Burnout Paradise Remastered (NSP, XCI) ROM

Burnout Paradise Remastered is a 2008 racing video game developed by Criterion Games and published by Electronic Arts for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Microsoft Windows. It was also released on the PlayStation Store and via Xbox Live Marketplace’s Games on Demand. It was later added to the libraries of Greatest Hits and Platinum Hits titles and was made backward compatible with the Xbox One in November 2016. Paradise’s gameplay is set in the fictional “Paradise City”, an open world in which players can compete in several types of races. Players can also compete online, which includes additional game modes, such as “Cops and Robbers”.

GAMEPLAY

Burnout Paradise is set in an open-world environment. Players have the opportunity to progress at their own pace and level; the game, unlike others, is not set to a rigid gameplay framework. According to Alex Ward, creative director of the game at developer Criterion Games, this game is a “complete reinvention” of the Burnout series. He also said that “to create truly next-generation gameplay, they needed to create a truly next-generation game from the ground up”. Initially, day and night cycles were not included in the game but a software update entitled “Davis” added this element to the game. For the first time in the series, records are now kept on a player’s driver’s license, including statistics such as the fastest time and biggest crash for every street in the game.

Completing events raises the driver rank, which unlocks access to new cars. In previous Burnout games, “Crash Mode” was a dedicated mode in which players were given multiple scenarios in which to cause the biggest crash. In Burnout Paradise, “Crash Mode”, now called “Showtime”, can be initiated at any time and place in the game. Showtime does differ from the previous incarnation of Crash Mode being that instead of crashing into a busy intersection and watching a crash play out, Showtime has bounced the vehicle around for as long as possible to gain points. During a race, players may now take any route to get to the destination. Races and other events are started by simply stopping at any of the traffic lights and applying the accelerator and brake at the same time.

The game features the ability to customize race settings, such as traffic, race routes, and including/excluding cars based on their boost types. Paradise’s damage system has also been reworked. There are now two different types of crashes based on the car’s condition after the crash. If the player’s car manages to retain all four wheels and does not break its chassis, the player can drive out of the crash and continue playing; this is called a “driveaway”. If a player’s car loses any wheels, the engine is damaged too much from an impact, the car lands on its side or roof or lands outside of the game’s map, the car is “wrecked” and the player will have to wait until their car is reset.

Cars dynamically compress and deform around objects they crash into. Cars now have manufacturer and model names, which are loosely based on real-world cars. Cars may not be “tuned up” or customized apart from color changes, which may be done in real-time by driving through the forecourt of a paint shop, or by selecting the color during vehicle selection. Other real-time changes include driving through the forecourt of a gas station to automatically refill the vehicle’s boost meter, and driving through the forecourt of a repair shop to automatically repair the vehicle.

MULTIPLAYER

The online lobby system used by most video games has been replaced by a streamlined system known as “Easy Drive”. While driving, players simply hit right on the D-pad and the ‘Easy Drive’ menu appears in the corner of their screen. From there, players can invite other players from their friends list. Once friends have joined the game, the host can select the event to play. A “Mugshots” camera feature is available for the PC via webcam, PlayStation 3 via a PS3-compatible webcam, Xbox 360 via Xbox Live Vision, PlayStation 4 via PlayStation Camera, and Xbox One via Kinect. When a player is taken down, their photo, or ‘Mugshot’, is shown to the aggressor, and vice versa. These photos can then be saved to the PC or console’s storage device.

DEVELOPMENT

The concept of Burnout Paradise came from director Alex Ward’s experience playing open-world games, specifically Crackdown, Test Drive Unlimited, and Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction. Ward found that with a title like Mercenaries the game’s world provided more entertainment than the developers likely planned and gave him a sense of freedom in playing around with inconsequential elements of the game. He wanted to take this idea into Burnout Paradise: “My philosophy was that if I and you both played it for three hours, we’d both do different things”. By focusing on discovery and exploration, the game ended up being a racing game without any defined tracks, a novel element at the time, which has since influenced several other racing game developers in their approaches.

Ward also wanted to develop the game as a social platform, leading to some of its design choices for multiplayer formats. Ward, in an interview in 2018, noted the difficulty he had in convincing Electronic Arts to follow his vision. The Burnout series at the time was already seen as a less lucrative property compared to the Need for Speed series by EA, and further, Ward found that EA was not amendable to the open-world idea he presented. Ward took steps that he could to make Burnout Paradise a desirable game before its release to show his superiors that his ideas were sound, which proved when the game sold more than one million copies within the first three months of release.