Product Description

Make action your middle name, as you control what happens when and where in Burnout Paradise. Welcome to Paradise City. Immerse yourself in the open roads of Paradise City from the downtown streets through the hectic freeways to the sweeping mountain roads; the world is waiting to be explored. Slam, Shunt and Wreck opponents in cross-town race events, where you decide the fastest route to the finish line. Hit the jumps and find shortcuts, smash through barriers and get to the places that other racers can't reach to get that competitive edge. Meet your friends online with the revolutionary EasyDrive system that smashes through the tedium of lobbies and servers and cuts straight to the chase. Burnout Paradise provides the ultimate driving playground for you and your friends to play online on the Playstation 3. Mugshots - Track the length and breadth of up to 2,500 online rivalries Speed, Speed and Even More Speed - The rebuilt, race-tuned Burnout game engine delivers intense speed boost gameplay at a super-smooth and super-fast 60 frames-per-second Crash Deformation - Burnout Paradise features an all-new deformation technology that gives players an astounding close-up and slow-motion view of super-real destruction

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #445 in Video Games
• Brand: Electronic Arts
• Model: 15782961
• Published on: 2008-01
• Released on: 2008-01-22
• ESRB Rating: Everyone 10+
• Platform: PLAYSTATION 3
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .59" h x 5.43" w x 6.72" l, .30 pounds

Features

• Rock Paradise City—Shred your way across more than 250 miles of open road discovering jumps, stunts, and shortcuts.
• Infinite Possibilities—Blaze your path to glory in 120 unique events, using your knowledge of the city to find the fastest routes and get the drop on rivals.
• Team Up or Takedown—Battle friends online and grab their mugshots, or join forces to complete more than 300 online challenges.
• Showtime: Crash Anywhere, Any Time—Send your car wrecking, spinning and scraping down the road, smashing through traffic and leaving a trail of expensive wreckage in your wake.
• Road Rules—Make and break the rules of each road by setting speed and destruction records all over town. Track how many you own against your friends!

Amazon.com
In Burnout Paradise players are treated to a rarity in the video games universe: a complete reinvention of an established franchise that equals, if not betters any of the previous games in the series. Yes, this is a large claim, but one that can be explained in a single phrase: Next-Gen Freedom.

Driver's heaven is a wide open world

In Paradise City even cars can fly. View larger.

Go for broke in 'Marked Man' Mode. View larger.

Nothing is off limits, even head-on crashes. View larger.

Start a race any time with 'Easy Drive.' View larger.

Although the Burnout series’ over the top mobile action has been its calling card since it ignited audiences on the PS2 in 2001, and later on the first generation Xbox console, Burnout Paradise is the first game in the series that has been designed specifically for play on Next Generation consoles. This has allowed game developer Criterion to rip the training wheels off the game and rebuild it from scratch. The result is a new, expansive world that players can roll through at will. And what a world it is.

Enter Paradise City
Heaven on Earth, at least to road-raging, crash-causing Burnout fanatics, Paradise City is your domain and ultimate proving ground in Burnout Paradise. This expansive driver’s playground stretches across 250 miles and encompasses all sorts of road driving conditions, from fun-in-the-sun seaside cruising boulevards, to mountain roads and downtown gridlock. But regardless of what stretch of asphalt you find yourself on, the beauty of this place is that nothing is blocked off and your wits are at least as important as the horsepower under your hood when it comes to racing here. Check out Paradise City’s five sub areas (click the links for sample images):

• Downtown Paradise City
• Harbor Town
• Palm Bay Heights
• Silver Lake
• White Mountain

Burnout Your Way
Unlike in previous Burnout games, Burnout Paradise not only puts the keys to your ride in your hands, but places you squarely in the driver’s seat when it comes to where you can go and what you can do.

Along with wide avenues and crowded highways, the open game design of Paradise City is also jammed full of hidden side streets, back roads and alley ways. These can be used as short cuts in races, that is, if you know where they are. As you explore, commit these potential short cuts to memory because they will definitely come in handy in a tight race. And since we are talking Burnout here, players should not expect uneventful, genteel contests of speed and precision driving. In Paradise City players are always free to slam, shunt and wreck opponents in their bids for supremacy and they will. Also, new to the Burnout series, races can now start anywhere, anytime. Just pull up to a stoplight and spin your wheels to start one in one of five different event classes:

• Classic Race
• Road Rage
• Burning Route
• Stunt Run (new)
• Marked Man (new)

Instant Online
Burnout Paradise also keeps the mobile carnage coming while simultaneously setting the new standard in online social gameplay. With the new ‘Easy Drive’ feature you can find friends online and with the click of a button invite them to a race. Once they’ve accepted the race will start immediately. That's right, no more annoying wait times at online lobbies and servers. And keeping in touch with friends is easier than ever.

Team up or Takedown
In the winner-take-all universe of Burnout teaming up usually isn’t the first option that comes to mind, but on these rough and tumble streets it's a good option to keep in mind. With more than 300 FreeBurn Challenges packed into the game, players always have the choice of going it alone against the field as a whole or joining forces with up to seven of your buddies in user-created race routes. Either way, if you are victorious in your takedown you'll get the chance to talk some trash as you exchange Mugshots with your victim via an optional camera hooked to your gaming system or your gamertag/PSN avatar if you prefer to keep your identity on the down-low.

