Burnout Paradise Remastered Review

Burnout Paradise was released back in 2008, it was a genre defining arcade racer, loved & adored by many. Fast forward 10 years and EA have re-released the game, as a remastered title. EA have received quite some stick in recent months, ahem Battlefront 2, so they have decided to bring the classic games back. I’m sure I read somewhere that EA were very much anti re-release but here we are. Need For Speed is a dying franchise, perhaps they want Burnout to take over.  Anyway, the game has just been released on both PS4 & Xbox One and we have been playing it!

I leave the room while the game boots up and and I hear “Take me down to the paradise city,
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty”, that classic rock anthem from Guns & Roses. Now that I’m singing along, I’m in the mood for some fast racing. Unlike the earlier Burnout games, Paradise was an open world experience, which was near on groundbreaking back in 2008. You are thrown straight into this open world city, with your basic driving license and a banged up American muscle car.

For those of you who didn’t play the original, or need reminding, you pick your starter car and drive straight out the garage, into the open world. The initial area of the map where you first start out, shows a number of races/locations of interest that you can drive to & interact with. As you explore the map, more areas become ‘unlocked’ and more races/locations become available. There are number of races, from the standard ‘first to the finish line’, to more challenging races including knockouts & stunts. There are also mini events within the game, such as ‘knock down 400 barriers’ or ‘hit 100 billboards’. Locations of interest include garages, which refuel your boost, body shop to repair your car & the scrapyard, where you can change your car. As stated before, you get your entry level driving licenses and when you start to win races, you progress to the next license & unlock cars. The progression gets harder as time goes on. You can also team up online with friends to compete.

Burnout Paradise Remastered also features a range of technical enhancements for greater visual fidelity, including high resolution textures for players to explore Paradise City in 4K with supporting 60FPS on the PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One X. I’m sad to say that I played this on the OG PS4, so cant comment on the 4K wonderful’ness but it’s good to see the option is available.

Previous DLC, a whopping 8 packs, that formed part of the original release, is included in this remaster. This means a number of features & items are unlocked, including the Big Surf Island section of the map and the lightning fast Delorean from Back To The Future. WHY did they do this!! Straight out the box, I’ve got access to the paradise cars & bikes, toy vehicles, legendary cars, boost special cars, cop cars & big surf island cars. I’m fairly certain that’s every car in the game, before even starting your first race. Without realising, I picked a very fast, strong car and I could wipeout several times, go the wrong direction and I’d still be winning the early races. This got very boring very quickly, so you really need to be self disciplined to pick a starter car.

Even after the DLC issue, I had a lot of fun playing this game again. It was fun to drive around, causing chaos and damage to on coming vehicles, I just wish they had added a 9th DLC, just a taster of something new. I highly recommend you avoid the faster cars to start with and actually enjoy the game as it should be played. Also team up with your friends, that’s a whole lot of fun too!

The game is available now on both PS4 & Xbox One, retailing at £29.99. For more info, visit the official Burnout Paradise website.