You can understand why some game developers are more than a bit reluctant to release game demos, really. The whole thing’s a bit of a double-edged sword, with every successful attempt at getting gamers excited for an upcoming title (BioShock springs to mind) countered by something that crushes people’s anticipation as flat as a mid-1950s American army crew cut. The Burnout Paradise demo, released at the very end of December last year, fall straight into that latter category, throwing people off-centre with its free-roaming nature.

I love Burnout games, and the aforementioned situation left me with a face akin to a bulldog licking wee off a cactus. Far from being the immediate, fast-paced arcade racer I’ve gotten used to it all seemed a little too close to Test Drive Unlimited for my liking, with a major issue being that the demo completely failed to provide players with anywhere near enough events to allow them to get a feel for things. Paradise is definitely a rather big step away from Burnout games past, and for most who played the demo I suspect it’s with a sense of trepidation that they slapped down their cash and made their purchase.

The general idea of Paradise is that, rather than give the player a series of events dotted around a menu or map system, the game lets the player roam around Paradise City (er, yeah – take a wild guess at what the intro music is) to their heart’s content, jumping broken bridges, smashing through fences and engaging in all sorts of motorised fisticuffs. Dotted around the city are a number of traffic lights, pulling up at which allows them to initiate a number of familiar events such as Race, Burning Route and Road Rage, and with a total of about 120 of the things to work your way through there’s plenty to do, all of which goes towards raising your initial license level from Beginner all the way through to Criterion Elite.

Race and Burning Route remain pretty much standard, giving the player a route to race along against other cars or, in the case of the latter, the clock. Road Rage still offers you the chance to race against other cars in some sort of insane demolition derby through the city streets, with your aim being to slam the opposition into pretty much anything you come across during your travels. It’s all as thrilling as it ever was, and it’ll certainly get your pulse racing. The AI is rather brutal to each other and to you, as well, so you’d probably want to prepare yourself for a few scrapes and bumps.

There are a couple of new modes to tackle, too. Stunt mode takes advantage of the roaming nature of the game and allows you to zoom around anywhere pulling off jumps, spins, slides and the like to achieve a target amount of points within a certain time limit. Initial attempts will probably see you faffing around whilst you work out how to chain together tricks for big combinations, but once you get the idea licked you’ll start pulling off all sorts of ridiculous sequences and scoring monumental totals.

The other main mode comes in the form of Marked Man, which kind of plays out like a one-on-one takedown race in which an opponent will try and wipe you out before you reach a certain destination. It’s a neat addition to the mixture, although from my experience I found it rather too easy to avoid the attentions of your foe and make it to the checkpoint with relative ease.

Crash mode has received somewhat of a makeover too, although in this case it’s not necessarily for the better. The nature of the city and the way in which you explore it rather negates the possibility of dedicated traffic junctions packed with vehicles, so instead you can activate Showtime anywhere, at any time. This sees you able to propel your car along the road by pressing the boost button, during which time you can steer the thing much like previous games allowed you to with Aftetouch. The general idea is to bounce off other cars, gain boost for doing so and hence chain together some sort of almighty crash. It’s fun for the first few attempts, but unfortunately without the structure or variety of the Crash Junction mode it quickly becomes a little dull.

The cars themselves come in three flavours for this latest edition: Stunt, Aggressor and Speed. Each vehicle specialises in a particular manner, with the Aggressor vehicles offering boost for shunting other cars, which proves particularly handy for Road Rage and Marked Man events, whilst the Speed and Stunt cars give you your turbo juice for chaining burnouts and performing stunts, offering decent racing and tricking potential. It adds a little bit of variety to the game, although it’s actually not too hard to win an event in a different kind of car if you’re reasonably handy.

Then there’s the island itself, which has a whole load of secondary objectives that reward the curious racer for his exploration skills. Paradise City is littered with broken bridges to jump and fences and barriers to smash through. It certainly adds a whole bunch of exploration value to the city as well, which is always a bonus. Also spread around are a bunch of repair and refuel stations, and these give the player a handy instant boost top-up or panel straighten. It’s all geared up to encourage you to mosey around.

