Burnout Paradise for Xbox 360 Reviews by Gamers

The game is great, freeburn is awesome, and online is awesome, get to take out people, make rivals. Just awesome....The gameplay is just phenomonal, and the graphics are stunning....This game is way better than Need for speed pro street....I would recommend this game to anyone...If you wanna race just pull up to a stop light and press LT & RT at the same time and your racing. Game is just awesome

I applaud Criterion's effort to update the Burnout franchise. There is no real structure to the career as you are simply given free reign in a really large city with events at virtually all intersections. And if there are no intersections, you can always go for a record time on that road or to unleash the Showtime mode to produce a massive wreck over a long stretch of real estate.

The game, though, is not without significant flaws, but let's look at the good first.

Burnout provides a feeling of speed that no game can really match. That there is no apparent pop-up or framerate issues is a technical marvel of the game.

The removal of the Crash mode led to some outrage, but I personally prefer Showtime as it is. It lacks the puzzle elements of Crash mode, but it's more fun and you feel like you have more impact on the goings-on.

Well, for the most part. The lack of a warp feature is a huge omission. The west part of the map is lacking a lot of content, but a lot of races end over there. So, you complete a race and you then have to drive your way back to the action for what seems like an eternity.

And the races are bunk. I can see what Criterion was shooting for --- a race where you can take any route you wish to get to the ending --- but what you tend to end up with is a race where if you manage to win, it's usually blind luck.

But, Marked Man is a fun little mode, with A.I that is exceptionally brutal. Road Rage is fun, but exceptionally easy. We then get Stunt Run, which tends to be the ugly stepchild of the gaming modes. Not a whole lot of fun, to be perfectly honest.

Criterion has produced what is the best arcade racer on the market. A game like this makes fare like Need For Speed very superfluous. It won't end, mind you, but it should. You're really not going to be able to outproduce this game or this series, which has been nigh perfect for several iterations now.