Paradise City. It's where the grass is green and, apparently, the girls are quite pretty. What you might not know, is that this Utopian wonderland also doubles-up as a battleground for dozens of reckless drivers who no doubt possess more speeding tickets and parking infractions than hair on their heads. Even better, they're just as friendly as they sound as they'll not hesitate to leave skid marks where your gullet should be if you decide to ascend through the ranks of burner hierarchy. And, of course, being the brute of a gamer you are; your intentions are to do just that.

To build up your reputation and rise to the top of Paradise, you must go through a series of different licenses. You naturally begin on a 'learner's permit' for the games tutorial stages but as you slowly build up momentum you make your way through letter-graded licenses beginning at D and progressing accordingly. Your ultimate goal is to receive your Elite license to truly become one of the legendary burners of the city. You gain points for your license by finding success in the seemingly endless events scattered throughout Paradise City; you heard right, you want points on your license in this game.

Burnout Paradise is a far cry from every other game that has come before it in the franchise. This is due to the shift from being a menu-based racer to becoming a mature free-roaming open world experience where your path is your own and you get to the top however you can. This is undoubtedly a positive step for the series allowing the player the freedom to achieve at their own pace. Each set of traffic lights in Paradise has its own event assigned to it and to commence it, a driver simply pulls up and hits the break and gas together.

The game emcee will then let you know where it is you begin on the map, and where it is you have to get to; the rest is on your shoulders and the entire map remains open for each event forcing you to not only win, but do so while navigating to the finish line through the many streets of the city. This is a fine example of freedom in Burnout and it's a feature that has arrived just in time. Having said that, this freedom comes at a price. While having to navigate your own way to a victory is satisfying in a sense, the on-screen HUD isn't nearly detailed enough to make this an easy task and you'll find yourself constantly bringing up the map to plan oncoming turns.

Sadly, this isn't the only bothering factor regarding the freedom we've been granted. When things start to become challenging and you start to lose events, you'll notice the ability to simply hit start and select 'retry race' is no longer there. That's right, if you drive five miles across the map only to be pipped at the post, you've got to drive five miles back dwelling on your failure if you wish to retry to that same event. Luckily, however, with the sheer amount of events in Burnout Paradise, you'll likely wind up right next to another event upon losing, anyway! And fortunately, aside from events, there are plenty of 'collectibles', if you will, for drivers to get their grubby paws on.

Scattered throughout the city, there are billboards, super-jumps and blockaded short-cuts to discover; add them up and you've got over five hundred extra things you could find yourself doing in Paradise City, so for those perfectionists out there; you've certainly got your hands full with over one hundred standard events coupled with a tonne of 'collectibles' (for lack of a better word).

Aside from all of the races, marked man sprints and road rage events, you also have the ability to rule each of the world's roads. Aptly dubbed 'road rules', this feature allows you to conquer any stretch of tarmac in the game via two ways, by setting the speed run where you must sprint from end to end breaking the record before you, and you must also set the Showtime record for the road. For fans of Crash mode, which appeared in past games, you'll be saddened to hear it's no longer with us; however Showtime does a fine job filling the hefty boots left behind.

The major new feature with Showtime is that the player can utilize it at any point in time simply by simultaneously triggering the bumpers. This jack-knifes your ride as you set out to cause vehicular carnage city-wide. Not only is it basic, it's a great deal of fun. With the ability to rack up millions of dollars in damage and pile up hundreds of cars, it takes the former Crash mode to a whole new level. How could this not be embraced lovingly by Crash enthusiasts?

The all important thing, away from your options, is how the cars handle. And I'm glad to say, like in every Burnout game thus far, the cars handle beautifully. With the different class of cars ranging from Aggression to Stunt, you'll find cars of many attributes that are suited to particular events. One of the better aggression cars may be slow, but it's got muscle that'll tear doors off of a smaller stunt car. Each car is designed flawlessly for its trade and handles well enough to still make Burnout what it has been since 'Takedown'; the king of Arcade racers.

While Burnout Paradise is a sleek and attractive game, evidence of the name is hard to find. When paradise comes to mind, I think bright, exuberant colours that have an angelic aura about them. However, in Burnout Paradise, we're offered a stone cold look, where you seem to be always caught in a half-cast cloudy day. Sure, there are palm trees but it seems too dark a colour palette was used as the game ends up feeling too cold and clinical to live up to it's Paradise tag. But aside from that, Burnout Paradise is simply gorgeous. The city is not only enormous, it's beautifully modelled and has great levels of detail; sure, there's also heaps of advertising on billboards, but its EA, could we really expect any less? The cars themselves are sleek and sexy but look even better when they're twisting around each other as the physics in the game allow for the most spectacular crashes in the entire series so far (which is to be expected).

Along with looking the goods, the crashes sound brutal as the piercing sound of scrapping metal is in heavy supply in Burnout Paradise. The game also boasts an impressive soundtrack, as we've come to expect from EA by now. From Guns n' Roses supplying the obvious title track, to groups the likes of Faith No More, Killswitch Engage and Twisted Sister, there are some quality groups on show. And a plus is, for those who aren't down with the hip-hop, you can always just go into EA Trax and disable the genre! Oh, how sweet it is.

If there's one problem though with the in-game audio, it's the annoying DJ Atomika, but he doesn't distract from things too much (at least he's not as bad as DJ Stryker) and if you want him to shut up, just disable "tips” in the game options.

One thing I wasn't able to access with our build of the game was the online functions of Burnout Paradise. Though what I could tell is that the online is accessed very easily, and it only takes a brief navigation through a menu based from the D-Pad to switch from offline into online play. Even with the aforementioned Showtime and Road Rules, you can set a local score for your console, and then with the press of a button, you can be waging war for the online crown; the integration of the online in Paradise is certainly astounding and as seamless as what we saw in Test Drive Unlimited. If you're interested in the online, check back at a later date to this review, where I'll certainly add more when I get to play it online with the XBW crew and members once more people have it.