And to sweeten the deal, all the DLC has been included from the off. Even the soundtrack is the same and, unlike most EA game soundtracks, it’s a good mix of decent tunes, some throwaway indie and a bunch of classical pieces. The world is easy to get around, packed with stuff to do and it all looks great on modern TVs. This is the same game, the same world and it feels great.
Pack it all into a nice small area, don’t give me 50,000 square miles full of fuck all like I’m playing Far Cry 2 or something. Also, despite having some distinct areas such as the city, the beach, construction sites, a highway, a fancy lakeside area and the mountain region off to the west, the actual game world was reasonably small which is exactly how we like our open worlds. With no story to worry about, and therefore no Fast and the Furious style Chad Protagonist types taking down criminal organisations by winning street races, the game just felt like a brilliant playground where you could race at breakneck speed or just dick about. These choices also applied to the game’s online mode where you and up to seven other players could take part in races or co-op challenges that asked you to all get to certain locations and then piss about doing jumps, barrel rolls or various other minor but fun tasks. If you fancy a break from the competitive stuff you can just idle around the city, looking for billboards and gates (these act as the game’s collectables) to smash through or just look at the lovely scenery. Every junction acts as the starting point of an event, be it a race or something more interesting like stunt events or ones where your main aims are to either take down other vehicles (by shoving them into walls or other cars) or avoid being taken down by sturdy muscle cars that will chase you down like a paparazzi looking for Princess Diana photos. However, the game won everyone over back in 2008 by giving you the freedom to do what you wanted. From the opening strains of Guns ‘N Roses’ Paradise City (a song that the game actively mate me hate after hearing it hundreds of times) to the enthusiastic commentary of DJ Atomika, being back of the streets of Paradise City felt almost like muscle memory, like I hadn’t been away.įor those of you new to the game, this was one of the original open world racers, back when people didn’t really want their racing games to be set in living, breathing cities. Having spent a frankly ridiculous amount of time on the original, unlocking everything and playing it online with friends for the best part of a year, this remaster felt comfortable and reassuring right away. However, with Need for Speed: Payback getting caught up in last year’s loot box scandal (despite being a very entertaining game once Criterion adjusted it and fixed the player progression), it was time for a quick win and a remaster of 2008’s Burnout Paradise seems like just the thing to get the fans onside but can a ten year old game still cut it in the 4K age? There’s a reason that there are so many Need for Speed games, it’s ridiculously profitable for EA with each iteration selling bucketloads each year which answers the most obvious question ‘when is Burnout coming back?’ and until now, that wasn’t going to happen.
EA says a PC version will be available later in the year.Main PS4 tagged arcade / burnout paradise remastered / carnage / driving / fun / open world by Richie Thankfully, it won’t be long before players can revisit Paradise City: the remastered game is launching on consoles on March 16th.
After working on the Need For Speed series for some time, the studio most recently contributed to EA’s Star Wars Battlefront II. There hasn’t been any word of a follow-up in the decade since it debuted, and Criterion has shifted its focus. Paradise also, sadly, looks like it could end up being the last major entry in the series. In some ways, it was a game ahead of its time, as open-worlds have gone on to become a permanent fixture in a huge range of game genres. Those aspects were still present in Paradise, but the game also gave players a huge world to explore at their leisure.
Today, EA announced a newly remastered version of the game, which will include all of Paradise’s add-on content, including wild racers like a hovering Delorean as well technical upgrades like enhanced visuals and 4K support for those with a PS4 Pro or Xbox One X.įirst released in 2008, Paradise was a big departure for the series, which had previously focused entirely on arcade-style stunts and crashes. A decade after its initial release, Criterion’s brilliant open-world racer Burnout Paradise is getting a second life on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.