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- From sophisticated F1 cars to exotic Japanese imports, American muscle to off road 4x4’s, the world of video driving games has never been better.
Ask 100 people which games console is king of the road when it comes to the best for driving based games and the split will be pretty close between the Xbox 360 and the PS3.
We take a look at what these colossus giants have to offer when it comes to 4 wheels and although not as sophisticated as the big two we also take a look at what the Nintendo Wii has to throw into the ring.
Pit Stops
Burnout Paradise Playstation 3 plus Xbox 360
The latest Burnout will take you down to Paradise City where the grass may not be green but the cars sure are pretty. Of course, they won’t look pretty for long because Burnout is all about smashing & crashing, and Paradise is no different. What IS different is the way the gameplay has been organized, or in this case hasn’t been. This open world street racer gives you a freedom not often seen in racing games, but will be familiar to players of games like Grand Theft Auto. There are no real questionable moral decisions in Burnout Paradise though, just adrenalin pumping action behind the wheel of some of the sweetest rides you’ve ever pimped.
A large part of the game is just exploring. You’ll find fences you can drive through, billboards you can knock over, and and many other aspects to the interactive environment. You will also find events. When you first start out you’re not really given any direction or instruction, there are no events marked on your map. It’s up to you to discover them and make your own path to greatness. As you explore and discover more events and more of the city the gameplay just keeps getting better because there is simply an enormous amount of content. While you start with nothing specific to do except drive around, it won’t take long before you know the city like your own backyard.
It can be a little intimidating the first few times you race because you don’t really know the area and rather than finish a given race you might actually make a wrong turn and get lost. The beauty of it is, unlike other racing games where you need to score well in a race to get to the next race, in Paradise City you can just drive a few blocks over from wherever you happen to find yourself and there’s a different race you can join in. Once you’ve been around the block a few times you’ll find yourself back at events you’d previously flubbed, but now better equipped to meet the challenge.
One of the more interesting things you can do in Burnout Paradise is send your car into a controlled death spiral and just topple end-over-end while smashing everyone and everything in sight as your car flies violently through the air. The more stuff you smash, the more points you get, the further your car goes. It is completely unrealistic and somewhat disturbing to watch. In other words, Awesome!
Burnout Paradise also offers an online mode that can be accessed from anywhere in the city with a flick of your thumb and allows up to 8 players to drive around the city simultaneously. You can take part in any number of organized challenges (there are a ton of them), or just drive around and smash into stuff/each other.
Fans of previous Burnout titles may initially get the wrong idea, but make no mistake: Paradise is Burnout through-and-through. The unconventional format may not be familiar but it genuinely works to the game’s advantage and takes the title in a new direction for the genre as well. The open format and laid-back progression means you can play for as long or short as you like and both hardcore and casual gamers will find themselves really loving this game.
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