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| Source // Steam |
It's fair to say I was never mad for the Burnout series. Enjoyable, but I wasn't desperate to own or play each and every title. When the series went open world, giving players the playground that was Paradise City in Burnout Paradise, it still wasn't a title that entered into my thoughts.
So far as I can tell, it wouldn't be until 2011 when I got it as part of the apology deal for the massive PSN outage, and even then, I was more interested in inFamous and whatever else I downloaded. But, eventually, at some point in time, I played Burnout Paradise for some six hours or so, and it wasn't bad at all.
When was that and what did I get up to? I've got no idea. It might as well never have happened, so let's consider this hectic street racer a fresh new title to sink my teeth into. Probably right into the dashboard, if it's a Burnout title...
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| Source // Criterion Games |
Frustrations
It may load straight into that song by Guns N' Roses, but in 2020, it loads into 'servers don't work any more' messages, menus full of DLC options I don't own, and a game save where I can't for the life of me find to delete and start from scratch.
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| Source // PlayStation |
Picking largely at random one of the many vehicles I'd unlocked, I left all those menus behind and took to the streets of Paradise City. They're dotted with civilian traffic, as you'd expect, and are crisscrossed with alleyways that look suspiciously like shortcuts, and ramps placed right in front of billboards.
This isn't your normal city, and nor is Burnout Paradise your normal street racer. Drive up to a set of lights at a junction and you're likely to find an event, be it a race, a time trial, a rampage or whatever. Hit the accelerator and the brake for a second and you spawn into that event, starting at that set of lights, and leading who knows where through the city that lay before you.
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| Source // PlayStation |
Fun Times
I played this for a short while to take notes, and gameplay felt a little cumbersome. Was I rusty, or were the driving physics just not quite right? Was I thinking of this game as a racer and not an arcade racer? Was I forgetting what the point of Burnout was?
Playing it for a little while longer and not caring about notes, I think I was indeed rusty, and not thinking about the game in the right way at all. Hold the R2 button in hard to keep your foot held down, dab on the L2 button when you need a bit of the brakes, and press the X button when your boost bar is full to hurtle down the road, flames shooting out your exhausts, as you swerve menacingly into your opponent in a deliberate attempt to get them to plough into a wall.
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| Source // PlayStation |
There aren't many controls to complicate things at all, and it won't be too long until you get a feel for the mass of metal you're driving around at insane speeds, and not too long after that before you get a feel for how the game flows through the city itself.
Every now and then you'll spot - and they're not hard to miss at first, fenced off by bright yellow hazard lights - what might be a useful shortcut. If you're in the middle of a race, this might mean a few seconds of peace, and a way to catch up with the leaders before you rejoin the street and push them into oncoming traffic. It may also mean going completely the wrong way, especially when the city is so new to you.
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| Source // Steam |
It pays to have a drive around first because being a good racer around Paradise City is as much about control of your vehicle as it is knowledge of the city.
You don't need to know all the road names, though you could if you wanted to. An idea of which direction they mostly travel in and where they end up is enough to get you started. The GPS system is subtle in Burnout Paradise, but it will save you if you can react to it quickly enough.
In other street racing games, events may have routes marked on the mini-map, or streets blocked off, physically or in a video-gamey way, to push you one way or another. In Burnout Paradise, you're plonked at the startline, shown where the finish line is, and are let loose on the city to get there.
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| Source // PlayStation |
With eight racers tearing up the streets, crashing into each other in yet more lovely slow-motion takedowns, you can imagine that things get a little bit hairy at times. Now try navigating the fastest route at the same time, as well as trying to stay in one piece.
Garages exist just to the side of the road, and driving through them can fix your car or give your boost bar a refill. Finding them is one thing. Safely driving into them without going face-first into solid concrete walls is another. Getting it right, using them and the shortcuts and the jumps to win a closely fought race? Ooh, it's good, and more often than not, the finish line is right around the corner from another event, waiting to begin.
A time trial? A mission to take down as many vehicles as you can within the time limit? Some kind of trick event requiring you to drift in style? I wasn't very good at that one, but the other events were as Burnout as Burnout comes.
Final Word
I wrote down that I wish I could start Burnout Paradise all over again, and actually experience it as a new game, and not hop into something after many, many years. With a remastered edition, sure, I could do that, and I know there has to be a way to reset my progress somewhere, but I'm too stupid to find out how.
The reason I want to do so is largely because Burnout Paradise is fun. I think it may get a bit repetitive as the game goes on, with no real story that I'm aware of, save for progressing in whatever way you want to progress, but there's quite a big checklist here to get started on.
Is that all Burnout Paradise is? A lot of games are glorified checklists, and I find myself ticking them off anyway. If the gameplay is appealing, who cares? I don't. And yet there's something about Burnout Paradise that isn't quite hooking me.
It feels impersonal. Those menus that get in the way, a pause menu that is a faff to navigate, and events that just feel like they're there to give me something to do.
Burnout Paradise is a great game to look at, listen to, and play with, but I'm not seeing a reason for it to be compelling. It's as though it's a big open world demo, full of possibilities and ideas, full of things to do if you want to seek them out, but it doesn't give a real reason to do so. Go race because there are races? Go hunt down new cars because there are other cars? Go smash through this billboard because there are a nice round number's-worth of them that we can keep track of?
As far as checklists go, Burnout Paradise is a pretty one. If you like Burnout or racing, you'll probably like this. I like it, and the more I play it, the more I like it. Right up until the moment I question why it is that I'm playing it in the first place.
I don't know why. Why do I play any of these games, I guess. It's not necessarily a slight on Burnout Paradise, but it's sticking in my mind. That this is a fine way to waste time, but that's really all it is. Is that something you want?
Fun Facts
Barack Obama was the first U.S. President to campaign through digital advertisements in video games when he targeted Xbox 360 owners via Burnout Paradise, appearing on in-game billboards to get gamers to vote. Hopefully not on the billboards you smash through for a fancy slow-motion shot, though.
Burnout Paradise, developed by Criterion Games, first released in 2008.
Version played: PlayStation 3, 2008.