In Burnout, players drive across the streets of Paradise City looking for action. This open world driving game has a variety of different racing challenging waiting at stop lights, but players can choose to skip them to explore the city, cause some vandalism (like breaking signs) and learning the lay of the land. Learning the city's layout, discovering shortcuts, and finding the city's many conveniently placed ramps proves to be invaluable when actually taking on the game's challenges. Trying to find shortcuts during a race is exciting, but one wrong turn could completely ruin your chances of winning. Unlike many street racing games, all Paradise City streets remain open during racing events. So players need to figure out the best routes to win a race, but it also helps to eliminate the competition. Additionally, players can make a reputation for themselves by breaking speed scores set up by other racers.

Racing challenges range from racing from point A to B, but more exciting modes include Road Rage, where players need to take down (crash out) competing cars in an all-out road brawl. Another favorite is the Marked Man challenge, where players need to reach a destination in one piece while cars come in and do all they can to wreck the racer. Winning a certain number of challenges upgrades your license and unlocks new cars that must be taken down to be added to your collection. The gorgeous graphics (super enhanced for the PC), fresh cars and fast paced gameplay keep the challenges from getting boring. Watching the slow motion crumple of a car getting totaled never gets old, even though there were times we objected to how some high-speed scrapes turned out to be total wrecks. Day and night time changes and random events impact the amount of traffic players can expect to encounter.

Those who grow tired of testing their driving skills against the computer can take the race online in Freeburn Online mode and compete against up to seven other players. There are even two vehicles accessible only in online play. Players can roam the city in Freeburn Online and take each other down, but there are quite a few multiplayer challenges, and players can set up custom races. Joining games is fast and seamless, with an almost unperceivable change from offline to online mode. However, none of these events are listed in the world map, so organizing them and getting players to the starting position can take some doing. Plus, the host's computer acts as the server, so the game ends the game for everyone if the host crashes, loses connection or quits.