Xanadu! Utopia! Valhalla!

While Burnout Dominator was something of an incremental update on Revenge, Criterion has taken Burnout’s original concept, thrown away all but the essentials, and given us a lot more to love. Instead of racing on a collection of tracks, you’re thrown into Paradise City (yes, the game even begins with the song) and told to go forth, crash, and burn(out).

Paradise’s heart is still in the right place—there’s lots of racing, and lots of crashing. Thanks to the power of the X360, crashes are minutely detailed, and so beautiful you’ll want to crash again. Racing speeds start at eye-widening and move up to eye-popping—there is much adrenaline to be secreted here.

My favourite new game mode is Marked Man—you have to survive the journey from point A to point B, while other racers try to take you down. Opponents in this mode are particularly nasty too. Race events evoke mixed feelings—you’re only told your destination, and you get to choose the route you take to it. While this is nice—you can blast your way through shortcuts and win easily—it also means that in your first few races, you’ll take a wrong turn and lose your way.

For some reason, Criterion has removed the tremendously fun aftertouch takedowns (taking down opponents even after you’ve crashed) from the game, but after spending so much time in the game, I’m not too sore.

                                                                                        Rating: 9/10
                                                                                   Developer: Criterion
                                                                               Publisher: Electronic Arts
                                                                                 Distributor: Redington
                                                                        Contact:xbox360@redington.co.in
                                                                                     Price: Rs 1,999

Burnout Paradise is easily one of the best-implemented games ever. Explore Paradise city all you want, find shortcuts, super jumps and other secrets, and when you want to start an event, drive up to your nearest traffic signal. The Multiplayer mode is loaded with different sets of challenges for two, three or more players, so there’s a lot to do when you’re online. Even if you don’t go online, it’ll probably take you a hundred or more hours to actually hit the “100% Complete” mark, and it’ll be time well spent.