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Arcade Racing at Breakneck Speeds

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: April 19, 2008
Author: Amazon User

January is the quintessential slow months for video games. Fortunately, each year they're seems to be a stand-alone title that gamers looks forward to filling this niche. Last year, it was Capcom's Lost Planet, & this year, Criterion's own Burnout franchise has come, reached, & sped past the expectation of January being a "slow" month (pun intended). Despite the low standards that come with delivering a game in January, Burnout Paradise provides one hell of an intense racing experience, sure to occupy arcade purists for months. If your looking for some good ol' arcade racing, you have come to the right place.

As my title suggests, Burnout Paradise is fast, very, very fast. In fact, it may very well be the fastest racing game created, well, ever. And while it is possible I am overlooking some clear competition for this title, I have severe doubts that any game has retained this level of consistent speed, scrambling traffic-dodging, & rock solid framerate concurrently. So yeah, it's fast, take my word for it.

Besides the utterly insane speed at which this game is played, Burnout Paradise is accompanied with essentially the largest re-invention of the franchise to date: the open world. Now for the most part this is a good thing. It lets you decide when you want to partake in which events, & it gives you the keys to an immensely detailed & varied world to explore (one of my favorite Paradise pastimes). Not only that, but the open world paves way for some new & particularly interesting design choices (both positive & negative). First, you have the very coherent way by which you go about joining races. To join a race, your required to do little more than roll up to an intersection, hit your gas & break simultaneously, & wait for the seamless racing experience to begin. It's a simple way to join races to be sure, but for this pro, there are some conflicting cons that leave a lot to be desired. For one, once a race is started, there's no simple way to go about restarting it. Sure you can stop the race, turn around & return to the starting intersection, but the lack of a simple menu option is frustrating. To be fair the racing in Burnout Paradise will never punish you for getting off to a bad start or making the occasional mistake, so a lot of the times you won't even want to restart during mid-race, making the complaint a little forgivable in the long run. Besides the lack of a restart option, Burnout:Paradise also makes a questionable choice of how it thinks you should race through the city. Where most racers of this kind give you checkpoints to guide you through the perplexing metropolitans, Burnout Paradise give's you little more than sporadically flashing signs to guide you through the city. Now, in another game this would all be fine & dandy, but in Burnout:Paradise - a game which is played at such an intense speed that merely blinking will flip you into a turbulent explosion of shrapnel - the implementation is somewhat questionable. Otherwise though, the open world gameplay has turned out to be a huge win for the Burnout franchise.

While my review may make it seems like Burnout:Paradise is flawed past the point of no return, I assure you this is not the case. While it's true that the game is not everything it could have been, this still is the next-gen arcade racing game that fans of the genre have been waiting for. It's fast, it's fun, & the gameplay is tight... presuming you don't find yourself lost.

4 Stars - A must-buy for arcade racing fans

Fantastic Racing & Crashing Fun

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: April 30, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This is a heart-pumping thrill ride through an amazingly rendered 'real world' that lets me exorcise all my Starsky and Hutch street racing fantasies. As well as Dukes of Hazard stunts and jumps and on and on. If you like street racing or car stunts then this is a must have. The Amazon sales pitch and screen shots are real, and it plays as good as it looks. It's like putting yourself in the best movie car chase scenes! When you do an E-brake turn you can see your own dust, and if you're on mud it's brown. Details details.

While there is a lot of destruction (some in super cool slow mo to show off the physics engine), it's all just sheet metal not people. This antiseptic aspect of 'Paradise City' is fixed with the neat-o multi-player mode where you can talk with the people you are racing against, beating up on, or joining together to perform team challenges. It's a fantasy world, so no speedometer ('cos you're going far too fast!) and you're always getting lots more boost.

The Good: Looks more real than $25 million flight simulators. Racing. Stunts. Variety of game play. Excellent online modes. Fun. Challenging. Can use six axis motion control. Lots of cars with different profiles.

The Gripes: No dual duels! Single-player or go online and have a blast. So much on screen you will really want a big widescreen. The cars are made up, not models of real makes. Lose a race; you have to drive all the way back to the beginning to try again.

