Um dos melhores jogos de corrida de sua época, que nos dias de hoje segue muito divertido, evoluíram quase tudo da série num jogo de mundo aberto com um mapa enorme cheio de atividades secundárias, o sistema de colisão é muito bem feito e o melhor que já vi em um jogo de corrida. Trilha sonora nem preciso comentar, só de ter Avril Lavigne e Guns N' Roses é 10.

Só reclamo desse remaster vagabundo da EA, praticamente só relançaram o mesmo jogo pra nova geração, não tiraram nem aquele filtro amarelo dos anos 2000 e a noite do jogo é muito morta. Apesar disso esse remaster me trouxe muita nostalgia e vale a pena num preço de promoção, uma pena que Burnout Paradise foi o último da série a ser lançado.

The perfect game to dip in and out of for some mindless fun. The soundtrack is so nostalgic to me now, I can't hear Paradise City without thinking about this game.

Tons of short tasks to do all over the map, constantly finding cars you need to takedown, jumps you need to go over, gates that need to be smashed or secret areas you need to explore. In terms of the proper activities, I usually gravitated towards the Road Rages, nothing more satisfying than just smashing into other cars. The Stunt Runs are pretty fun too, but I feel like they need a little more planning and thought to do well and I usually just wanted to switch my brain off, smash into things and go fast.

Take me down to the Paradise City
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty (take me home)
Oh, won't you please take me home?
Take me down to the Paradise City
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty (take me home)
Oh, won't you please take me home?
Just an urchin living under the street, I'm a
Hard case that's tough to beat
I'm your charity case so buy me somethin' to eat
I'll pay you at another time
Take it to the end of the line
Rags and riches, or so they say, you gotta
Keep pushing for the fortune and fame
You know it's, it's all a gamble when it's just a game
You treat it like a capital crime
Everybody's doing their time
Take me down to the Paradise City
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty
Oh, won't you please take me home? Yeah-yeah
Take me down to the Paradise City
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty
Take me home
Strapped in the chair of the city's gas chamber
Why I'm here, I can't quite remember
The surgeon general says it's hazardous to breathe
I'd have another cigarette but I can't see
Tell me, who you're gonna believe?
Take me down to the Paradise City
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty
Take me home, yeah-yeah
Take me down to the Paradise City
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty
Oh, won't you please take me home?
Yeah
So far away
So far away
So far away
So far away
Captain America's been torn apart, now
He's a court jester with a broken heart
He said, "Turn me around and take me back to the start"
I must be losin' my mind, "Are you blind?"
"I've seen it all a million times"
Take me down to the Paradise City
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty
Take me home, yeah-yeah
Take me down to the Paradise City
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty
Oh, won't you please take me home?
Take me down to the Paradise City
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty
Take me home, yeah-yeah
Take me down to the Paradise City
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty
Oh, won't you please take me home?
Home
I wanna go, I wanna know
Oh, won't you please take me home?
I wanna see, how good it can be
Oh, won't you please take me home?
Take me down to the Paradise City
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty
Take me home (oh, won't you please take me home?)
Take me down to the Paradise City
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty
Oh, won't you please take me home?
Take me down (oh yeah), spin me 'round
Oh, won't you please take me home?
I wanna see, how good it can be
Oh, won't you please take me home?
I wanna see, how good it can be
Oh, oh, take me home
Take me down to the Paradise City
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty
Oh, won't you please take me home? (I want you, I want you take me home)
I wanna go, I wanna know
Oh, won't you please take me home?
Baby, yeah

Yes, I played one of those oldfangled car games. Why did I play the car game, you may ask? Well, I saw some footage of Burnout 3: Takedown the other day and thought it looked fun and really wanted to play it! Plus, I'm coming up on my 100th review and wanted to diversify my portfolio, so to speak. (I do not have a real job.) Alas, Burnout 3: Takedown is practically impossible to play today without an emulator, and that'd require sitting at my desk - and I don't wanna play games at my desk for the sake of my back! Also, I suspect someone sprinkled 17 Testosterone pills down my mouth some weeks ago whilst I was sleeping, and thus cars have now become my sole personality trait. I like it when they go fast and the engine makes a noise. Now that I have successfully transitioned into a car guy, I decided to fill the Burnout 3: Takedown-shaped hole in my life by playing the nearest thing I could, which was Burnout Paradise: Remastered on Game Pass.

