It honestly never gets old; watching your car fly apart as you are traveling faster than any human ever should on a public road. As much as I enjoyed watching cars almost explode in previous Burnout games nothing compares to watching the realistic crashes in Criterion's newest Burnout title. Very rarely can an established game reinvent itself and improve the overall formula; Capcom did it with Resident Evil and not Criterion has done it with Burnout.
Burnout Paradise takes some of what you love about the series and incorporates it into a sandbox setting and I must say I am a fan of the changes. Burnout Paradise has no story to speak of you basically drive around exploring and completing different types of events (races, stunt runs, marked man, road rage and burning routes). When you complete enough races you are able to receive a new license upon which all the races you have completed are then available to do over again until you reach the next license (fairly simple). Along the way their are cars to takedown and add to your collection for use and different jumps and billboards to crash through for your amusement.
The complete reformatting of the series comes as a very refreshing experience for me. Although I enjoyed the old games Burnout Paradise far exceeds what previous Burnouts could offer. Probably the most enticing aspect of Burnout Paradise is the seamless transition from offline to online. Even if you love the old format and hate the new, you will at least appreciate what Burnout Paradise offers in the realm of co-op and multiplayer. Any sandbox game from here until the end of time should take some tips from the design of the co-op from this game. Going online is as simple as flicking the d-pad and setting up a room or hoping into someone else’s and then your game seamlessly transitions from offline to online placing you in the exact same place you were already at and if the room ends it drops you back into your own game in the exact same spot you were at when the game ended.
As great as Burnout's reinvention is I have two major grievances with it. First and foremost and most importantly the complete absence of Crash Mode. Crash Mode was easily my favorite feature of the Burnout universe and it is nowhere to be found. Not only is it absent from the game but they have replaced it with something called "Show Time Mode", which in a game that has strived to be more realistic is comically ridiculous. They easily could have designed some traffic light events for Crash Mode. Also for some odd reason that I can not figure out Criterion neglected to add a restart feature if you don't win an event, you have to drive back to the traffic light and restart the event. Since some races are over 2 minutes long you can imagine how tedious this can get. Now this didn't actually bother me until I started focusing on doing Burning Routes. A Burning Route requires you to take a specific car and complete a time trial in order to unlock a better version of the car you are using for the route. Unfortunately every car has a Burning Route including cars that handle like garbage so inevitable there will be instances where you have to redo a race over and over again because the car you are driving handles like garbage and there is not a lot of room for error; this is where the restart feature could be very useful.
All in all I feel that this is a great leap for the series. It has remade itself and done it in a way that improves the overall experience. I guarantee you will never have so much fun watching your car get totaled.
Met with derision from existing Burnout-series fans at the time, Burnout Paradise remains arguably the greatest open-world racing game of all time. Here's why.
I don't know why - and I know I'm probably on my own here - but I liked Takedown more. I think it was just 'different' enough to feel fresh. I also loved the destruction.
On that note, a new Motorstorm would be nice! All that mud, dust and car pieces flying everywhere blew my mind on PS3 - imagine what they could do now.
I loved Burnout Paradise, but Burnout 3: Takedown will always be the best game in the series, for me. Burnout 3 is arguably the most fun game ever made, with the greatest licensed soundtrack ever.
I played through the remaster quite recently. It's not as good as I remember, but I think a lot of that is because the "open world" thing was still pretty fresh back then.
I do think there's a gap in the market for a game like Burnout. With the new gen they could really make car damage a huge selling point again.
Burnout paradise remastered and original are my favorite, i got the platinum trophy for both games the nighthawk is my favorite car
Personally don't give a shit for open world racers. Give me a new Motorstorm, Split second, Outrun.
Cultured Vultures: The Burnout series has plenty of great games to play, but which one is definitively the best? We're here to rank them all.
I think the crash mode should comeback. Tryng to make the most damage was very cool.
Burnout 2 should be above 3 imo. The aftertouch takedown mechanic slowed down the gameplay too much in 3.
That's the mechanic that made me enjoy Burnout 3 over the others. It wasn't until they introduced it that I considered the series any good.
I love Takedown, Revenge, and Paradise. Dominator was okay, but it clearly felt like a B-tier game.
After playing those awesome games, I went back to try out part 1 and it was rough. I didn't like the controls (whereas the others felt perfect to me), the elevator music was generic and not enjoyable to listen to.
Finally the game's difficulty was extremely high. I could beat all single player races in Takedown, Revenge, Paradise, Dominator, but could not get first place in the very first race for the first Burnout game. It demands perfection and one slight mistake is all it takes to lose. I have yet to play part 2, but I'm hoping it's more like part 3 than part 1.
Burnout Takedown is my favorite racing game of all time. My wife was addicted to crash mode.
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Good review for a good game.
That is a very high score though, much higher then I would have given it. The game is a jump forward but still has some flaws.
"Sound
Soundtrack is stupid, you are better off with your own stuff while playing. "
Seriously...who listens to avril lavigne while driving?!