Overall? Best racing PS3 game I own.

The Best Burnout Yet

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: April 02, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I have been a fan of the Burnout series for quite some time now, and when I heard they were going to an open-world / free-roam design, I was a little worried. It worked okay for games like GTA, but I thought when Need For Speed did it for Most Wanted (and Carbon), they were kind of pushing it.

But, I put my faith in the dev team and bought the game without so much as running a demo.

And it was worth every penny. The game is absolutely beautiful to look at and plays incredibly well. The crashes are well animated and the physics are the best I have seen yet.

The Crash mode was changed into the Showtime mode, where the crashes seem more naturally occurring and you are rewarded for how well you know your way around town. Aftertouches are gone, which half disappoints me. I understand why, but I still think we should still get credit for other racers that crash into our heaps.

There are new modes, as well, like Stunt Run (just like it sounds) and Marked Man, where you have to get from point A to point B with-out being destroyed by heavy hitting cars.

So, the game very easily gets 5 stars for the Fun Factor.

However, I only give it 4 stars for overall rating. Why? No split-screen multi-player. The dev team says this is because split-screen is 'old-gen', and the 'next-gen' multi-player is online. As fun as online is, it still does not compare to having a bunch of people sitting around your living room shouting profanities at each other when they get taken down.

The split-screen multi-player extends a game's played life-span around my place because it is not uncommon for my friends to come over and we sit around and game. If Paradise had split-screen, it would be our current game of choice at gatherings. With-out, we are still playing Resistance, Warhawk, and Wii Sports (believe it or not).

Oh no, not another car racing game.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: April 17, 2008
Author: Amazon User

First of all, I must say that we really take technology for granted. I'm old enough to remember getting excited about being able to play "Pong" on my TV, with nothing but two lines and a blip. And, well, this is just insane.

I feel like I am inside a movie playing this, as it's so realistic. The stunts are crazy fun, and there are no hookers getting in your way. You really feel like you are learning to drive again because it takes you a while to get used to the speed. It may be a bit far-fetched as far as maneuverability and street reality. But it sure is great when you feel like you are really flying in your car. Sure, it's going to be compared with GTA, but what sales competition this will be once people take this for a test drive.

My Favorite Racing Game Ever!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 4
Date: February 18, 2008
Author: Amazon User

First if you have played the previous series be open minded. They have redesigned this game to make it even more open ended and realistic. The handling of the cars is excellent. The graphics are the best I have seen for a racing game of this scale. And the game performs great on my PS3.

You have to drive to the individual races and also you drive through the streets so you can take shortcuts or go the wrong way accidentally. This is a good thing. This removes some of the arcade appeal and replaces it with realism. You'll either like that or not.

Regardless the best PS3 racer. I love it.

BEST RACING GAME

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 5
Date: January 30, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This is a great game. Excellent graphics, great response from the controls, and excellent slo-motion crashes make for a near perfect racing experience. An open world environment (w/ over 250 miles of open road) with several race types means you or your children will not get bored. Great game for kids w/ nothing you wouldn't want them to see, which has become quite an issue these days. Highest recommendation!

60 FPS with Open World game play

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 5
Date: January 31, 2008
Author: Amazon User

60 FPS with Open World game play. Seamless multi-player. I do not understand the hate here.

Burnout Goes Global

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 6
Date: February 22, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Burnout is no longer a set of linear races, but a huge open world that is fun to explore, but easy to get lost in. There is no restart button for races, but a new event is right around the corner. And if the "promotional code" is still being offered, don't hold your breath for it. I didn't get one.

burnout paradise ps3

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 6
Date: February 23, 2008
Author: Amazon User

excellent game! a true extremely excellent game to past burnout love it on ps3 1080p hdtv 37" with thx 400 watts home theater surround sound speakers.hoooray for blu-ray!!!!!

The best Burnout game so far!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 9
Date: March 02, 2008
Author: Amazon User

The realistic crashes.... the races ect.. if you like auto racing, you gonna love this game.

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