Nine years on, Burnout Paradise is an imperfect, but still thrilling and mega fun, open-world racer

Gamesradar's Tom Stone writes: "The Xbox 360 was my first Xbox console and Burnout Paradise the first game I ever lovingly shoved into its disc slot. And in many ways, Burnout Paradise and I are actually very similar. We’re both handsome, challenging, possess bizarre tastes in music, occasionally crash, get very frustrating to interact with and are terrible in bed. Actually, I quite enjoy playing Burnout Paradise in bed. I guess we’re not very similar at all then.

Nevertheless! Now that Burnout Paradise has been made backwards compatible, I couldn’t wait to drive back into Criterion’s open-world. It makes a delightful first impression, too, with the opening bars of Guns N’ Roses’ Paradise City welcoming you in, promising a racing game that prioritises high-speed fun and destructive action. I get behind the wheel, slam down the accelerator, marvel at how nice Paradise City still looks and hum happily along. The handling on the cars, the thrill of hitting the boost and satisfaction of crunching another vehicle off the road still feels wonderful."