HiGame

More than a decade ago, Criterion Games released Burnout Paradise, its car-smashing magnum opus, on the Xbox 360 and PS3. Long before Forza Horizon came to dominate the open-world racing genre, we were bumping to a late-aughts pop-punk soundtrack in Paradise City. Now, we can revisit this beloved classic with all of its DLC in 4K on modern consoles.
With 28 reviews counted, the remastered PS4 release is sitting at a 81/100 average on Metacritic, and the Xbox One version scores very similarly. It’s not going to blow your mind this far from the original release, but that’s a solid critical showing for a $40 remaster.

The original 360 game enjoyed a higher score of 88/100 with 68 reviews, but times were very different. This kind of open world was still novel, so the fact that the game still holds up so well to modern sensibilities is worth appreciating. There were countless contemporaries to Paradise, but few would warrant a rerelease at this point.

The remastered version benefits from AMD’s EQAA at 4X, higher quality textures, improved shadows, and substantially heavier alpha effects. The 360-era geometry, LOD pop-in, and low-res intro remain in place, but the moment-to-moment driving looks great. Not only is it an improvement over the old console versions, it’s better than the PC version on max settings. PC gamers needn’t worry though, the remaster will be coming to Origin eventually.

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