Several free game updates introduce new features such as a time-of-day cycle and motorcycles. The game was very well received upon release, with aggregate score sites reporting an average score of 88% and reporting an average score of 88 out of 100. The game won several awards in 2008, with , and all awarding it Best Driving Game. Reviewers felt the game had an excellent sense of speed, and praised the gameplay, a first for the Burnout series. A remastered version titled Burnout Paradise Remastered, which includes all downloadable content except the Time Savers Pack and support for higher-resolution displays, was released on 16 March 2018 for and , and on 21 August 2018 for Windows via EA's platform. As of 9 October 2018, the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 versions have been delisted from the North American Playstation Store and Xbox Live Marketplace, respectively. Burnout Paradise is set in an. Players have the opportunity to progress at their own pace and level; the game, unlike others, is not actually set to a rigid gameplay framework. For the first time in the series, records are now kept on a player's drivers license, including statistics such as fastest time and biggest crash for every street in the game. Showtime does differ from the previous incarnation of Crash Mode being that instead of crashing into a busy intersection and watching a crash play out, Showtime has you bounce the vehicle around for as long as possible to gain points. During a race players may now take any route to get to the destination. Races and other events are started by simply stopping at any of the traffic lights and applying the accelerator and brake at the same time. Paradise 's damage system has also been reworked. There are now two different types of crashes based on the car's condition after the crash. Cars dynamically compress and deform around objects they crash into. Cars now have manufacturer and model names, which are loosely based on real-world cars. Other real-time changes include driving through the forecourt of a gas station to automatically refill the vehicle's boost meter, and driving through the forecourt of a repair shop to automatically repair the vehicle. While driving, players simply hit right on the and the 'Easy Drive' menu appears in the corner of their screen. From there, players are able to invite other players from their friends list. Once friends have joined the game, the host can select the event to play. When a player is taken down, their photo, or 'Mugshot', is shown to the aggressor, and vice versa. These photos can then be saved to the PC or console's storage device. The concept of Burnout Paradise came from director Alex Ward's experience playing games, specifically , and. Ward found that with a title like Mercenaries that the game's world provided more entertainment than the developers likely planned and gave him a sense of freedom in playing around with inconsequential elements of the game. Ward also wanted to develop the game as a social platform, leading to some of its design choices for multiplayer formats. Ward, in an interview in 2018, noted the difficulty he had in convincing Electronic Arts to follow his vision. The Burnout series at the time was already seen as a less lucrative property compared to the Need for Speed series by EA, and further, Ward found that EA was not amendable to the open world idea he presented. Ward took steps that he could to make Burnout Paradise a desirable game prior to its release to show his superiors that his ideas were sound, which proved out when the game sold more than one million copies within the first three months of release. Updates Although initially excluded, Paradise was updated to add time-of-day as well as motorcycles. Burnout Paradise has undergone significant changes since its initial release. These have been implemented through several free patches and downloadable packs. However, it was made available to Xbox 360 users on 18 April 2008 and to PlayStation 3 users on the originally scheduled date of 24 April 2008 however, this removed store exclusive cars from being obtainable. Online Stunt Run involves up to 8 players who simultaneously compete for the highest stunt score within 2 minutes. Road Rage features two teams; one must race to a checkpoint while the other tries to stop them through takedowns. Marked Man is like a game of tag, with one player as the Marked Man who cannot see the other players and has no boost. In addition there are 70 new online challenges. These new challenges are different from Free Burn challenges, being timed. Timed challenges start once all players gather at a point of interest. The players then must all complete an objective within a certain time, such as jumping a ramp. The Bikes pack was released on 18 September 2008 on both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. On 25 September 2008 another update was made available which introduced support for the. Criterion Games originally stated that the trophies could be awarded retroactively to players who had already made certain achievements. However, when the update was released they stated that this had proved to be impossible and that users would have to start a new game in order to achieve some of the goals. On 5 February 2009, Criterion released the free 1. An in-game store was also added to all versions which allows users to purchase content from within the game. Windows version Burnout Paradise is the first game in the Burnout series to be released for the PC. Criterion made use of existing graphics technology and introduced enhanced visuals and the ability to play the game across multiple monitors to enhance widescreen playing. Players can link three 4:3 monitors to play in a aspect ratio. PC users are also able to download a trial version of the game for free. It includes the entire map and three cars but will expire after thirty minutes. All saved data will be carried over if the user decides to purchase the full game. A demo was made available on 13 December 2007 for both PlayStation 3 via and Xbox 360 via. On 4 January through 14 January, Criterion raised the maximum number of players for the online Freeburn in the Paradise demo to 8 players Online play for the demo has since been shut down completely. On 25 September 2008, Criterion announced that Paradise would be made available for download on the. Upon installation and first execution, all updates would also be downloaded and installed, which gives the player to have the latest version of Burnout