Take Me Back To Paradise City
It’s safe to say that the Need For Speed franchise is close to dead at this point in time. It had it’s heyday back on the PS2 and Xbox, along with a few memories on PS3 and Xbox 360. However, now after three releases on PS4 and Xbox One, it’s failed to reach it’s once glorious heights. EA’s next plan is the revival of the Burnout franchise, with it’s remastered of Burnout Paradise. Just like smashing through billboards and fences while you storm your way around Paradise City all of a sudden EA’s racing games have become interesting again.
Burnout Paradise originally came out in 2008 on PS3 and Xbox 360, in fact, it’s one of the first games I remember getting on my PS3. Burnout Paradise simply involved you racing around the open world city completing in different types of races and events at every traffic light, beating your friends/the worlds times on streets and smashing everything in sight. It’s safe to say that Burnout Paradise was ahead of its time as these events at different locations are now a must-have in racing games, looking at you Forza Horizon.
What made Burnout Paradise so good though was it’s relaxed attitude about it. You could sit there all day just unlocking cars and burning up the streets whilst you blasted the rock-filled soundtrack in your ears. The soundtrack is awesome and I’m happy to say that it’s back for the remaster so don’t stress about that you can still takedown cars whilst listening to Avril Lavinge’s smash hit ‘Girlfriend’. Takedowns are still an amazing part of the game when you unlock a new car you have to find it on the streets and takedown to send it to your junkyard which usually ends up being a thrilling chasing whilst weaving in and out of oncoming traffic. The best takedown of a car I’ve had so far is narrowingly missing it and almost wrecking my car as the target car got away. As I blasted my boost I hit a jump on a bridge and performed a vertical takedown on the car as I smashed down on top of it.
In the remaster you’re given all the DLC content, from motorbikes to the big surf island, which is a nice addition if you didn’t get to play it the first time around. The other part of the game that’s been upgraded is the graphics which doesn’t have the hugest boost but it does realign the game’s graphics with more modern racing games. Burnout Paradise does feel more arcadey than the usual racing game so I’m okay with the graphics being only a little better. If they were upgraded too much then I feel like it would be like upgrading the original Tony Hawk’s games to have the graphics of the latest Tony Hawk game and I definitely don’t want that.
Burnout Paradise is still the amazing game that it was back in 2008 and it feels like it always will be. With this remaster it’ll give many more people the chance to play this fantastic game and hopefully spark the revival of the once great Burnout franchise. It’s a great time to be had, smashing your way around Paradise City, but I do wish there was a bit more added to the remaster considering its steep price. There’s no need for the game to be so expensive as not much has been changed or added to it but if that’s the only argument I have then I would just recommend getting it when it’s on sale. Burnout Paradise is my favourite racing game of all time, except Mario Kart obviously, and it’s great to see it back. Being in Paradise City with the radio blasting and hitting jumps and smashing billboards will always be entertaining.