic glory.

This “Burnout” is definitely of “next-generation” quality. The cars and the world — called Paradise City — all look fantastically lifelike. The lighting and the textures are especially nice, and when you destroy your vehicle, it crunches up in a way specific to how you did it. No canned crash scenes here.

At its root, “Burnout Paradise” is still one of the “Burnout” games fans have come to love, but its whole layout has changed.

All of Paradise City is open from the start. If you want, you can simply cruise around, or you can participate in events, found at more than 120 stoplights. Hitting the brakes and the gas at the same time at one of these intersections will throw you into one of five types of events: race, road rage, burning route, marked man and stunt run.

Those first three are returnees from previous games. Race is your typical beat-everyone-to-the-end event. Road rage sets the number of opponents you have to crash (called takedowns). Burning routes are time trials, done with specific vehicles.

One of the new events, marked man, has you racing to a finish line while heavy-duty opponents try their best to destroy your vehicle. You can be taken down a few times, but too many and it’s event over.

The other new event is stunt run, which gives you a point total to reach by performing stunts such as getting air and doing barrel rolls off ramps.

In addition to the stoplight events, there are other events called road rules. These can be done at any time. Time road rule has you setting records on stretches of road.

The other road rules event is showtime, the spiritual successor to previous games’ crash mode. The old crash mode had you racing into an intersection and hitting vehicles in an attempt to build the largest and most expensive pileup.

In showtime, the intersections are gone, though the ultimate goals is the same: doing the most damage. Hitting two shoulder buttons at any time will cause your car to fly out of control and smash into vehicles. Each vehicle you hit has a dollar value, and the game keeps track of your total. As long as you have boost (earned by hitting the cars), you can keep yourself moving for more damage. When you come to a standstill, showtime is over. It’s no crash mode, but it’s still fun.

Depending on which of these events you’re planning to enter, there are different types of cars. Speed, for example, are quicker and better for races, while stunt cars are better for tricks and aggression cars do great when trying to earn takedowns (or avoid them). As you win races, you unlock more cars.

In addition to the events, Paradise City has been strewn with “Burnout” billboards to destroy and jumps to find.

When you get tired of all this, it’s time for online. In addition to online races (in which the host can choose the path he wants), you and up to seven other friends can jump into a game and do cooperative challenges. The challenges range from the simple (meet at a certain spot) to the complicated (perform a double barrel roll through suspended aircraft fuselage at the airport).

If you’ve got the Xbox Live Vision camera or the PlayStation Eye, you can share your victory pose when you win or your sad face when you’re taken out.

“Burnout Paradise” is incredibly complex and deep, and it moves the series forward with a bang. There’s so much to do, and it’s all fun.

My only complaint would be that you can’t choose to restart an event you lose. I understand developers’ decision not to allow restarts (to keep the open-world flow), but I would have liked at least the ability to place markers on the map so I can find the event again.

But that’s minor. Really, if you are or ever were a “Burnout” fan, you must check out “Burnout Paradise.”

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