BurnOut Paradise plays like a I wanted Forza 2 to play like. The free running experience give you an adrenaline rush like no other racing game I have ever played. The overall experience made me want to play it to its completion. The ability to unlock new cars at a gradual pace left me wanting more for my collection.

Graphics 96%

BurnOut Paradise brings the total package of graphics to the 360. Face paced frame rates (without hiccups), fine detail on the vehicles (which are awesome), and incredible crashes physics. Ya so what if there are no officially licensed vehicles. The cars themselves are awesome and represent all different types of styles: sleek, racy, brutal, fast, muscle. There are vintage cars (one ranging back to the the Original Gangsta Cars of Al Capone), modern racer cars, and pretty much any type of high end sports model types that you could imagine. The crashes are amazing. The slow motion we have become accustomed to will make you cringe when you see your nice new speedy racer wrapped around a corner of a building or steel support beam.

Sound 98%

The Sound Track of BurnOut Paradise just might be one of the best sound tracks of all time for any video game. Every song makes you want to drive fast…then a little faster. Not only does every vehicle look different they all sound different. You can check out the sound track here.

Gameplay 92%

The single player game allows you to unlock several vehicles that you can take online and play against random opponents. Single player missions give plenty of different ways in which to experience the rush all depending on your style of play.

Stunt play gives you a target goal to reach and assigns you points for each stunt you do, ie. barrel rolls, jumps, jumping through bill boards and drifts. Stunt play is fun to play and if you are good at remembering locations while driving 200+ mpg good for you…you will do well.

Road Rage puts you up against an endless supply of other vehicles to smash up against in order to rack up the tally board. You will start out only having to dispatch a handful of foes and later you will have to take down a couple of dozen. You will have to do all of it before your car is totally destroyed. Every vehicle has a toughness that is associated with it. The stronger a vehicle is the better off you will be. While in the event you can also take your car through repair shops on the fly in order to be repaired to keep your drive alive. You will not be able to go through the same one twice in any given event.

Marked Man pits you against a bunch of speedy vehicles that there sole purpose is to take you down before you reach your objective. Once again the stronger the vehicle the better off you will be. In this event speed is your friend as well as making your path to goal as straight as possible. No matter how tough your vehicle it is easy to take it down while you are going around a corner.

Races are pretty straight forward. You against a handful of other cars (ranging from 1 other car to 7 others) from point A to point B. The better you know the short cuts the better.

Burning Routes are car specific and sometimes and can be tough as nails. Some of them give you little or no error. You take one of your cars to a specific Burning Route and race against a stop watch. If you win one of these events you will get an upgraded version of the vehicle you just one the race with. Sometimes it will be beneficial to you to trace your route before you start out.

Online play is a whole new batch of missions that can be played with you and your buddies depending on how many people you have in the freeplay session. Some of them are as simply as all of you must jump through a bill board or all of you must meet at one point. The ones that I completed were really fun and a blast to play with my friends. Unfortunately only in the 1v1 session was there a crash challenge (ie take out your buddy), but perhaps in the future they will be adding more demolition derby style challenges.

As an extra bonus every so often a car will be released on the streets for you to chase down. Once you take down the new driver you will get to add the car into your collection. Some of these little chases were very fast pace and gave me a real sense of accomplishment.

If you like driving games you must own BurnOut Paradise. A blast to play and I never once felt frustrated about the task ahead of me. Although I have officially “beat” the game. I still have a lot left to play. The ton of online content I have yet to play. The chance to beat every mission available for more rewards and a handful more cars to get.

My score: 95%