Burnout Paradise (Xbox 360)

Who wants to go fast? Let's see a show of hands, people.
1/31/2008 12:00 AM | 0 Comments | Page 2 of 3

New this year are the Marked Man events. They also require you to get from point A to point B, only there is no set amount of time involved, and there is a pack of artificial-intelligence-controlled cars that are hell-bent on stopping you from reaching point B.

Stunt Runs challenge you to boost and drift between the city's stunt locales (I suggest the tops of parking garages) and combo your way via Barrel Rolls, Super Jumps, etc. to a certain target score. As a salty Burnout veteran, I confess that I had the most trouble wrapping my head around Stunt Run events, namely because they seem so damn out of place here. Burnout has never been about racking up style points à la Tony Hawk or SSX. In fact, they seemed so counterintuitive to me that I avoided Stunt Run events until the latter stages of the game, when I was basically strong-armed into doing them.

All events appear as colored dots on your heads-up display. Looking for a race? Head to a blue dot. Marked Man? Yellow dots are the ticket. Burning Route? Orange dots are the way to go. Once you reach the dot, you'll be prompted to press the left and right triggers simultaneously to launch the event.

According to the box cover, there are 120 unique events in the game, yet I still wound up feeling like I was running the same events again and again. I was always running a Marked Man event to the Naval Yard, always running yet another race to the baseball stadium, always running a one-on-one race to the dreaded Wind Farm. (Do not under any circumstances go to the Wind Farm. It's a great many miles outside the city, and there's nothing to do once you get there except turn around and make the long, dull, winding drive back -- and maybe sing along to that Avril Lavigne song. OK, baby, you win -- sure, you can be my girlfriend.)

Even when I tried new, uncharted dots -- dots in remote corners of the Paradise City map that I was certain I hadn't tried -- I somehow still wound up back at the Naval Yard, the baseball stadium, and yes, the god-awful Wind Farm. Despite Criterion's commendable effort to create a dynamic, fun-to-explore cityscape -- and it really is dynamic and fun to explore -- the game still winds up feeling cursed with a serious case of déjà vu.

I'm also sad to see the exclusion of the cause-as-much-damage-as-possible Crash Mode, a series staple since Burnout 2. Instead, we get the preposterous Katamari-like Showtime Mode, which, after a crash, lets you roll your car on its side around intersections trying to bump into other vehicles. Though the implementation of an open-world city is a step forward for Burnout and Criterion, Showtime Mode feels like a very big step in the wrong direction to me.

Anyone stricken with OCD will find plenty over which to obsess in Paradise. In addition to those 120 events, each and every street in the city holds two additional challenges: Best Time and Best Crash. Figure out where a street starts and stops, then get from one end of it to the other as quickly as possible to break the Best Time record. Best Crash requires you to get into an epic fender bender on the street, and then Showtime your way around, touching/nudging as many other vehicles as you possibly can.