People are still playing Burnout Paradise, and it got a remaster. Let's try to figure out why, and if it's worth a visit, or revisit.
The Era
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| Known to some fans as not Burnout Revenge |
The Era
Burnout Paradise was released a while ago. The year 2008 seemed like a much different time: motion controls were real, every new shooter was still dubbed a halo killer, and personally, I'm still trying to figure out what Frontlines: Fuel of War was supposed to be. Anyway, racing games were mainly Need for Speed and Forza. Need for Speed had a dozen games while Forza had two really good ones. Gran Turismo 5 was seemingly never going to happen, and Criterion had released Black, a first-person shooter until they dropped Burnout Paradise in the middle a tidal wave of gaming that was just getting great for the PS3/360 generation. The Burnout team was back with a large open world showcasing long sweeping mountain roads and tight, overlapping city roads packed with ramps, passageways, and some hidden areas. (More on those hidden areas later.) So you start up the game and after one info screen and getting your car fixed, you were off speeding to the hypnotic siren wail of Axl Rose. There aren't a ton of menus to slow you down. Starting an event requires you to roll up to the right intersection on your own, which is really the only time you see a loading screen. Intersections surround you so you could be racing immediately. There is a map, and there are plenty of stats and options to wade through, but they don't affect the flow as you could never look at them and still beat the game. These were all very attractive features in an era of quick time events and sometimes overbearing cutscenes. And again, it was open-world, complete with street names and traffic. Open world racing wasn't unheard of; Test Drive Unlimited had been released two years prior, but Burnout had the name and the promise of sweet destruction. In the end, Burnout Paradise found itself injecting arcade racing with ever-increasing levels of classic Burnout crashes to form a bunch of game modes that take advantage of every area in the map.
Paradise City
LET'S start with Paradise City. The map is big. It only takes a few minutes to drive across it, but the point is that there's much to explore within it. Some say it's like L.A. Others say who cares. It is as varied as other games that attempt to build a major city. There's a downtown area in the east that's mostly city blocks and separated by rivers with bridges and jumps. There are also plenty of hidden alleyways and secret passages that go under buildings and through some of them, or simply connect you to other shortcuts that carry you pretty far in secret. As the map moves west, the roads get longer with more open areas until the full rural west takes you in with its winding roads, long super jumps, and dirt shortcuts. The various terrains do not affect driving, unfortunately, but using terrains other than asphalt is a good visual distinction between the formal race and the in-between paths. Some other cool design choices include marking alternative paths with bright yellow gates. They're similar to soft construction gates, so naturally, you want to run them down. The billboards to be smashed are a glowing dark red, easily visible, and eyeing you from their position high up while basically insulting you for not knowing how to smash them. Even the super jump ramps which are usually clearly big ramps are marked with blue, lit cones. It's all enticing and asking to be driven into. There are of course other choices than light and colors that make the map fun to drive across: the corners are never too tight because even where the road is hard-cut, there are usually wide open sides with concrete or grass for drifting through. There's also a long tunnel with different elevations. There's a train track to be explored. There's a highway that runs a circuit around the entire map, complete with tolls and events. Tolls. There are tolls. Anyway, the map is well built and it's varied areas lend itself to the game modes.