The free-roaming nature of Paradise is thus mostly a success, although there are issues those crop up. Being able to just get in a car and hurl it around the vast expanses of the map is really quite cathartic in a way, and should you wish to just drive for the sake of it then you can. The island itself is packed full of surprises, shortcuts and events, so it’s not as if you’re ever going to be short of things to discover.

That all being said, Paradise City starts off as a rather large, unmemorable collection of roads, and for the most part that’s how it remains. There’s a bit of variation between the bustling urban side of the city and the flowing country roads to the west, but for the most part you find yourself driving around with a slight twinge of déjà vu rather than being able to remember particular sections in much depth. It’s certainly less memorable than Test Drive Unlimited’s Oahu Island, and given that it’s about quarter of the size it’s rather baffling as to why that should have been.

Another thorny matter Paradise throws at you is the rather awkward lack of a retry option at the end of the challenges. After the initial few events, races and burning routes become somewhat more tricky and time-consuming, and should you fail one then you have no other option than to trek back to the relevant set of traffic lights and start again. Criterion top bod Alex Ward replied to moans about this by saying that he preferred games that keep you in-game rather than present you with a loading screen, but to be blunt I know which option I’d prefer, especially when faced with a three-minute trog back through roads I’ve just been along in the other direction.

One thing that’ll make such trogs a little easier is Paradise’s visual prowess, which is all rather wonderful. The scenery itself looks resplendent, with the metallic greys of the city giving way to some fantastically lush fields and brown, muddy fields. There’re plenty of large hulking constructions to drive up, around and off the end of, and each is packed full of details, be it a twist of metal here or a notch of rust there. Likewise, the lighting effects and sense of speed are really rather breathtaking at times. All the while the thing buzzes along at a steady 60fps, and even more impressively it doesn’t even seem to break into a sweat.

The stars of the show are the actual cars, though. When intact they’re detailed and rather shiny, but upon taking a hit or slamming into anything – something you’ll be doing rather a lot of – they shatter, bend and crumple fantastically well, and it’s no exaggeration to say that Paradise has the most impressive damage model of any racing game to date. It actually feels kind of painful to see what was once a beautiful motor reduced to a pile of smoking rubble (at least I know how my rather wayward sister feels now), and seeing your transport somersault down the road in a glorious trail of sparks and shattered metal takes away any frustration you might have gained by crashing in the first place.

The audio side of the game doesn’t fare quite so well, although most of this is due to personal musical taste. One thing that can be said is that the DJ – Atomika, supposedly – is rather annoying in his rather stilted attempts to sound off-the-cuff, and you’ll quickly get used to not wanting to hear much of what he has to say, even if it is a useful tip. The music varies from some excellent inclusions – Faith No More and Adam Ant amongst them – to a splattering of the kind of punk/emo bands that the kids are into these days, all of them sounding just as uninspired as the next. People with both a 360 and a PS3 may wish to note that the latter offers no custom soundtrack option, which is rather a shame and prevented me from beaming it around to the subtle tones of Axl Rose once more.

For those sociable crashers amongst you, the online features of Criterion’s latest will also please. By tapping the right d-pad button you are presented with a menu that allows you to quickly set up all kinds of shenanigans with either friends or strangers, although anyone hoping to take out their frustrations on their mates with a juicy Takedown or Marked Man session will be left disappointed by their omission. Still, everything ran as smooth as a shaved peach, and the fact that it’s so quick and easy to hook up to means it is the high watermark for online integration in this sort of game.

As you have probably ascertained from the foregoing, Burnout Paradise is most definitely packed with more positives than negatives. The series has taken a rather different slant by using the city as the hub from which you select your events and initial experiences are mixed to say the least, but when the last wheel has turned and the final car has somersaulted into the side of a small tree it still feels like a Burnout game. You’re left with the feeling that this direction, with a bit of tweaking here and there, is very much a viable path for Criterion to head along, which is most definitely more than you could have said having played the demo. In the meantime, is Paradise a worthy time sink for fans of the series and lovers of arcade racing action? You bet it is.