Spontaneous Sunday: Burnout Paradise

Spontaneous Sunday is back after last weeks break, and this week I have played Burnout Paradise (2009, Criterion Games, EA, Xbox One). This is the first racing game that I have played for Spontaneous Sunday. It was one of the free games on Xbox Live in December 2016.

"Burnout Paradise is an open world racing video game developed by Criterion Games and published by Electronic Arts. It is the fifth entry in the Burnout series. The game was released in January 2008 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 and on 5 February 2009 for Microsoft Windows. It was made backward compatible with the Xbox One in November 2016."

- Wikipedia on Burnout Paradise

What do I expect from the game?

I have very little experience with the Burnout franchise. I played a little bit of Burnout 3: Takedown on PS2 about 10 years ago but other than that I've never played a Burnout game. I'm not a big consumer of racing games in general. The racing franchises that I have the most experience with is are Forza (I've briefly played Forza 2, 3 and Horizon) and Gran Turismo (on the PS1 and PS2).

Burnout Paradise is a free roam racing game, so I expect that there will be different races and tasks around the game world which the player must complete to advance through the game and unlock new things. I think there will probably be a variety of different game types.

Burnout 3: Takedown was a pretty chaotic game that had exaggerated crash physics and stunts and focused more on entertainment than realism, so I expect that Paradise will be similar in this regard. I expect that there will be lots of things to unlock and some sort of customisation system.

First Impressions - What do I think of the game in its first few minutes?

The game began with a Start screen and Guns 'N' Roses' "Paradise City" playing which is of course very relevant to the game! I started a new game and watched a short cinematic of a bird's eye/overhead map view of the city while a female narrator told me about how the game works; complete tasks and races around the city to progress and unlock new vehicles. 8 important locations were also introduced. I was granted a "learners permit" to the city and encouraged to pass my in-game driving test to unlock a new vehicle.

I started out in a beat-up old muscle car and was told to take it to a repair shop. However, I decided instead to just take off into the city and see what there was to see. I got myself into a race almost by accident and won it easily enough, smashed into a bunch of things, wrecked my car a few times and generally just got to grips with the controls and "vibe" of the game. 

Hunter Cavalry - The starter car

The city is interesting enough in terms of layout and visuals and its pretty well designed for the gameplay that it plays host to. There's plenty of long roads to max out your car on, things to hit, ramps, shortcuts to find and billboards to destroy - there is a total of 400 shortcuts and 120 billboards, which of course encourages extended play and exploration in a simple but effective way.

The core mechanics are easy to get to grips with. You basically just speed around the city, completing races which gets you closer to unlocking new vehicles and upgrades for your license. You get a speed boost mechanic which is replenished by skilful of risky driving. It was very easy to just get into the game and start having fun with it.

The game looks pretty nice and the graphics are decent for a 2009 game. The city and locations are all bright and saturated, theres a lot of lights around and the city is also pretty varied, with docks, downtown areas and even some more mountainous, countryside-esque locations outside of the city.

What do I like about the game? What does it do well?

I definitely have a lot of good things to say about Burnout Paradise. One of its biggest strengths is how quick and easy it is to start having fun with it. Upon starting a new game, I was behind the wheel pretty much instantly, and had free reign around the whole city.

A post-release update also added motorbikes!

The game has a real sense of immediacy to it, which allows it to quickly begin entertaining the player. This is also seen in the game's mechanics and features. For example, the speed boost (represented by the bar in the bottom left of the screen) replenishes very quickly. If you wreck your car in a crash, you respawn nearby in seconds and can carry on. If you don't like the song thats playing, you can skip it with the push of a button without even having to pause the game. Everything about the game is just quick and to-the-point which allows the player to get straight into the action. It also feels like a very rewarding game in that you unlock new cars quickly and the achievements come in thick and fast.

The game world is another plus point. It takes place within the fictional Paradise City which offers some varied locations and can be seen to take influence from a number of real-world cities (e.g, the Hollywood-style sign reading "Paradise City"). There's also a mountainous, countryside region that offers a nice change of scenery. It's a very well-designed space for the gameplay. There's loads of little shortcuts to find and things to smash into. It is as much fun just flying aimlessly around the city at blinding speed as it is completing the races that progress the game. 

The game does a good job of encouraging the player to explore the game world. There's a load of collectables and challenges to complete such as finding shortcuts, destroying billboards and completing super jumps. These are scattered all around the game world. The way in which races work also encourages the player to make use of the whole playable area. Races often see you driving across the whole city to an area that you may have otherwise not ended up at so easily. In my short time playing the game, I visited each corner of the map at least once.

The game has a pretty huge soundtrack of licensed songs consisting mostly of rock, with a couple of electronic and indie tracks thrown in too. Theres some really good songs on the game, all of which suit it pretty well. It reminded me of games such as Tony Hawk and Need For Speed and how the soundtrack of licensed music was an important selling point for these games.

Burnout Paradise also offers the "Showtime" game-mode, which is similar to the Crash mode seen in earlier games in the franchise, and allows you to bounce your car down the road with the aim of causing as much damage to other vehicles and property as possible. This adds a whole new level of chaos to the gameplay.

What do I not like?

There's a few downsides to Burnout Paradise, such as its lack of a storyline. The crux of the game is simply to get to the highest level of license by completing races and tasks and unlocking everything. Without any sort of storyline, the game feels a little un-grounded and without context, and there's a slight underlying feeling of it lacking something at its core. Not including a story line seems like a risky move on the part of the developers.

Another negative point is that it can be quite disorienting to drive around and complete races. The angle of the camera is just a bit too low and shallow which makes it a bit tricky to see whats coming up ahead. It would be better if the camera was placed higher and at a steeper angle which would make it easier to make sense of whats ahead of you and navigate more easily.

The game doesn't give you any set route for races. The names of streets appear at the top of the screen, with the current street in the middle and any upcoming left or right turns also being displayed. The road name that will take you to your destination flashes to indicate the way to go, but in the heat of a race, its pretty hard to look at it and not end up crashing. It would have been better if a glowing arrow appeared on the road, or if a route was shown on the map for you. Apparently, the lack of a clear-cut route is intentional and intended to let the player make their own creative route, but this didn't really resonate with me and I ended up getting lost a lot.

Finally, theres the fact that the menu systems are pretty dense and full of content, while not being very easy to navigate. Most of said content is just to do with the DLC and online features that EA has become known for.

Final Thoughts

Burnout Paradise is a fun, fast-paced open-world racing game that doesn't take itself too seriously. It throws you right into the playground that is Paradise City and allows you to complete tasks and progress at your own pace and make your own fun. There's very little pressure to progress, which is pretty refreshing. The games graphics, soundtrack and rewarding nature also help it to be a well-rounded and entertaining experience. It's lack of storyline and sometimes-disorienting navigation system aren't big enough problems to detract from that experience too much. I think it was a good game to choose as Spontaneous Sunday's first racing game.