The Fun
THE GAME MODES are simple. There's Race, Burning Route, Stunt Run, Marked Man, Road Rage, and Showtime/Road Rules. First is Race. You know how to do that. You can run your opponents off the road, but you could also learn the road as well as the A.I. Burning Route's are time trials between you and the clock, which usually ask for mastery of the map to get there on time. Then, there's Stunt Run, which is just you and the environment. This is about how well you learn everything that isn't the road, meaning the small ramps, the shortcuts, and how well you can e-brake off of a ledge. Crash and your run in over. So we've got game modes that give you reasons to learn the map for your own benefit. Marked Man is where things get Burnout. The objective is to race to a finish line while armored vehicles attempt to take you down. If you can't complete a regular race than Marked Man is going to mess your whole face up. If they mess your whole face up enough times, you're out. Road Rage asks you to take down a number of fellow racers who are also trying to take you down. There is no finish line, just a survivor. These last two can get hectic and you really want a heavier vehicle if it's too hard, but you really also want to get good at racing first. It doesn't sound too hard, but the A.I. can catch you off guard pretty fast and all of a sudden you're flat against a wall that came out of nowhere. Any of these game modes can be challenging depending on where your strengths. If that's the case, let out some steam with show Showtime. Here, your car is already wrecked and tumbling down the street. Try to bounce correctly and hit as much traffic as you can. The best part about Showtime is that you can start it almost any time you want. You can start it while driving, while your car is being wrecked during which you'd usually be forced to watch it cripple at the hands of your mistakes, or as soon as you've lost an event. Showtime will interrupt the narrator that's about to tell you about how losing sucks. That's almost the best thing. It interrupts the game for you, so you can give in to your rage and smack the fat side of your wreck pile into a bus. Alternatively, if you're feeling super confident you could set the speed time for a road to own it. Either way, there's a lot to do, and all of this is a grand way of saying that driving down any one road can be different every time.
The Best Thing
SO THE BEST THING is the extra care put into the way game modes allow you to play around with the map. I have mentioned a lot already, but the few hidden-but-not-so-hidden-areas are where I had the most fun. See I brought them back up. I have found three, and I believe that's all there is. The only thing separating you from these areas is a fragile gate, but half of the time it's easy to pass those gates especially if you're in an event, and they aren't obvious shortcuts. Without telling you where they are, let's say you're tired of all this free roam and would like a track to race on. Well, you're in luck. The first hidden area I found was the dirt figure eight track on the west side. I had driven in there during a Road Rage event hoping to catch my breath when I realized all the other cars followed me. I know it's clever spawning, but it's awesome to race around a figure eight track where the only objective is to run other cars off the road. The entire game is built around freedom and taking advantage of it, but here the game becomes tight and claustrophobic. To challenge myself, I tried this with speed based vehicles, which are the weakest, fastest, and have a boost type that can only be used when full as opposed to the other boost types that can be used whenever. That the cars follow you even into these side tracks and stunt areas is a testament to the way Criterion probably hoped players would experiment with their game, a nice touch among many. Maybe Marked Man on the highway sounds fun now. Or Road Rage in the airfield. The range of gameplay truly puts it over the edge as deserving of its longevity and acclaim.
In my Dreams
THE FUTURE of the series talked about quite a bit. There was a top town burnout project that was put out after this, but Criterion Games has been working with Dice on Battlefield and Battlefront. EA released a console remaster which could be a way to test the water, but there's no information on a follow-up. At the same time, some of the original founders run a different studio called Three Fields Entertainment. Their game Danger Zone 2 seems more in the vein of original Burnout with crash scenarios, while they're forthcoming Dangerous Driving seems to be more race oriented. Those are definitely some games to check out next. For now, Burnout Paradise is fun, but playing it again wasn't much of a challenge. I quickly remembered how to play, so I tried using slow cars for races and weak cars for takedowns. I was playing and thinking about how there could be crash scenario events in a game like this, similar to the burnout style of old, and how they could exist alongside these other events. However, if you haven't experienced this yet, and if you haven't had the pleasure of starting Road Rage to Vivaldi's Four Seasons playing in the background at direct contrast to the shredded metal heap you're pushing down the road, then jump into Paradise City and explore. Or Crash.
