Burnout Paradise PS3 Preview

The demo for Burnout Paradise came to the PSN and Xbox live a couple days ago. Sure, you might think it's just a demo, so what's the big deal?

Well, I have never played any of the Burnout games before, but I have been following this one for some time. My one friend talks about the older ones and I have heard nothing but good about them. This article is a preview for Burnout Paradise on the Playstation 3.

So I downloaded the demo and started to play. You don't have any choices for cars; they give you a beat up older muscle car, which actually isn't all that bad of a ride. The map is considerably restricted (obviously) because it's a demo, but it gives you a nice taste of Paradise City.

There are a couple different "races" that I have found, but there might be more. One is a burning route (get from point A to point B) and the other is a regular race with other cars. The first time I tried one it was difficult because I did not know the map and I had to keep constantly looking at the mini-map in the lower right corner, causing me to crash several times. Once you get used to the layout of the city, it is much easier. You will find more and more shortcuts that help to avoid traffic and cut down time.

What makes this game really amazing is the crashes. In an older article of mine I said how DiRT was great when it came to crashing cars. Burnout Paradise tops DiRT in my opinion.

When you are flying down the road and you clip an oncoming car, it feels, and even sounds like it really happened. During the actual crash there will be tons of particles flying everywhere, sparks and all sorts of crunched metal. If your tires don't fall off most of the time you can just drive away, obviously with considerable damage. Once I crashed and my front left tire was caught and couldn't rotate. It dragged along the pavement leaving a giant skid mark and caused my car to be a lot slower. The crashes are a huge part of the game and really make it more enjoyable.