The best game from last generation consoles just got a gorgeous re-release — and it's still an incredible game

"Burnout" is back!

Burnout Paradise Remastered

10 years after "Burnout Paradise" demonstrated what a car game could be, the crash-filled racing series is back to show up everyone once again.

In "Burnout Paradise Remastered," you get the same incredible open-world racing game that impressed critics and fans alike way back in 2008. Better yet: You also get all the additional content that came out after release, and a massive update to the visuals that befit a new game in 2018.

If you're looking for a simulation racing game, look elsewhere. "Burnout Paradise Remastered" is about driving fast, getting into wrecks, and not worrying too much about it.

Video games weren't always capable of simulating real-world stuff. Take sports for example. The earliest video games based on sports are extremely pared down versions of the actual sports.

Eventually, as developers were able to more closely simulate the real thing, games like "FIFA" and "Madden" took over — they're basically simulations at this point, completely divorced from the origins of sports gaming.

That same evolutionary path can be tracked with racing games — early racing games were video game approximations of the real thing.

But in the case of racing games, when simulations became possible, the sillier, less realistic racing games split into their own subset of the overall racing genre. Even though games like "Gran Turismo" and "Forza Motorsport" offer gorgeous, ultra-realistic simulations of racing, franchises like "Burnout," "Mario Kart," and "Forza Horizon" use racing as the foundation for great video games. They don't intend to simulate real-world driving — they just use it as the jumping off point for a good game.

"Burnout Paradise Remastered" is very much part of this delightful subset of racing games that strives for more than an exciting racing experience.

At the heart of "Burnout Paradise Remastered" is high-speed, arcade-style racing. Think: "Need for Speed."

You don't have to know how a manual gearbox works, and you don't need to know the finer details of drifting. The right trigger is the go button, and the left trigger is the stop button. If you push A, you can use a turbo boost. That's it!

The goal in "Burnout Paradise Remastered" is to get you going fast as soon as possible. If you happen to get into a dramatic crash along the way, so be it.

Burnout Paradise Remastered

The cars aren't Lambos and Ferraris — they're entirely made up, part of the "Burnout" universe. They approximate cars you know and love, but they're all fake. And that's a good thing, because Honda and Ford probably wouldn't appreciate the constant barrage of massive crashes.

The "Burnout" series nails the feeling of high-speed driving better than any other game, and "Burnout Paradise" is the best possible example.

10 years later, and it's still incredibly impressive how well "Burnout Paradise" nails the feeling of going very fast. Right from the first car you get — a junky old racer — there's a palpable sense of danger to every second of gameplay.

I played the original game for dozens of hours back in 2008, and I've put another 10 or so into "Burnout Paradise Remastered" — even after all that time, I still freak out when I accidentally crash at full speed.

That's a testament to how well "Burnout Paradise" does speed. You really feel that crash in your gut, the same way you feel it when a roller coaster inches past the tipping point and starts thundering downward at full speed. The bottom drops out, and you feel it — physically.

It's that sense of speed, and those horrific, hilarious crashes, that make "Burnout Paradise" feel so special.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider