Burnout Paradise

A few entries a while back I mentioned having the demo of Burnout Paradise on my Playstation and how much the Bratii enjoyed it; it seems I didn't mention how much I enjoyed it at the time too.

Now the thing is I hate racing games, this is particularly annoying as it seems every game and its dog seems to incorporate at least one vehicle section regardless of overall game play and style. I just don't get on with them, I have difficulty with the pseudo-3D which is not a problem at low speed but causes havoc when whoosing past me; the vehicles never seem to feel right particularly with a gamepad. For proper racing games the curve is way too steep for me with even the slightest of nudges or going even the teensiest bit off-track levaing you wrecked, skidding, and basically out of the race. With the requirements ramping up from 'finish this track' to ' beat this track' to ' beat this track in X time' it means over 50% of the content is something I'll never get to and if by some miracle I do the incentive to play the 'lesser' tracks vanish.

So to sum it up - I don't like racing games, but I do like Burnout Paradise?

At the time it was at full price, £40, then Sony put it on the PSN Store at £25 and it was tempting but a niggling voice told me that it'd turn out just like all the other racing games so I left it alone. Then this Saturday I spotted it at Gamestation for £15 new - that was too tempting so I picked it up.

Got home popped it in and watched as it upgraded to version 1.50 - 3 updates of around 350Mb, 150Mb and something smaller. Then I started playing.

Damn this is fun; really, really fun. The cars handle well and though I still have difficulty with the 3D it's just as the Bratii found - it's fun to crash; it's really fun. I don't even care about the races (120 different events of 5 different types) it's just so fun to speed around the city dodging traffic beating the Road Rules time, finding the shortcuts (400), the Super Jumps (50), and the billboards (120) to smash through. Even did some of the events those involving smashing other cars or avoiding being smashed - just sheer pleasure. I've not even touched the online versions of these events yet either.

Sure there are some events that need particular vehicles to do and the events do get harder, but I never get the impression that I have to do these things; if I want to stay at this level I can do and just drive around like a maniac.

Best comparision I can think of is GTA4 without the guns, or the swearing.

This is DJ FlipC pulling drifts around Paradise City signing off.