If you enjoy racing games for realistic mechanics, real world car licenses, and the challenge of not crashing into everything in sight, then Burnout Paradise probably isn't the best game for you. However, if you're looking for unbridled fun where destruction is encouraged and the mechanics are more so focused on an over the top experience rather than realism, then I can't recommend the game enough. Now that Burnout Paradise is finally available on a handheld platform in the Nintendo Switch, it's the perfect time to give the game a try if you haven't already.
Burnout Paradise does not take itself seriously, and neither should you. Nitrous boosts are over exaggerated and earned unrealistically, the open world encourages destruction, and certain game modes task you with smashing your opponents into a wall instead of beating them cleanly in a race. It's certainly not a pure racer, and that's why I love it so much.
The absurdity of this game is best represented by its different game modes. Stunt Run sets a point total that you're asked to reach by doing insane stunts such as massive jumps and barrel rolls. Marked Man tasks you with getting from point A to point B while surviving the onslaught of bulky vehicles that are looking too smash you into the wall.
There are also your standard checkpoint races, as well as Burning Routes, where you need to reach an objective in a set amount of time in order to unlock a new and improved version of your current vehicle. Each mode is certainly entertaining in its own way, but one of them stands above the others and truly defines what makes up Burnout Paradise.
The most entertaining game type in Paradise is easily road rage. During road rage, you have one goal and one goal only: wreck the cars of your opponents. You can do this is a variety of different ways, although the main objective is always to destroy other vehicles. This is easily some of the most entertaining gameplay you'll find in a racing game, despite the fact that it's 12 years old.
Each of these modes are a blast to play online as well. If you have some friends with Paradise, linking up and cruising across Paradise City together provides for hours of fun. That, and relentlessly smashing each other into a wall never gets old.
While crashing your car in any racing game isn't going to help you reach your goal, Burnout Paradise certainly encourages it more than others. Each time you crash, you'll enter an incredible slow motion cinematic that looks like something straight out of a Fast and Furious movie. Even before the remaster, these sequences were downright impressive, and they certainly serve as a consolation for crashing your car.
On top of that, every time you crash you can choose to enter a mini game called "Showtime", where your goal is quite literally to crash into many cars as possible. You can control in which direction your car bounces, and your score is determined by how much property damage you rack up. It's absurd and absolutely entertaining all at the same time.
Although the game doesn't have the luxury of real world car brands, the cars that do come with this game are a blast to handle. You can collect different vehicles for different game modes as well. Each vehicle is classified as either speed, stunt, or aggression, and each one will better help you complete the game's different modes.
My personal favorite is easily the Montgomery GT 2400, which takes clear inspiration from the 1992 Nissan R92CP. Not only do I love the way this car looks, but the fact that you can drive an insanely high speeds and the drift into a turn before activating you boost without missing a single beat is one of the most satisfying ways to defeat your opponents.
Despite coming out in 2008, Burnout Paradise's remaster keeps the game feeling fresh. I could easily see this being a smaller scale game released in 2020, and I have just as much fun with it today as I did 12 years ago. Now that it's finally on the Nintendo Switch, I can take that fun anywhere I want to, and the game provides for one of the best ways to pass the time while on the go.
All in all, Burnout Paradise is like a popcorn action movie in the form of a racing game. If you're looking to be enthralled in realism, you've come to the wrong place. But if all you want is a hell of time driving around and smashing into everything in sight, you can't go wrong with this title. Racing games might not be my go-to, but Burnout Paradise is hands down my favorite in the genre.