Okay, so for my birthday I got the best racing game ever.. Burnout Paradise! The game’s amazing features and expansions can have me talking for hours!
The first wickedly amazing thing is the graphics! Not only are they crystal clear, but they only require a one-hundred-twenty-eight megabyte video card (I bought it for the PC). To get graphics this good, you generally need a two-hundred-fifty-six megabyte video card, although I have seen worse graphics than Paradise on a two-five-six video card. The colors are vibrant, and the shadows and reflections are excellent, which can be hard to pull off in video games.
Crashing is also one the coolest parts of the game (well, not cool, but fun to watch). They (EA) must have an amazing graphics engine because the crashes are so real they make me cringe. The cars have very realistic damage, e.g. paint is scratched, metal twists, sparks fly, and dents appear. If it is an exceptionally powerful crash, you watch it in slow-motion, and your car is given a drive-away or wrecked status. If it is wrecked, your car is restarted where you crashed with partial repairs. Also, I learned that there is no driver in the car. I busted the doors off in a crash and saw an empty seat. Just a little creepy!
The cars and levels are amazing. You can use three types of cars: stunts (excellent at jumps and speeds), speed (fast and nimble), and aggression (strong and large). My personal favorites are aggression. Why outrun them when you can smash them? The levels include race (race against others), road rage (smash hostiles off the road), stunt run (jumps and barrel rolls all around Paradise), and much more.
There are many expansion packs, too:
- Codename Cagney: Has online multi-player extras.
- Bikes Pack: Adds some lovely motorcycles to the already great game.
- Trophies Pack (PS3 only): Support for the PS3 trophies system.
- Party Pack: Offline multi-player.
- Legendary Cars: New, sweet cars.
- Toy Cars: Cars with a new toy appearance.
- Boost Specials: Sweet boostin’ new cars.
- Big Surf Island: Released June 11, 2009, this will allow access to the formerly inaccessible island.
- Cops and Robbers: Just as it sounds, cop chases. Released April 30th (No PC varient yet)
- Ultimate Box: This has the original game, Codename Cagney, Bikes Pack, Trophies Pack (PS3 only), and Party Pack.
