Reviews Burnout Paradise Remastered – Review

The Nintendo Switch continues to expand with an impressive roster of racing titles. The system proving that great gameplay does not always require the finest hardware if the games are developed to suit the system specs appropriately. In many ways the Switch is perfectly positioned as a home for remasters of classic titles from previous console generations, GRID Autosport and Star Wars Racer prove this point accordingly. Likewise, high framerates can be achieved, whatever the system, the solution is always down to the approach to development.

It came as exciting news to see Burnout Paradise Remastered would be coming to the Nintendo Switch and as expected, this is a fine conversion. However, the game certainly isn’t for everyone, compared to the older more linear titles, Burnout Paradise Remastered aims for a full open world feel. Forcing players to learn the layout of the city over time via trial and error. This can also make the game feel quite sporadic and difficult to get into. Indeed, many of the challenges require knowledge of the roads to maximise, hence I did find this as a chore as my personal enjoyment comes from purely the driving aspect. Now I did consider the similar process in NFS Most Wanted 2005, but that was a more linear progression and hence worked more intuitively. However, stick with it and there is bags of content to discover and lots to explore.

Graphics have been well converted, though my experience on docked mode was certainly better than handheld mode. I tend to play Switch games almost exclusively in the handheld mode, on Burnout Paradise Remastered distant objects were often hard to see, they appeared very low resolution, lower LOD detail and little in the way of anti-aliasing. I’m not aware if there is some form of dynamic resolution at play and my eyes did adapt but it felt like a disadvantage. I also wasn’t keen on the way in which players are forced to sign up to various EA agreements on first play, much like the initial experience with Bethesda titles before they took that process out.

There is a lot content here, including eight DLC game packs released during what EA refers to as the ‘Year of Paradise’. The package also includes the extension to the drivable world with Big Surf Island. I’ve tested various cars, some of which were not available to me on testing the original game and it’s great see the range and dynamism that brings but with everything seemingly unlocked from the outset, there is no form of progression. EA also made note of the touch screen map, though I couldn’t really see much use for this, especially if you play half the game in docked mode.

Burnout Paradise Remastered is a fun but repetitive gaming experience, the DLC addition is welcome but also destroys the flow of the game design by offering all of these powerful cars from the start Graphics are impressive but resolution in handheld mode is an issue and could really do with an update. Overall, one of the biggest detractors is price, while it’s great to see remasters, the price should be reflective of that across formats and as it stands the Switch version is considerably more expensive.

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