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Name: Burnout Paradise

For anyone familiar with the Burnout series of games, fast cars, insane speeds, huge amounts of boost and trying to cause the biggest crash imaginable are all part of the fun and excitement you're going to be having. Burnout Paradise takes the usual Burnout style one step further by putting you in an open world system where you go and do as you please in your own time and fashion. Criterion – the developers behind the game, touted it as the next evolution in the Burnout series, and they certainly don't disappoint. The crash happy Burnout fans looking for a true sequel will not be let down, and while the game isn't perfect - coming with a few minor niggles and missing features from earlier titles, regardless, Burnout Paradise will give you all a true Burnout experience that you'll want to play again and again.

One of the first things about Paradise is some of the music, the soundtracks in Burnout Paradise include different scores to cater for the majority, from the hit rock of Guns N' Roses (Paradise City.. Coincidence?), Avril Lavigne (who put her in the charts?), Adam and the Ants, to classical such as Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, that's just to name a few. Criterion also saw fit to include the classic Burnout tracks from the originals, so finding something you like shouldn't be to difficult, even if you don't like a particular track or set of tracks, the in game options allow you to choose exactly what plays through your in game radio, an added benefit being, you can use custom soundtracks if you get tired of the ones included, although the game does not allow you to mix your own music with the ones already included, but then why would you want to?

Paradise City is huge, being divided into five main areas to race between, the long twisted roads take you from the bustling Downtown Paradise to the White Mountains peaks and  the cool waters of Silver Lake. The races whisk you from one location to the other with a few spanning the whole map taking quite a while to navigate, unless you're a race driver with super human reflexes who doesn't crash, ever, but if you didn't crash, it wouldn't be Burnout now would it? The map shows all the roads when you first start but knowing the layout is one thing, winning a race is another, shortcuts are your friend here and finding them can be key to getting first place or last. Events, as they are called in Paradise City, are simply a case of driving to a set location, usually a crossroad, and performing a burnout to get started, it's a simple affair but effective in getting you started. Driving around the various areas will allow you to find events which are then added to your map so that you can use for future reference, but while racing the events and coming first to clear them aren't the only objective to win your 102% completion, you need to drive around and explore all five areas to find everything. It can seem like a lot to take in at first and looking at the map it can certainly seem that way, but just driving round aimlessly looking for the next race isn't the only thing your going to be doing, Paradise has a lot more to it than meets the eye.

With over 70 cars and 4 bikes to choose from, your choice of ride is a difficult one to make. The cars are separated in to classes, speed, stunt and aggression, the latter speak for themselves but aggression is used for some of the other Burnout Paradise game modes which we'll go into detail further on. Bikes are simply a speed affair since the game is rather lacking in the bikes feature, missing out the stunts, all the events apart from racing and road rules, one of the main let downs is the ability to race bikes and cars together, why it wasn't included is a good question and from the looks of things, it won't get patched in which is a real let down.

Racing isn't the only objective during the game, the events you find on your map come in different styles, these include, Race which is more a sprint since you don't do laps, Takedown which sees you taking down as many of your AI opponents as possible within a set time limit - a great way to practice your aggressive crashing skills, smashing your car into an opponent hoping to make them crash, more often than not getting yourself wrecked in the process, having a heavy aggression car like the Inferno van is easily the best way to net you a win in this type of event. Marked man is the opposite of Takedown, you must get to a set point without being taken down a set amount of times before you get there, this gets extremely challenging later on in the game, your saving grace being able to drive through a garage to get repaired. Trying to strike a fine balance between a heavy car which takes more take downs but sacrifices speed, or taking speed over weight, it's a difficult decision to make. Last but certainly not least is Stuntrun, for the novice, Stuntrun can be one of the most difficult events, only because you need to know the layout of the map, where the best places are to get points from, and all while avoiding wrecking your car so that you don't lose your multiplier. You gain points by boosting, flat-spinning, drifting, hitting billboards or gates and performing jumps and barrel rolls, sounds easy, but it certainly isn't. Places like the Quarry and Airfield are havens for stunt runners, but since some of the Stuntrun start locations are not even remotely close to places like these, you have to find your own niche of where you can get the points from. Thankfully, for all of the events, any mistakes or failures you make will allow you to restart the event from the menu, since coming first is the only way to complete an event you will find this option extremely helpful.