MidnightRacer06

Burnout Paradise is widely regarded as one of the greatest racing games of the seventh console generation. But, why? Seriously why? That’s what I don’t understand. In my opinion this is easily the worst of the Burnout series, and that’s including the first game, Legends, and Dominator. Of course this would just be blind hatred if I didn’t back up my opinion, so here goes. 1. The Racing The racing in this game is quite a cool concept, where you start at one point in the map and have to find the fastest way to another point. The map is fully open and there are many shortcuts to find. This concept can isn’t exactly new, as Midnight Club 3 had this kind of race (known as dash events in that game) just 3 years earlier. Overall this type of racing is nice, but there’s one major problem. THIS IS THE ONLY RACE TYPE IN THE GAME. That’s right, no circuits. And to make matters even worse all the races end in the exact same 8 spots. The reason this works in MC3 is because this type of race is few and far between. Because of the lack of race type variety, the game telling you to make your own route to the finish feels like an excuse for the game not having interesting race routes. 2. The other event types So the racing ****, but maybe the other event types are better? Well they aren’t as bad as the races, but they aren’t very good. Road Rage is ruined, all you have to do is tap your opponent and they’ll crash into a wall. Stunt run is a cool idea, too bad the mode is so easy. All of the target scores are so easy to beat that it’s almost laughable. Burning route is just a time trial, nothing new. Marked Man is quite interesting, and it’s the only event type that I actually quite enjoy. Basically it’s a time trial, but there are other cars trying to take you down and if they do the event is over. Quite a fun mode! 3. Why no crash mode? Seriously who decided this. Why did they remove the ever beloved crash mode from the previous games. And it’s replacement? Don’t even get me started. It basically requires no skill to get all the targets. 4. Handling and map don’t fit Brake to drift handling is a staple of the Burnout franchise, but did anyone tell this to Criterion when they were designing the map? The handling doesn’t feel like it was made for this map or vice versa. They should have either tweaked the handling to fit the map or the other way around. It’s hard to actually appreciate how well the map is designed because of this major problem. So, these things are very bad, but what about the positives? Well, quite a few. The car list is big and varied, there are many collectibles to find throughout Paradise City, the city itself is well designed, and the game visually looks pleasing. But the flaws I mentioned prior majorly outweigh the positives of the game, and it’s sad because I wanted to like this game. There is good stuff here, but it’s buried under many poor game design choices. I can’t recommend this game. If you want a good open world racing game, go play Midnight Club or games in the NFS series. (Except for Undercover or anything past MW 2012, which funnily enough fixes almost every problem that I had with this game.)

Good dlc but that’s the problem, it’s a dlc not an actual game, it shouldn’t be here

Best racing game of all time. It has almost everything you could want from a game like this. Fantastic vehicle list, great customization, banger soundtrack, fun and frantic gameplay, multiple cities to race in, special power ups to spice up gameplay, the game often encourages you to try out new vehicles, and the best arcade mode in any racing game hands down. A must play title.