Showtime: Crash Anywhere, Any Time
And finally since a new Burnout release wouldn't be complete without a little something special in the wreckage department, Burnout Paradise continues the carnage with an update of its familiar 'Crash Mode.' Renamed 'Showtime Mode,' players can now crash, bounce and scatter their ride in any location and replay the wreckage over and over in slow motion. One of the most addictive and down right fun features of the game, players activate the mode by simply pulling both triggers on their controller and if they are good enough can also immortalize their Showtime moments on the leaderboards for all to see.

Driving fans this is Next-Gen at its best and definitely the Burnout title you have been waiting for.

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Customer Reviews

Yeeeeha, what a ride!
Ok, My background in racing.. Need 4 Speed all games. GTA III on up. Gran Tourismo all. Many more earlier, but mostly these for the sake of my review... meaning I never played the previous Burnout series.

Feel for the racing menu is much like GTA to me. Free form racing around the city is superb. There is a new race or even on just about every corner. Awesome! The feel of the city and surroundings is very good. Just as in GTA, you find secret billboards and unique jumps along with the racing. The way they have the level upgrade to your license is fun and keeps you going. Many a time, I have been close to the next level and refused to get off the game. Addictive.

There are tons of races, events, records to beat, too many to list actually. Some have complained about the Showtime event. I LOVE this event. It's a crack up (pun) and when you get good at it, setting the record in this event for every street in the game is really fun.

Ok.. if the game ended there, it would still be a great game. It doesnt.

Multiplayer. Online racing and entrance is seamless. You just basically hit the right button and you are in a game online. I always go in wanting to work on the online events you can do by teaming up with other players and doing jumps and stuff together, but I end up getting wrapped up in the Takedown with others and pretty soon, time has gone by without notice. It's almost too fun really. I'd probably buy this game if all it had was multiplayer takedown and no other options. Gladly, that's not needed. lol

There are many cars in the game and getting them is pretty straight forward. No garage or home here, just a junkyard where all your cars are kept. I've seen complaints about having to repair cars and such.. well, that just takes about 5 seconds, since all you do is drive your car through a repair shop which is always just down the street from the junkyard. Not sure why the problems with this feature. Basically you get your car from disabling it from somebody else, so the repair feature makes sense to me.

.....

Ok, so I gave the game 4.5 stars. Why the .5 down? The voice settings in the game are really bad. You have to turn your system music and game noise way down and keep voip on max to even hear the other players and then it's usually muffled. I use a PS2 USB cable headset which has no volume control, so some bluetooth sets may have better luck with this. However, it's the poor settings that make the problem, not the headset. I guess they are worried people would up the volume too much and damage ears or something. Still.. it's a minus for me.

Other down.. no split screen racing for offline multiplayer. This is a must have really for me. I like to race family memebers offline in racing games and wish Burnout had this feature.


Those two minor things aside, the game is flawless really. The graphics are superb and the framerate is better than any game I've seen on the PS3 to date.

Buy it. You won't regret it if you like racing. I am hopeful for GTAIV and GT5, but for now, this ones the king of the heep.

Great for awhile then gets tedious
[Update 4-11-09: Criterion released a patch in February that enables a race restart option (thanks slowjam98), so most of the complaints in the review can be ignored. I haven't played the game again though.]

Burnout: Paradise has many great qualities and Criterion should be praised. However to fully appreciate this game and become good at it you basically have to memorize the entire huge city. I've been playing the game for about 20 hours and I can barely remember where the short cuts are and what's the best street to turn down for races and stunts. Especially because you're driving so fast. They do have flashing street sign indicators but they're only a little helpful.

Let's say I start a race. I then pause and look at the terrible map when the race starts and plan out my route. Then I drive about 10 seconds, pause, then look at the map again. I find myself doing this over and over during the race. This frequent pausing breaks up the fun and momentum of the race. So let's say I lose the race. No big deal the whole point of a game is to practice and get better. Great. But then you have to drive alllll the way back to the starting point, miles away. I've won many races so it's not because I suck, but I've rarely been able to get particularly good at any races or any other events. I don't feel that satisfaction of getting better at a game, just blazing speed and blind luck.

People say it's no big deal because another event is right around the corner at a traffic light. But how am I going to get better at the previous race if I don't do it again for a long time? So you basically just wander around aimlessly from event to event, not ever really perfecting anything. The whole thing begins to feel like a meandering, directionless mess. It's a shame because I've had a lot of fun with this game especially the stunt runs, but the map problem is so bad it's to the point I'm getting really bored with this game after only 20 hours and a B license.

The game does have many great things about it (not Showtime), the graphics, the speed, the handling, the stunts, and I also love open world games. If you spend half your life memorizing every nook and cranny of the city then you'll have fun. If not it gets old after awhile, especially after the millionth slow-motion crash. If they fix the awful navigation system and lack of a restart function for the next installment, it'll be a classic game.

This Game ****ing Rocks
I love this game it was the first i got when i got my ps3 and i play it all the time. The only bad thing is you have to download a lot of stuff before you can play it and the big surf island pack is expensive but i might still get it because it looks really fun.