Burnout Paradise, Racing (Xbox 360)

When I played the demo of Burnout Paradise on Xbox Live, I was pretty excited to see that it had moved away from the arcade-like feel of the past versions. No longer did you just get one shot to crash, and then go back to the main menu. No, this was far different, and much a change for the better.

The world is open, free-roaming with tons of stuff to find, unlockables to smash and do stunts through, and secret jumps and shortcuts to stumble upon. It almost feels like a driving RPG in the way that, as you complete events and move up in License-rank, you are given better, stronger, faster, more nimble cars, each with strengths in either taking down other cars, doing stunts, or just flat-out speed cars.

The old Burnouts got old fairly quickly, but this game's lifespan is still strong and I've been at it rather constantly for the past few weeks since launch. Further increasing the replayability of Burnout Paradise is the online mode. The game changes almost entirely, moving away from events versus AI players to challenges that will see just how good you are at different aspects of the game, whether it's driving into oncoming traffic for a certain distance without crashing, or doing multiple barrel rolls in one jump.

DJ Atomica, the omnipotent voice on your in-game 'radio' gives you little hints and cracks a joke here and there, most of which are not funny, but the randomness of his speech is good enough that it doesn't get overly annoying. But, after playing the Madden games of old, featuring the *cough*...marvelous*cough* commentary of Pat Summerall, it's nigh impossible to find a voice so redundant and repetitive. Uploading your own tunes into your Xbox make for a much more entertaining experience.

The audio quality of the game is great, and the visuals are pretty nice, too. The world is seamless, and you only have to load the game at the very beginning. This game really puts to use the system's individual processors.

Buying Burnout Paradise at the now-standard price for console games of $59.99 was a bit risky and I was afraid that it might not payoff, but confident thanks to the joy I got from the demo, I was pleased to find that it is certainly one of the best games out there for the 360 right now, with killer replayability as well as an addicting online mode.

If Xbox achievements are one of your addictions, like mine, you'll find a pleasant array of objectives that are not overwhelming or impossible, but rather logical and with a bit of work, many will come along with normally playing out the game. One peeve of mine, though, is that a couple achievements -require- that you own a webcam for use with your 360 to send photos to people.

I would recommend picking up Burnout Paradise, at least for a rental, though I'm sure you'll find that you won't have your fill if you just grab it for a week's play.