REVIEW – Wow, even Electronic Arts starts to re-release games. Burnout Paradise was a fun game in 2008/2009, depending on whether you played on console or PC (yes, there was roughly a YEAR of difference between the release dates…), and I’d still give it roughly a 9 out of 10 even today. What about a decade later, in 2018?

 

Notice how I didn’t outright say whether this version of the game is a PORT or not. Devil May Cry HD Collection was a port in my opinion, but here, we’re close to the same situation, even though DigitalFoundry says this remaster is more than just a port. Let’s take a look at a no-commentary comparison then…

Take me down to the Paradise City…

After getting our first license (where we can even slap on our ugly, disgusting face, too), there will be a difference from previous Burnout titles: there’s going to be an open-world-ish city with roughly five city parts! Nomen est omen, you’ll have to crash and destroy in this game, but there will also be tasks where you get your start and end point, and the way you get to the finish is up to you.

In Road Rage, you get a time limit, and you’ll have to get rid of most of your rivals, in Marked Man, you get a target location, while the others will try to destroy your car altogether – you either win by escaping to the escape point, or just face destruction; and in Showtime, you’ll have to create the biggest car pile-up in a junction possible. You can enjoy most of these modes in multiplayer, too, where the vibes of Burnout Paradise come through unfiltered. The game doesn’t want to be taken seriously, and this is why it’s successful. Thankfully, Electronic Arts did not modify the progression system, so there are no microtransactions either. Thank god, it’s a positive then, which sadly describes modern gaming…

Contentwise, this version has all the DLC, including the bikes, the police antics (Cops & Robbers), as well as the self-explanatory Toy Cars DLC, where your cars aren’t 1:1 sized, real models. Your cars can be divided into three categories: Stunt, Speed, Aggression. If you happen to have the wrong type, it’s going to be annoying to drive back to the junkyard, which was an issue with the original game, too.

…where the grass is green, and the girls are pretty…

Audiovisually, the re-release of Burnout Paradise gets the bare minimum done: graphically, it improved a bit, and the entire soundtrack from the PS3/X360 original was lifted over, so you can play Paradise City from Guns’n’Roses on maximum volume while causing chaos, or even play Depeche Mode.

Back to the graphics: the RenderWare engine-using game isn’t looking impressive compared to modern titles, such as Gran Turismo Sport, but at least you can play it on a 4K resolution on a PlayStation 4 Pro via checkerboard rendering, so at least you HAVE improvements on the stronger console…

…please take me home

If I had to rate the REMASTERED version of the game, then I’d give it a kind-hearted 8 out of 10. It’s not screwed by microtransactions, but it’s not as impressive looking as it could have been. The game originally lacked a Crash mode, which would have been a good fit here, too. In my eyes, Burnout 3: Takedown is THE game to scale to in the franchise, and Paradise isn’t as good as that title – it slightly falls short of that.

As I rated Devil May Cry HD Collection’s NEW version, I’ll do the same thing here, although I cannot write the story in the rating, nor the physics, as it is an arcade title altogether… so for this one title, I’ll come up with something unique. If you had the game on PC, where it launched nine years ago, giving you no excuse not to be capable of running it, then don’t get it again. If Criterion weren’t semi-killed by Electronic Arts, I’d say they should make a new game, but that would be f*cked by the publisher’s greedy approach. So let’s end it here…

-V-

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Publisher: Electronic Arts

Developer: originally Criterion, ported by Stellar Entertainment

Genre: arcade crashing racing fun

Release date: March 16, 2018