Burnout Paradise isn’t what we’ve come to expect from the franchise, having more in common with games like Test Drive Unlimited and Grand Theft Auto than Revenge or Takedown. It’s jam-packed with activities, beautifully detailed, and incredibly well-executed, but it’s not the Burnout you’re used to, not quite. The cars are still fast, the races are still challenging, and you still get to take down opponents by shoving them into the wall at top speed, but Paradise is still just different enough to offend franchise purists and make them turn their backs on the game. Their loss.

Progress through the Burnouts of old was made by completing a series of isolated challenges set in different locations. Once you completed enough of the events, new areas with their own sets of races and stunts would be unlocked, until eventually you had access to everything in the game. Paradise does away with that structure and instead gives you the keys to your first car and a map to the city. You can drive anywhere you like, whenever you like, right from the very first moment you fire up the game. No loading screens as you move from neighborhood to neighborhood, just miles and miles of would-be race track.

To access one of the 120 different events, just pull up to a traffic light and pull both triggers. Some events require you to have a specific kind of car in order to participate, but for the most part it’s entirely up to you whether you’d like to tackle a race to the wind farm or try a stunt run down by the baseball stadium.

Most of the events are simple variants on the racing theme (cross the finish line before several other drivers, before just one driver, or in one piece as drivers try to take you down), but the courses and tactics required for success vary enough to prevent Paradise from ever being boring. If you do feel the need to take a break, however, there’s still plenty to do in Paradise City, like crashing through more than a hundred billboards and tracking down several hundred shortcuts. The shortcuts can help you in races and set you up for big jumps that will send your stunt scores through the roof. Plowing through the billboards is just plain fun.

As you move from intersection to intersection, trying this race or that stunt run, you’ll probably notice the lack of Crash Mode, a Burnout staple. Like the rest of Paradise, it’s there, just not quite the way you remembered. It’s now called Showtime Mode, and instead of giving you a specific scenario and amount of financial damage to try and do, it’s accessible any time you feel like it. If you see a particularly clogged intersection, or notice a bus is heading into a tunnel, just hit both shoulder buttons and let the show begin. The moment you collide with something, the meter starts running, tallying the damage being done. Though being the cause of a 40-car pileup is always fun, Showtime Mode just feels less spectacular and satisfying than Crash Mode and is the one area in which the game falls flat when compared to its predecessors.

Hopping online is sublimely easy, as well. Any time you like, simply press right on the D-pad and hey presto, you’re racing online. The host can set specific challenges and races, or you can just all drive around and compete to see who can perform the biggest barrel roll or set a flat spin record. It’s so fluid and easy, if it weren’t for the voice chat, you’d have no idea you were playing online.

As fast and furiously fabulous as Burnout Paradise is, it has a few minor flaws that occasionally get in the way of the fun. Although the compass does a great job of keeping you on track (no pun intended), it’s only available when you’re racing. Although the map is clearly marked with every location and event you’ve found in the game, without a compass or the ability to set a waypoint, finding your way to a particular body shop or race can be a laborious and frustrating process. The seamless nature of the game also makes it more difficult to immediately restart an event that you’ve failed. In previous Burnouts, all you had to do we select the retry option from a menu, but here you’ll have to drive yourself back to the intersection that hosts the event. When you’ve just narrowly missed edging out your competition in a race, you want to try again immediately, not drive halfway across town to track down the starting line. You can, of course, simply pick up a different event that’s closer to your current location, but that’s just not the same.