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Review in Altered States: Burnout Paradise By: PoisonRamune, the Apathetic Lizardman It’s funny; every time I mention how I love a certain video game I seemingly always mention how I never liked the genre much before. Such a pattern would make you think that I actually hate video games all together aside from a few choice titles. This is entirely untrue, my love for video games spans very deep and wide. One thing I will say is that racing games are my weakest genre in my video gaming repertoire.
However, all that has changed after playing Burnout Paradise. I feel empowered! I feel like maybe I can even race against legendary digital racer, Ron B and win (which I can’t, but I do feel empowered none the less). Burnout Paradise differs from other racing games in that it takes place in a total sandbox environment. In fact, it’s less of a racing game and more a driving game, as I spent the first 4 hours of my game cruising and exploring the map with racing not even on my mind at the time. One thing my limited driving game knowledge prevents me from doing is giving you a comparison in how this differs to other games in the Burnout series. I remember playing Burnout 3 at Vivian’s house and being very confused on what I was to do (since from what I gathered, I was basically supposed to ram my car into a line of other cars like a game of “car dominoes”). I can only assume the old Burnouts are about crashing your car over and over again.
Burnout Paradise also has a portion of the game where you focus on causing vehicular destruction, but there’s also so much more in this game. You start the game out with a single car, a run down 1960’s Mustang (further solidifying the fact that this game was made for me, as I used to own a ’66 Mustang before gas prices went insane). With you at the helm of your trusty ride, you are to go through challenges located at any of the 120 intersections in the game. The challenges range from the stock time attack and standard 8 man road races; however, they have a couple interesting ones such as marked man and road rage. In road rage your objective is to run X amount of cars off the road, while preserving your own life from other racers trying to do the same. It’s a refreshing breather from the standard get from point A to point B found in all racing games. Marked man is weird mix between a standard race and the road rage events, as you’re trying to make your way to a certain point with a slew of other racers ready and willing to run you off the streets.
When you grow tired of challenges there’s also stuff for you to do that’s not event based (that actually works toward your completion percentage). If you feel adventurous you can drive off the beaten path and search for “smashes” (yellow gates that unlock shortcuts throughout the map) or you can relive scenes from the Dukes of Hazard and various car commercials doing stunt jumps and ramming through billboards.
Another fun thing to do is working to unlock the bonus cars in the game, since most cars need to be unlocked twice for you to be able to drive them. After completing a few events you’ll be notified that a new high performance car has been seen in the city. You’ll eventually find the new car mashing through the street while you’re out cruising around. You can then chase that new car and run it off the road, thus winning you that car for yourself. I find the duel unlock system very innovative and fun, since it feels like I’m actually living my Fast and the Furious or Initial D fantasies with digital rivalries. Speaking of the cars, they’re amazing. You pretty much get to drive every type of car under the sun, as I have about 15 cars in my garage (roughly 20% of all available) ranging from: SUVs, lowered trucks, muscle cars, rice burners, and European exotics. The one thing I don’t like about them is the confusing paint scheme navigator. What seems like a system of 3 colors to mix and match your: main, accent, and effects/mural colors is the most arbitrary and confusing interface. If you like the color of a car, just pick it and don’t look back, since you’ll find yourself fruitlessly going back through the various color combos trying to find that perfect paint job again. Graphically the game is amazing; this really is next gen gaming at its finest. The graphic engine in this game is so amazing they even make the wrecked cars look good. However, like all current/next gen games, Burnout Paradise is not made for an SDTV. I have a hard time reading maps, finding objectives and even navigating at night due to the made for HD graphics. I’m almost at the point where I feel as if the TV companies are in cahoots with game developers to push stupid HD technology.
As I don’t listen to the in-game soundtrack (drowning it out with Parliament, Daft Punk or old school Michael Jackson), I can’t really give the soundtrack and audio a fair rating. However, the fact that I don’t want to listen to Guns and Roses’ Paradise City and the EA selected emo tracks is quite telling of their music quality. The sound effects are there. That’s honestly all I can say, since the “Hondas” in this game sound like old lawnmowers (just like in real life) and the V-8s all emit that throaty “vroom-vroom.” Despite the fact that I once said “playing a racing game while drunk is just as stupid as driving a real car while drunk,” Burnout Paradise really made me eat my words. While I’m not a very good racer or navigator after drinking, I’m superb at getting the showtime bonus (making the biggest crashfor points and online ranking). Doing showtime runs isn’t nearly as fun as exploring and doing events, but it does let me keep my Burnout disc in my 360 even after more than a few drinks. Playing the game after blazing is amazing though. If you’re the type of person that likes blazing and just looking around and enjoying your surroundings, this game is really made for you. While it doesn’t cause any synergetic syncopation, you’ll find it more fun than it should be driving your car through the hills all baked doing drifts on the hairpin turns. Which makes a lot of sense since this game really is about taking in the entire world of Paradise City as you travel through it. Final Verdict:
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