DLC Details

• Main Title: Burnout Paradise
• DLC Title: Big Surf Island
• Released (UK): 11/06/2009
• Current Price: 1000 MS Points (~$13 US)
• Estimated Length: 5 hours (single player exploration and races much longer in terms of visiting the location)

My Impressions

As the name of the DLC suggests Big Surf Island adds a new area to the Paradise city map. The new area while relatively small is quite “compact” featuring lots of new jumps, destructibles and races. There are also several new cars to unlock, 4 of which are “toy versions” of cars previously released in the Legendary cars pack.

One difference between the events in Big Surf Island and those in the main game, is that due to the compact nature of the island, a checkpoint system is used for races which constrains your choice of root, unlike the anything goes mentality of the events in the main game. Aside from this feature the gameplay is largely unchanged however.

I was slightly disappointed with the achievements as most of them were too easy and only required you to complete a small proportion of the tasks in the expansion. Given the relatively small size of the island it would not have been too arduous to require that all tasks were 100% completed before giving the achievements.

In terms of whether or not Big Surf Island is worth buying, it will depend on if you play a lot of Burnout Paradise, if you do then it is definetly worth getting as you will have fun exploring the island and doing spectacular jumps, as well as the new cars you gain for completing tasks. If you do not then it is probably not really worth getting it at its current price, but instead be worth holding on to see if there is a price cut in the future.

My Recommendation

Consider

While a solid piece of DLC, at its current price is probably only worth buying if you play a lot of Burnout Paradise