Burnout Paradise

Burnout Paradise is an open world car stunt driving and racing game. And that’s about it!

I’ve owned BP in various forms over the years (most recently it appeared in the XBox Game Pass library) and I’ve always enjoyed it because it is really just mindless fun - and I mean that in the nicest possible way!

This is very much a game, NOT a simulation, it is all about the driving and the racing. There’s no brain-numbing resource management or detailed and tedious tuning and tweaking to be done, just a garage of cars, that gets filled up as you compete in races or string stunts together. And the open world is sufficiently large and interesting to simply enjoy driving around and exploring. Completists can try smashing all the billboards or opening up all the shortcuts, speed freaks can try all the races, which themselves are unconstrained, you can take any route but must do your own navigation (the only time that you need to switch on at least a little of your brain).

In short, this a perfectly judged game that has no aspirations to be anything more than a whole bunch of shallow, undemanding fun. I love it.