And it was pretty fun! The core conceit of Burnout being that it's not so much a game for people who love cars as it is for people who love crashing things and wrecking shit is awesome! It's why I sought Burnout 3 out and not fuckiiiin, Need For Speed or Garfield Kart or any of those other more stripped back driving sims. And Burnout Paradise definitely delivers on the promise of mayhem, there's a lot of smart design decisions here that make the action real arcade-y and simple and fun in a super uncomplicated way. I love how "wrecking" your car is such a temporary setback, you just see a sick slow-mo vid of how badly you crashed for a few seconds and then you're back on the road, ready to go! Driving feels super good, you go like fast in this game - "no shit" you're thinking, it's a fucking drivey racey game, but like no man, you can go fuckin fast, there's nary a better feeling in video games than going full speed in Burnout, pumping your whole-ass boost meter and driving down the highway w some 2000's hard rock playing. Except maybe taking out like, 5 other drivers in a row w some 2000's hard rock playing! That shit owns! Road Rage is far and away the best overworld event in this game,

This is one of the most late 2000's games ever made, not just because Jimmy Eat World and Seether are on the OST, but because it did the fashionable thing that every series was doing at the time and took a previously non-open world series, open world! And that's where the problems start. Because you're racing around an open world instead of designated race tracks, you often find yourself driving into oncoming traffic, which makes Race and Marked Man events in particular more annoying than they need to be. Annoying, not hard. They're still extremely easy, but if you ever wreck, it's because you were constantly having to divert your attention between the objective marker at the top of the screen, the minimap in the bottom left to see if you're coming up on any alternative routes and shortcuts, and the fuckin' road in front of you! It's really pace-breaking to wreck so constantly. Once or twice isn't so bad, but in my experience when I wrecked it almost never really felt like my fault, it was because I was looking at the minimap while driving (bc I felt like I had to), then looked up at the road to find I'm speeding directly into a fuckin' pickup truck with no time to react! It really sucks the wind out of fast-paced events that should otherwise be so much fun.

Also it's a testament to how poorly this open world meshes with a driving game when I'm advocating for fast travel, but this game needed fast travel. Overworld events are dotted all over the open world, but said events can only ever end in 1 of 8 specific places in that world. So if you wanna tackle any of the many things moreso in the middle of the map and away from these landmarks (and this is where most of the Road Rage events are) then you've gotta go really out of your way to seek them out. And there's no ping system! You can't mark anything on your map as far as I can tell! Am I missing something? If you wanna seek out a specific event, I'm pretty sure you've just gotta keep stop-starting and checking your map to see if you're going in the right direction! That's the best way I could find! Again, talk about a pacebreaker! This is compounded by the fact that you can't just retry events! If you fail an event - and again, all of them end in only 1 of 8 places, you've gotta drive 20% of the way back across the map just to get the starting point! Huh?

ALSO also this game does not tutorialise things very well at all. I did not know how to start Showtime mode (a fan favourite that I thought was just fine) until the fuckin' DJ announcer guy mentioned it, and I forgot how he explained to do a Barrel Roll and a Top Spin and couldn't find any in-game tutorial to brush up on it, so I just had to look it up!

Burnout Paradise is fundamentally really fun, it's like the Skate to Need For Speed or Forza's Tony Hawk. It's not concerned about realism, it's silly and arcade-y. It encourages you to wreck shit and get hurt and that's dope! But it should be more dope. It keeps getting in its own way with this open world structure, a total noose around its neck. Just let me drive and make people explode! Stop making me navigate and check my map and divert my attention between like 3 different fuckin' things! And also let me play Burnout 3: Takedown you freaks

I was like y'all once, happy to talk about how good Burnout Paradise was and how it's one of the best open world games. I'd play it every so often, because hot damn, what a good game. I even got excited when the remastered version came out! I bought it! I played it! And now I never want to look at this video game ever again. I can't explain what changed, I can only relate it to the breaking point from eating your favorite food too much. The idea of playing this game ever again would make me feel like I just got a terminal diagnosis, and even then, I would feel bad about how I'm using that time.

The game is still fun, and the soundtrack is still fire. The atmosphere of Paradise City is almost magical - there are no people, but there are many AI cars, and the radio DJ brings so much life to it that you start to believe the city is real. No police or penalties, a new race at every traffic light, and (still) beautiful scenery. You can also change the time of day on the go, but it doesn't happen in an instant - the sun will quickly rotate for you in real time, as if telling you 'here you go!'. It's like you're in paradise, but a car paradise, do you see my point? The game nailed that feeling.

I was never fond of racing games. Most of the time, I find them either too hardcore, boring or even too slow paced. Only two licences manage to make my heart goes boom : Vigilant8 and Burnout.

Although I always loved Burnout, I wasn't able to play it for a while because I didn't had the games. I had demos and some of my friends had the games, but I never purchased a Burnout game. In my 20s I purchased Burnout 3, which is great but my cd is scratched. Then I purchased Burnout Paradise on switch, perfectly knowing it was a strange Burnout game, but thinking it'll certainly lead to great multiplayer racing couch games.

Well, it is written at the back of the game's box, but Burnout Paradise doesn't allow local multiplayer. That's disappointing (and let's be honest that's kind of a shame too). Alright then, let's play the game solo.

It is Burnout. If you know you like Burnout, you won't be lost. Basic principles were great in the early 2000s, they're still great nowadays. In Burnout, you have to win the race. By any means necessary. Destroying your opponent isn't only allowed, it is encouraged. It gives you way more boost, that is among the most satisfying boost of all racing games of all times. This boost allows you to do 3 things :
- Destroying more opponents, which gives you more boost
- Doing stunts, really really impressive, dumb, unrealistic and spectacular stunts, which gives you more boost
- Going faster, which eventually lead to you winning the race.
This is wonderful design-wise because it is based on a very simple yet efficient gameplay loop, thriving in good level design, encouraging high risk moves (attacking your opponents) and rewarding your success with high rewards (boost).

Then, burnout paradise comes with its novelty : open world.
- Is it a good Idea ? I don't know.
- Does it make sens ? I don't know.
- Is it correctly executed ? I don't know.
Yet, I understand what Criterion tried with this open world. The equation is simple : open worlds, by essence, rely on navigation. Burnout has a unique gampelay core, which is fun navigation. Let's make the game a constant and giant open world, that forces the player to drive because this is what we want because our driving system is fun. Besides, let's take the benefit from open world by giving the player a total freedom when it comes to shortcuts and itinerary.

This. This above has been done in the most all-in way. This is what burnout PARADISE is. This is its intention.

This comes with a lot of qualities. You learn paradise city. You make it your own true driving playground, with your favourite itinerary you tend to take a lot. Your encouraged to explore hidden spots to find shortcuts or even secrets and collectibles. You drive smartly : you have to keep attention to the actual act of driving as well as the organization of your intinerary. This organization relies on a sign systems, that blink on top of the screen when you must take a road. Then, when you fail, you have to improvise, which is very stimulating.

Yet, this hardcoreness can be very frustrating. I lost a ton of races because I missed a road because I simply didn't saw the blinking sings at the top of the screen. That is to say I wasn't bad at driving (wich is the core of the game), I was bad at reading the map (which, in my opinion, isn't supposed to be the core of a racing game). There is no restart button : if a race is lost, you better stop your engine to quit the race and launch another race. That is to say you cannot easily retry something you've failed, because between each tries your supposed to reach the begining of the race. There is no menu at all : if you want to start a race or change your vehicle, you have to reach a specific point that allows you to do so.

As I said earlier, I don't know if all of this is a good idea. I think it is not. Yet, I am forced, as a designer, to highlight the great execution of this idea. Criterion believe in it and formalized it seriously. This is highly respectable, this was very surprising at first. This might be very challenging. This might be very frustrating. But at the end of the day, I'm sure I'll remember it. That's certainly the mark of a good videogame, and that's what make me love playing videogame.
Hopefully, Burnout paradise is still a Burnout, and knocking a car on a wall is fun on its own. Paradise is simply another taste of the Burnout formula, which I am glad it exists.