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Criterion rarely disappointTo many people EA are the McDonald's of video games. They are often viewed as some soulless super-corporation, farming out games without a thought, obsessed with sequels and licenses and uninterested in innovation. While there's a grain of truth to some of those accusations, in recent months the publisher has provided us with both invigorating and revolutionary new IP, and sequels that have rejuvenated tired old series'. From Skate to FIFA 08, Electronic Arts has done much to improve its image over the past year.
But still it is hard to be overly optimistic about the new Burnout game. The series has had its ups and downs, but if anything its stable mate and rival Need for Speed is to blame for any of the scepticism currently stock piled for Burnout Paradise. ProStreet is such a disappointment to so many that it makes even the most ordinary racer seem exciting, and as a result any enthusiasm for EA's automotive offerings has become a little muted.
AdvertisementFor exactly that reason, it's a pleasure to discover upon spending a couple of hours with a near final version that Burnout Paradise is actually looking and playing like the perfect sequel. To a certain extent it both reinvents the series and remains faithful to everything that is Burnout, and it is already looking like a very nice contribution to the now long running series of games.
If you don't know Burnout well, it is easy to grasp what has made them so popular. Quite simply, they make the serious racer immensely fun. While they swerve far from the likes of the cartoonish excess of Excite Truck or Grand Theft Auto's lavish Hollywood-style handling, the Burnout games are anything but sedate. The emphasis is on driving dangerously fast against the flow of the traffic, weaving in and out of passing vehicles, touching wing mirrors with trucks and generally leaving realism behind faltering at the starting grid.
It's an open world but it still looks greatAll of that returns to Paradise, but this time around the developers have created a reasonably vast open-world city, and when they say open-world, they mean it. Using a completely rebuilt game engine, after the initial boot-up there are no loading screens. Aside from pausing the game and changing your cars there are no menus at all. Most impressive of all though, and rather intriguing, is the decision to make every single one of the 120 missions available from the beginning of the game. It's a confident and unusual design choice by Criterion, but it's one that might just work.
Instead of visiting back streets and chatting with locals, you can start missions by simply pulling up at any junction. Each is colour coded on the map to indicate the mission type available, allowing you to pick and choose your way through the game dependent on the car you have and the missions you favour.
There are various kinds of missions, from ordinary races with a start and finish point but no set course, to Road Rage, where you have to take down as many cars as you can within time limits. As well as the 'junction' missions there are two individual challenges for each and every separate stretch of road. Tapping the d-pad selects one of two 'road rules' tasks, where you must either break a preset speed record for the stretch of road, or bounce down the road in a continuous roll, crushing as many civilian vehicles as you can. Of course, offline and online records are in place for these sub-missions.
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