Usually, I hate racing games but ages ago, when I first saw burnout(the original) I was blown away by the crashes and fast pace arcade feel of the game. This is not a simulator like Grand Turismo. This is pure arcade style racing, and you do not need to be great at racing games to pick this up and enjoy it. Paradise City is a huge step up from it’s predecessors. Online play, and an open ended world make this a truly amazing experience. I love how you just drive around and each stoplight in almost any intersection on the map is an event, and to trigger the event you slow down and hit the brake and gas at the same time, then it loads a racing event, and off you go. There are only 120 events in the game, and you will be re racing many events over and over during the duration of the game(this didn’t put me off one bit, there is more than enough variety in the race types). You earn cars as you upgrade your drivers license. When you win certain events the game will tell you about a new car that will be driving around at random, and if you can take it out(make it crash) it will be added to your garage which is held at one of many junk yards around the city(where you can change the vehicles your driving). There are repair shops and paint shops you can drive through to fix your car or give you boost, and during races these are life savers. The graphics are amazing, and this game runs at 60 frames per second even with a full race going and tons of cars everywhere.

The city is very well designed and thought out. The map is big, I mean big like grand theft auto big(not quite that big but close). Everything is seamless, there are shortcuts, ramps, and jumps all over the place. Lots of hidden things to discover. The sense of speed in this game is unreal. You really feel like you are flying down the road at 180 miles per hour. The one thing that has let me down is the CRASH MODE, now called SHOWTIME. In the old burnout games you could load different crash courses, and you had to try and get the most points per crash level. Now, crash mode can be activated at any time by hitting r1 and l1 at the same time. This takes some of the fun out of it. It is too easy to just flip down the road endlessly. In the old one, there were objects you could touch to make you explode extra, or multiply your score etc, all that is gone and each event was set up like a crash puzzle, gone. So a big Thumbs down on the crash mode. It’s still fun, but not like it used to be. I hope they add a better crash mode via a download update to the game. That would really make me happy. The other racing modes are still here in all their glory. Standard race(title says it all). Marked Man(you have to race to the end while other cars try to take you out, get taken down 3 times and you lose). Burning Rout(these are car class specific, and you have to beat the allotted time, if you do, the car you are racing will be upgraded). Road Rage(take down as many cars as you can in the allotted time). Stunt Run(rack up stunt points off ramps, crashes, barrel rolls, drifts, etc).

To win races, the game forces you to be aggressive and take down other cars. When you successfully take out another race driver in an event, your boost meter is filled up so you can speed up. This is crucial to winning races. There are many awards in the game, for crashing through all the billboards, super jumps etc. There are car types as well. Stunt Cars(will do barrel rolls easier), Race Cars(with a an annoying boost that has to be used all at once), Aggression Cars(can take a lot of punishment but don’t turn as well usually). There are about 75 cars, but include upgrades to that list(meaning when you win a burning route and your car is upgraded, even though it looks the same, the upgrade counts it as a new car) So that number is kind of cut in half.

Multiplayer is great, you just tap right on the d-pad to go into the online menu where you can select the type of play, invite friends to race events, or go into free roam mode online(there are a ton of multiplayer events). Also, if you have a usb cam or a playstation eye, the game will photo you for your drivers license and also take pictures of you losing and showing it to your competitors. This can be really funny. So what are the downsides to the game over all. DJ ATOMICA! MOST ANNOYING F$%! EVER IN A GAME(you cannot turn him off either). Since the world is open ended you run into that annoying grand theft auto thing. If you fail a race, you have to drive all the way back to the beginning. So you end up driving around a lot just to get to events or restart races and that gets a little old. But I find this is the type of game to just play in 1 or 2 hour spurts then put it down. If you play it for 10 hours straight, the driving around to restart and find new events really gets on your nerves. What makes up for this? The crashes. When you are going really fast, and your slam into a brick wall, it’s amazing, It goes into this camera view and into slow motion, then what you see and hear is super slow motion violence. The windows break, the car gets crunched up, and the sound fx of the glass breaking and metal bending is absolutely visceral. You have to see this. You can spend hours, I mean like 100+ hours playing this game unlocking all the cars, finding all the hidden stuff, short cuts, and ramps.

The sound track is mostly super annoying. There were a few good classic songs, I liked the junkie xl cover of siouxsie’s City’s In Dust. Adam ant’s Stand and Deliver is great fun. But man, rusty cage again? I am hearing some of the same songs I heard on road rash on the 3dO. WTF. Not to mention that most of that new rock shit just plain sucks major ass. If they got some good songs from ladytron, astral projection, the prodigy, new young pony club, blondie, that would of helped a lot. They did a bad job on the soundtrack in my opinion. A lot of the songs do not match the pace and feel of the game. They need to hire me to do this for them. Seriously. They have all that money, and this was the best they could come up with? At least the sound track did allowed me to discover the LCD Soundsystem, even though they picked the wrong track from that band, one of their worst tracks.. HIRE ME EA. I can make your sound tracks better! LOL.

9.0 Presentation
Everything is great with the exception of DJ ATOMICA! The way you go about the city and the online play is very well done.

9.3 Visuals
60 frames per second, killer looking city, cars. but no humans, how sad.

9.0 Audio
The soundtrack is ok, you have to turn off a lot of the super cheesy pop crap though. The sound fx and crashes are amazing. DJ ATOMICA SHOULD ROT IN HELL! No custom sound track, lame.

9.2 Game Mechanics
The controls are perfect for a arcade racing game. Each car is slightly different, and that makes for varied racing experience. Very well done.

9.5 Replay
So much stuff to find, and unlock. Awards. 100+ hours of game play easily.

9.1 Total Score.
(out of 10 / not an average)

I had to doc a few points off the over all score because of DJ ATOMICA, showtime being a let down compared to crash mode, oh and Avril’s “Girlfriend” track, who ever thought to include this in a racing game should be tied up and whipped, 50 lashes, HOW DARE YOU! It’s a good thing you can turn off songs. I had to turn off most of them! LAME! No custom sound track on the ps3 version. Xbox 360 users can use their own music, the only thing that the xbox version does better. PS3 version runs faster, looks better, and was the lead platform on development. This is great. Go buy it Click here to buy Burnout: Paradise City for the Playstation 3.

Music Listened to while writing this review: Death In June - Abandoned Tracks.