Game Title: Burnout Paradise Category: Arcade Racing Console: PS3, Xbox 360, PS2, PSP Publisher: EA
Burnout franchise has now long been the king of arcade racing. Its tight controls and overwhelming sense of speed have catapulted it to the top of the genre, and few games have come even close to matching the series' strengths. But while Criterion has garnered tons of praise from both gamers and critics alike, the studio never sits still. With every release, the developer tweaks the core formula in an attempt to offer something new to gamers.
Slam, Shunt and Wreck opponents in cross-town race events, where YOU decide the fastest route to the finish line. Hit the jumps and find shortcuts, smash through barriers and get to the places that other racers can't reach to get that competitive edge!
Just pull up to over 120 stoplights and spin your wheels to start one of five different events – the classic Race, Road Rage and Burning Route, and the all-new Stunt Run and Marked Man modes.
The biggest change introduced in Burnout Paradise is the move to an open world, the streets of Paradise City (cue Guns 'N' Roses title track). The entire city is open at the start of the game, with the idea being that you can do whatever you want, whenever you want. Not all of the events are present at the start, mind you, and you'll have to put in a lot of time to unlock the game's roughly 75 cars, but you're never limited in the options.
Team Up
Join forces with up to 7 of your buddies to beat hundreds of online FreeBurn Challenges together or heat up the competition and go head-to-head in user created race routes.
Muscle cars, exotics, hot rods and even supercharged SUVs, engineered to look beautiful whether they're brand new or mashed into scrap. Choose from stunt, speed or aggression car classes, each built with their own unique boost ability.
Game Title: FlatOut Ultimate Carnage Category: Racing Console: PS3, Xbox 360 Publisher: Warner Brothers
FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage is an over-the-top racing game where players experience the drive of their lives as they race around fully destructible environments. Enhanced over the original version of FlatOut 2, the game features 12 types of racing cars, five all-new single player and two all-new multiplayer game modes, plus widescreen high definition resolution to make the racing experience more real.
For those who are not in the know about this FlatOut business, the FlatOut series is all about demolition racing. Whether you're bashing opponents into trees while crashing through walls of tires and leaping off rooftops in standard races, getting your crash on in straight-up demolition derbies, or flinging the driver of your car through your windshield into a set of bowling pins or a series of flaming rings, one theme remains constant throughout: wrecking everything--and wrecking it good.
There are so many different ways to play it that you're bound to enjoy something. FlatOut mode is the game's career mode and hasn't been altered much from FlatOut 2. You start out with a clunker of a derby car, race through a series of unlockable events, unlock new car classes, buy more cars, buy upgrades, and progress as you would through any standard career mode in a racer. Stunt mode also hasn't been upgraded much, though the stunts are still a blast to play. All the stunts revolve directly around launching your driver, be it in a game of high jump, long jump, bowling, basketball, baseball, or royal flush. It's all about setting the right angle for your driver's launch and sending him hurling toward whatever object the game requires for maximum points. There's a great variety of these games, and they're a blast.
It's not all old hat in terms of features because there are some new race types and modes in Ultimate Carnage. One new mode addition is the carnage mode, a second career mode of sorts that revolves around a series of challenges taken from all the various race and stunt modes. These include the new race types found in the game, such as beat the bomb, which is a race where you score points by going as far as you can before a ticking clock with a bomb at the end of it runs out; carnage race, which is like a standard race, except you score points by wrecking the scenery and other cars; and deathmatch derby, which is like a standard demolition derby, but with time-based matches and the goal of getting as many kills as you can before time runs out.
All of these can also be played online, and that is really where Ultimate Carnage shines. Offline racing is amusing, but getting online against other players, especially in some of these new modes, can be downright awesome. Go Play...
