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For the last several years, the Burnout arcade racing franchise has been one of the best on store shelves. With Burnout: Paradise, the franchise continues its dominance with non-stop action, impressive graphics and almost endless fun.

One of the biggest changes with Burnout: Paradise is the open world environment. In the past, you just went to a menu and selected which event you wanted to participate in. Now you just have a huge city that you can drive around in and when you're ready to participate in an event, you just stop at a stoplight and hold down both triggers. The events range from straight up races from one end of the map to the other or special events like Road Rage, where you have to takedown a certain number of competitors, Marked Man, where you have to outrun the other racers while they try to take you down, and Stunt Run, where you do your best to hit jumps, smash billboards or do barrel rolls.

Winning events boosts up your license which opens more and tougher events throughout the city. You also get new cars by not only boosting your license up, but also by taking down different drivers you see cruising around town, and also by participating in Burning Route events which require specific cars to race. There are over 75 cars that you can earn in the game and three different types: Stunt, Aggression, and Speed. Stunt cars are perfect for jumping and doing barrel rolls, Aggression cars are tough cars perfect for taking down other rides and surviving Marked Man events, and Speed cars, are of course, perfect for straight up races.

The graphics for the game are stunning. From the shiny to the wrecked cars to the details of the city environment and mountain terrain, the look and animation of everything is superb. You really can't do any better. The sound effects of engines rumbling and tires screeching are solid as well.

If there was any fault with the game, it's the ability to restart challenges. For example, say you took a wrong turn during a race, you can't pause and restart the race, you have to finish it. And even when you finish the race as a loser, you're not given the option to try the race again. You have to go all the way back to that stoplight (if you can remember where it's at), and start the race again. Most of the time, you'll be looking for a new race nearby where you finished the previous race.

But overall the game is a blast and will take quite a bit of time to get all the cars and finish at 100 percent. But even after that, you can go online and take on a bunch more challenges.

Q's Rating: 4 out of 5

Gamespot: 9 out of 10

Game Revolution: B+

See the trailer here: