Burnout Paradise

Title: Burnout Paradise
Studio: Criterion Games
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Genre: Free World Racing
Platform: Xbox 360, PS3

Premise
You drive a myriad of different cars around a city that is filled with ramps and races, and you try to win as many challenges as you can to get more cars.

Character
The only character you control is the car, and you have complete and total control over the car, and the only personality that the cars have is their various stats that govern their performance on the road.

Engagement
Paradise city is huge. It is a tremendous expanse of roads, jumps and hidden areas that will draw anyone in for hours trying to find all of the greatest places to have fun. There is always a new place to find or a new race to win, and with each road being its own time trial and the times being uploaded on the internet, there is always someone to race against. This game is very engaging, to say the least.

Story
The game has virtually no story, the little bit being the host of Crash FM, the radio station playing the music, who tells you of new cars to take down, new races, and hidden areas. The lack of story does not take away from the gameplay as much as one would expect though. The game is still very engaging and entertaining to play.

Resources
The resources the player has are the car health, the car's boost, and time, depending on the challenge that the player is completing. Car health is taken down whenever a player crashes, and damage is increased depending on the severity of the crash, and can be replenished by driving through repair garages. Car boost can be replenished by driving aggressively, doing stunts, or driving as fast as possible. Time is sometimes limited when doing time trial races or stunt runs.

Challenge
The challenge in the game is very well controlled. In the beginning, the player goes through a simple tutorial, and the races and challenges are easy, and the amount of points required for the next level is low. These factors steadily increase in challenge as the game progresses, and if a player feels it is too difficult, they have a whole city to practice in to get better.