A game that's so excited about its ambitions, it forgets what made its predecessors so good.
~
Pros:
+ Speed & Takedowns: The all-important, light-speed sensation of Burnout driving is still very much there, and while you may have to undergo a lot of frustration to actually enjoy it in all its glory (for reasons I will detail below), it's better than ever with the power of the PS3 behind it.
+ Music: Yes, there's still a lot of whiny American guitar-band and Indie rubbish on the tracklist, but there's also a whole lot of other tracks now, with generous helpings of classic rock and even classical music available; and with the ability to customise which songs you actually want to hear on the playlist, I might finally be willing to leave the music in a Burnout game on for a change...
+ Intricate/Living City: The city itself is pretty big and varied, and filled to the brim with secret routes, areas and stunts, most of which are listed for you to track down and collect. I also like how the weather and time of day changes, making races much more dynamic than before, and how you occasionally you get to break into spontaneous, exciting chases with special, unlockable cars.
+ Ambitious: I'm about to severely lay into it for what it's done to the classic Burnout gameplay, but at least they had the nerve to try and take it somewhere new...
+ Different Car Types: Cars now vary pretty significantly, due to their different characteristics and means of filling up on boost: all of them have their distinct specialities, without one necessarily overpowering the others (though I don't understand why the opponents always drive the same car type as you, when mixing it up could have been much more interesting).
Cons:
- Sandbox Gameplay: According to Wikipedia, the developers felt they had to completely re-invent Burnout from scratch in order to make it a 'next-gen' experience, and thus equated this into making it a sandbox game without menus or load screens. Unfortunately, this decision was completely and utterly wrong for the kind of racing game that Burnout is, and is the source of basically all the issues I have with Burnout Paradise, which I shall list in all their infuriating glory below...
- Navigation: The reason previous Burnout games have gotten away with their absurd speed was because you didn't have to focus on anything but the road ahead, and you always knew you'd get where you were going if you just kept moving at all costs. The sandbox gameplay of Paradise, however, almost completely ruins this, because there are so many routes leading in completely the wrong direction that using the map is basically a necessity in order to finish each race. If you try to read the map while driving, you'll almost certainly crash; and if you pause the game to work out where you're going in safety, then you'll completely break the high-octane flow that Burnout had always worked so hard to achieve. This is so obviously, immediately frustrating that you'd think it would have been enough to stop the developers in their tracks and rethink things, but sadly not. Oh, and whoever decided to add railway tracks into the city (being all too easy to find your way onto, almost impossible to find a way off of, and inevitably leading away from where you need them to go) needs to die a painful death!
- Annoying Crashing & Race Routes: You'll find yourself crashing far more in this game than in previous Burnouts, because you're no longer able to roughly predict what traffic will be where, let alone the layout of the route you'll actually be taking, thanks to the sandbox structure. You'll also find that you don't come across opponents anywhere near as much as you used to, because you'll tend to end up taking a completely different route from them (which is pointless seeing as they almost always go the quickest route anyway); so if you want to be sure of going the right way, not to mention get to enjoy the takedowns that have always made Burnout such a joy, you'll probably have to intentionally slow down in order to stay with the other group of racers - and you know something's gone disasterously wrong when you're trying to drive slower in a Burnout game! All this, combined with the removal of aftertouch and the new driveaway crashes (which are nice in theory, but in practice tend to cripple you by starting you off facing completely the wrong way), means that crashing becomes an all-too frequent annoyance that will have you screaming at the television, rather than the wonderful rush it always used to be.
- Awkward Event & Map Structure: What was so bad about menus and load screens, exactly? Because they sure as hell beat having to drive halfway across the map in order change car, or find an event, or (if you don't get the Ultimate Box or download the updates) restart an event you've lost, however interesting that map may be. Then there are the many pointless little niggles, like having to find and get in the correct car before doing a time trial, or having to fix a new car in a repair shop before you can use it, that just add up to create (whatever the developers' opinions may be) a deep longing for the days of quick, organized menus.
- Reduced Event Variety: Despite some ok new additions, the variety and freshness of events has taken a severe hit compared to previous Burnouts: some events have vanished completely (I can understand why Eliminator might go given the more abstract way of determining who's where in the race, but where the hell has Crash mode gone?); some have been sidelined compared to others (why so few Road Rages?); and some are just so annoying to set up that you'll never bother in the first place (I'm looking at you, Time Trial). Add to this that the events themselves are just reset (without any changes besides AI difficulty) every time you upgrade your license, how they are always between the same key map points (which combined with the single-city setting means you see a far smaller variety of different scenery than previous Burnout games), and how there is barely any progression in terms of how good your cars are as you go on, and you'll find that you'll rarely have the patience to play for very long at all in a single sitting.
- Less Addictive: It's only made worse by how annoying all the other problems can make the game, but you just won't feel the same compulsion to keep playing until you've nailed an event like you used to; partly because the game seems mercilessly targeted at casual gamers compared to before, and partly because you no longer get bronze, silver or gold medals for events, making you play for all-or-nothing (which is easier to achieve than it used to be), and thus taking away the private satisfaction that always going for gold used to give the dedicated gamer.
- Annoying DJ: As bad as previous Burnout commentators were, the new one takes the biscuit for his sheer smugness and willingness to patronise the player at any opportunity. It wouldn't be so bad, except for reasons I can only attribute to sadism or attempted brainwashing, you can't switch the pleb off!
- Lack of Local Multiplayer: I understand I'm missing a lot of what people like about this game by only playing it in single-player; but the fact is, its predecessors were all brilliant fun even when you played alone, and it's only reasonable to expect Paradise to work just as hard at appeasing loners like me as they always used to, and sadly it fails fairly miserably. But, even if I were to play with other people, I'd want to do it in person rather than online - and thanks to the cursed sandbox gameplay, split-screen multiplayer is no longer available! There is a turn-based party mode, but it's just nowhere near as fun as the proper split-screen competition of its predecessors, and can't stand up to the previous games' party modes simply for the lack of Crash mode...
~
You see that utterly massive list of complaints above? It may look excessive, and it may not seem to match up with the relatively high score I've given the game, but the fact is that it's almost entirely to do with the new sandbox gameplay. The fundamental feel of driving is still brilliant and satisfying when you're allowed to enjoy it without interruption, and since the developers tried so hard to do something special and different, I applaud them for their hard work; unfortunately, I'll then have to smack them repeatedly in the face for what an utterly wrong-headed thing it was they'd decided to do instead. Burnout was nigh-on perfect before Paradise (ironic, given its title), and there were so many little things they could have done instead to make it even better with the new hardware: a greater selection of bigger tracks, with more stunts and secret routes than ever before? More cars racing at one time? Customizeable weather and light conditions? More new game modes? Even crazier, more destructive crashes? Improved split-screen capacity? Though these improvements may not sound like much compared to what they actually decided to do instead, if it ain't broke then you shouldn't fix it - and Burnout Paradise is the very definition of game that was fixed so much it became more broken than ever before. I just hope they can swallow their pride and go back to the way it used to be, or this could be the sad end of the finest racing series ever created.