A brand new open world racing game is here! Or I should say, an older game that has been remastered. That game is Burnout Paradise and it has been remastered to play on today’s generation of game systems as well as the PC.

The game actually came out on Friday, March 16th which was yesterday. The game has been released by EA, but was developed by Criterion which are the original game makers of the Burnout series. I will definitely have to say that they have done a good job.

The Price

Before I get into the actual gameplay portion of the game, I do want to talk about the price. Normally for a game like this it would cost you the normal price of $60 for today’s games.

Burnout Paradise Remastered comes with the original content that we saw in the previous generation version of this game as well as the content that was later added such as Big Surf Island and a number of downloadable vehicles and other extras.

EA decided to list the price for this game at $40 and I certainly took advantage of it. Usually though I go out to a store or maybe even shop on Amazon and buy a physical copy of a game, but this time I actually chose to buy the game digitally and download it and believe it or not, I actually downloaded it to my PS4 Pro. I might as well get the best version graphically.

The Graphics

All I have to say here is, wow! They did a really good job with the graphics here! Everything looks really sharp and vibrant and the colors really pop out at you. It retains the classic look of Burnout, but with the much needed upgrade to HD graphics.

The draw distance is really impressive and I love how far off in the distance you can see the beautiful skyline of Paradise City as well as the mountains in other parts of the map as well. The cars and other vehicles have a very slick and realistic look to them.

It still has kind of what you can consider an arcadey look to it, but a very polished and well done arcadey look. Since this is a car game about adrenaline filled races and extreme car wrecks, it’s understandable as to why it has that look, but regardless, it is a nice improvement over the PS3 and XBox 360 versions.

The Controls

There’s nothing complicated here about driving around in this open world racer. They’re pretty straight forward, the right trigger button is to accelerate and the left trigger is for the brakes. The X button is to engage the nitro whether you’re at a full bar or not.

The controls in Burnout Paradise make it easy to pick up and play since you don’t have to worry about complicated controls from a more hardcore racing series such as the GT series or the Forza series (excluding Horizon) on the XBox.

Anyone can practically pick up the controller and play the game and there are a few other buttons that do other things as well as you can use one of the stick controls to pan around the car to get a good view of your surroundings. I’m still getting used to the game and all the other things in it so I’ll definitely do an update in the future.

The Gameplay

If you’re new to Burnout Paradise (which I suspect not many are) then the premises of the game and of the series as a whole is adrenaline filled races and causing as many crashes and wrecks as you can. Burnout Paradise Remastered does an excellent job of doing this and keeping the spirit of the series intact.

When first starting out, you get a basic, but somewhat fast vehicle and what is known as a learners permit in the game. There are different classes of licenses in the game that you have to work up to, but that’s what makes it fun as there are MANY challenges spread throughout the map that you can participate in.

Now with some of the challenges however, you have to have a certain type of vehicle to participate in, but as you progress through the game, you’ll be able to unlock those special vehicles that will be needed later on.

I’ve only done a couple of the challenges or modes in the game so far. The first one I tried out was a challenge where I had to reach 5,000 points before time runs out. In order for me to do that, I had do some crazy drifting, get to high speeds, and do crazy jumps as well. Since I’m getting used to the game again, I didn’t quite reach 5,000 in the time allotted, but it was a good learning experience.

The second challenge I did was known as Road Rage where there are other (AI controlled) challengers that join you and you have to reach a certain amount of take downs in the allotted time in order to be successful. These other challengers will also do whatever they can to take you out so it will definitely be an adrenaline experience since you’re trying to take them out without getting taken down yourself.

I only have to get two take downs in this challenge to win which was quite easy to achieve. Still, though, I kept going until the time went down and it was quite fun as I was causing all sorts of wrecks to the other challengers. I do have a short video of this particular challenge that you can check out below.

I’m just getting started and it’s a blast!

Since I’ve just started with this game, I certainly have a ways to go to get the full experience of it. I still have yet to play the online portion of it and I haven’t tried the content that I missed from the original version of the game.

For one thing, I’m very eager to explore Big Surf Island and see what that environment has to offer. There are also loads of shortcuts in this game as well as LOTS of insane jumps and bulletin boards you can crash through.

There’s also lots of vehicles I need to unlock including the motorcycles and I know there are other special types of vehicles such as car from the Ghostbusters that I can’t wait to try out.

All I can tell you is to stay tuned because I will have more updates as I delve further into the game and will also give a proper review of it as well. For $40 you can’t go wrong with an open world racer such as this and it will definitely keep you on the edge of your seat as you work to take down other cars and other players in this game. Hopefully you enjoyed my Burnout Paradise Gameplay Impressions and check out the video below of my take downs.