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| Paradise City including Big Surf Island on the right |
LET'S start with Paradise City. The map is big. It only takes a few minutes to drive across it, but the point is that there's much to explore within it. Some say it's like L.A. Others say who cares. It is as varied as other games that attempt to build a major city. There's a downtown area in the east that's mostly city blocks and separated by rivers with bridges and jumps. There are also plenty of hidden alleyways and secret passages that go under buildings and through some of them, or simply connect you to other shortcuts that carry you pretty far in secret. As the map moves west, the roads get longer with more open areas until the full rural west takes you in with its winding roads, long super jumps, and dirt shortcuts. The various terrains do not affect driving, unfortunately, but using terrains other than asphalt is a good visual distinction between the formal race and the in-between paths. Some other cool design choices include marking alternative paths with bright yellow gates. They're similar to soft construction gates, so naturally, you want to run them down. The billboards to be smashed are a glowing dark red, easily visible, and eyeing you from their position high up while basically insulting you for not knowing how to smash them. Even the super jump ramps which are usually clearly big ramps are marked with blue, lit cones. It's all enticing and asking to be driven into. There are of course other choices than light and colors that make the map fun to drive across: the corners are never too tight because even where the road is hard-cut, there are usually wide open sides with concrete or grass for drifting through. There's also a long tunnel with different elevations. There's a train track to be explored. There's a highway that runs a circuit around the entire map, complete with tolls and events. Tolls. There are tolls. Anyway, the map is well built and it's varied areas lend itself to the game modes.
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| All your color based game design |
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| Sometimes, you get lucky, and it's a driveaway |
The Best Thing
SO THE BEST THING is the extra care put into the way game modes allow you to play around with the map. I have mentioned a lot already, but the few hidden-but-not-so-hidden-areas are where I had the most fun. See I brought them back up. I have found three, and I believe that's all there is. The only thing separating you from these areas is a fragile gate, but half of the time it's easy to pass those gates especially if you're in an event, and they aren't obvious shortcuts. Without telling you where they are, let's say you're tired of all this free roam and would like a track to race on. Well, you're in luck. The first hidden area I found was the dirt figure eight track on the west side. I had driven in there during a Road Rage event hoping to catch my breath when I realized all the other cars followed me. I know it's clever spawning, but it's awesome to race around a figure eight track where the only objective is to run other cars off the road. The entire game is built around freedom and taking advantage of it, but here the game becomes tight and claustrophobic. To challenge myself, I tried this with speed based vehicles, which are the weakest, fastest, and have a boost type that can only be used when full as opposed to the other boost types that can be used whenever. That the cars follow you even into these side tracks and stunt areas is a testament to the way Criterion probably hoped players would experiment with their game, a nice touch among many. Maybe Marked Man on the highway sounds fun now. Or Road Rage in the airfield. The range of gameplay truly puts it over the edge as deserving of its longevity and acclaim.
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Road Rage in the Quarry
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THE FUTURE of the series talked about quite a bit. There was a top town burnout project that was put out after this, but Criterion Games has been working with Dice on Battlefield and Battlefront. EA released a console remaster which could be a way to test the water, but there's no information on a follow-up. At the same time, some of the original founders run a different studio called Three Fields Entertainment. Their game Danger Zone 2 seems more in the vein of original Burnout with crash scenarios, while they're forthcoming Dangerous Driving seems to be more race oriented. Those are definitely some games to check out next. For now, Burnout Paradise is fun, but playing it again wasn't much of a challenge. I quickly remembered how to play, so I tried using slow cars for races and weak cars for takedowns. I was playing and thinking about how there could be crash scenario events in a game like this, similar to the burnout style of old, and how they could exist alongside these other events. However, if you haven't experienced this yet, and if you haven't had the pleasure of starting Road Rage to Vivaldi's Four Seasons playing in the background at direct contrast to the shredded metal heap you're pushing down the road, then jump into Paradise City and explore. Or Crash.
- Ben R.
Player of games
P.S.
The Day and Night settings can be set to match your local time, for extra fun. What follows is more pictures because I started the game again to get the name of a game type and now I'm just playing. Check back in case the Big Surf Island DLC is enough for another discussion, or if I ever get around to Forza Horizon or The Crew like I plan to. Eventually.
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| After a long day of work, I like to look out over the bay |
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| Fin. |
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