Paradise. Burnout Paradise features for a number of brands, including , , , , , and. From 6 October 2008, in-game billboards featured ads for the then Democratic Presidential Candidate. The Obama campaign ran only on the Xbox 360 version of the game. On 22 November 2016, the Xbox 360 version of Burnout Paradise was made available for with the. On 16 December, it was made available to members for free until 31 December. In addition to the free updates, Criterion has released several optional, premium packs that add content like new cars, areas and modes. It focuses on single-console multiplayer gameplay, which offers a Freeburn Challenge-like setting but for players on the same console, who pass a single controller between players to complete challenges. The challenges are split into 'Speed', 'Stunt' and 'Skill' with up to 8 rounds and up to 8 players can play at once. The pack features four cars inspired by famous vehicles from film and television: the Jansen P12 88 Special based on the from the films , the Hunter Manhattan Spirit based on the from the films the Carson GT Nighthawk based on from the television series, , and the Hunter Cavalry Bootlegger based on from the TV series. The Legendary Cars pack was released on 19 February 2009 for the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360, and later in 2009 for the PC. The Toy Cars pack has been released in three packs. The full pack offers all toy cars along with the Nakamura Firehawk; a toy motorcycle, while the others split the content into two parts, minus the Firehawk. It featured two cars: the Carson Extreme Hotrod and the Montgomery Hawker Mech. The Carson was described as the fastest car in the game and featured a 'locked' boost; the car continues to boost until it is brought to a stop in any manner. The vehicle dynamics system were rewired so that the Carson performs more realistically than any other car in the game. The Montgomery Hawker Mech also featured a unique boost system, which allows the player to willingly switch between the three different boost types at the touch of a button. The content does not involve AI Police patrol cars but instead borrows from the Cops and Robbers modes of older Burnout games, notably. Players are split into teams, the Cops and the Robbers. Teams attempt to return gold bars to their respective bases to score points. Every Paradise car except Carbon and Premium DLC cars receives a Police livery with the content. The island puts emphasis on the playground aspect of Burnout. The developers mentioned that in their telemetry they noticed that players congregate in areas of Paradise City that lend themselves to stunt-driving, and so the idea was to create an entire island to accommodate player desire. Big Surf Island also features new vehicles, which includes the Carson Dust Storm buggy, a car tailor-made for stunts. It features several new events, billboards, smash gates, and mega jumps. New Trophies and Achievements were also added along with a new 'Big Surf Island License' to obtain. The Cops and Robbers Pack and Big Surf Island were never released for the Microsoft Windows release of the original version, but are now included in the Remastered release. Burnout Paradise Remastered A remastered version of Burnout Paradise was released for and consoles on 16 March 2018; a version for Windows was released for subscribers on 16 August and was fully released on 21 August 2018 via platform. The remaster contains all the previously released downloadable content, except for the Time Savers Pack a DLC pack that unlocks all vehicles in the game without the need to progress through single-player , and support for higher-resolution monitors up to resolutions with 60 support. However, some reviewers were disappointed that there was no option to restart a race or event. Instead the player had to either fail the event, or cancel the race by bringing the vehicle to a stop for a few seconds, and then return to the specific place on the map to try that particular race or event again. Despite this, the option to restart an event was later added to the game via a free software update. Awards Paradise won several awards in 2008, with , and all awarding it Best Driving Game. Additionally, Paradise won GameSpot's award for Best Downloadable Content in 2008. Retrieved 20 February 2018. Retrieved 1 June 2009. Archived from on 18 January 2009. Retrieved 16 January 2009. Archived from on 7 January 2010. Retrieved 11 November 2009. Archived from on 15 July 2009. Retrieved 11 November 2009. Retrieved 11 November 2009. Archived from on 7 January 2010. Retrieved 11 November 2009. Retrieved 15 December 2009. Archived from on 7 January 2010. Retrieved 11 November 2009. Retrieved 11 November 2009. Archived from PDF on 29 February 2008. Retrieved 23 September 2007. Retrieved 11 November 2009. Retrieved 6 March 2018. Archived from on 29 August 2009. Retrieved 1 June 2009. Archived from on 10 January 2009. Retrieved 1 June 2009. Archived from on 11 July 2012. Retrieved 28 September 2008. Archived from on 20 January 2013. Retrieved 30 January 2009. Archived from on 16 January 2009. Retrieved 23 January 2009. Retrieved 14 January 2008. Archived from on 6 January 2008. Archived from on 9 January 2009. Retrieved 1 November 2008. Retrieved 14 October 2008. Retrieved 18 December 2016. Retrieved 16 December 2016. Archived from on 16 December 2008. Retrieved 31 October 2008. Archived from on 11 July 2012. Retrieved 31 October 2008. Archived from on 17 February 2009. Archived from on 8 July 2011. Retrieved 5 March 2009. Archived from on 18 December 2008. Retrieved 21 November 2008. Retrieved 17 April 2009. Archived from on 22 April 2009. Retrieved 17 April 2009. Archived from on 8 February 2009. Retrieved 7 February 2009. Archived from on 6 June 2008. Archived from on 23 March 2009. Archived from on 2 December 2008. Archived from on 4 December 2008. Archived from on 29 June 2009. Retrieved 1 June 2009. Archived from on 23 March 2009. Retrieved 16 August 2018. Retrieved 5 September 2008. Retrieved 5 September 2008. Retrieved 14 November 2013. Retrieved 16 March 2018. Retrieved 16 March 2018. Retrieved 19 January 2010. Retrieved 19 January 2010. Retrieved 19 January 2010. Retrieved 19 January 2010. Archived from on 21 March 2009. Retrieved 19 January 2010. Archived from on 17 January 2010. Retrieved 19 January 2010. Archived from on 23 January 2013. Retrieved 19 January 2010. Retrieved 19 January 2010. Retrieved 19 January 2010. Archived from on 14 September 2008. Retrieved 31 August 2008.
