Driving games fans will have a new title to play as today Electronic Arts announced that the latest installment of the Burnout franchise is now on store shelves in North America.

The game will land in Europe next week, on January 28. Burnout Paradise is available for Xbox 360 and PS3 and it has won the Best Racing Game from the 2007 Game Critics Awards.

The game promises Open World Freedom and the players will have an entire virtual city, Paradise City, available to experience the driving in Burnout style.

In addition, the game offers an online mode, thanks to which the player will see his friends online with the EasyDrive Friends List and connect with them instantly without having to wait or exit the game. You can battle up to seven of your friends and grab their Mugshots, or join forces to complete more than 300 online challenges.

In single-player mode, the gamers can choose from events like Race, Marked Man, Road Rage, and Stunt to demonstrate their driving skills.

The action isn’t forced any longer, as players have the freedom to start and even end a challenge at their leisure.

“Burnout Paradise is the natural evolution of the franchise as we wanted to give the player full control to create their own personal Burnout experience,” says Alex Ward, Creative Director at EA Criterion. “The city really comes alive when players get together with their friends online, aggressively blasting through the streets at insane speeds to see who is king of the road. The team at EA Criterion couldn’t be more happy and excited to be delivering a truly next generation Burnout title.”

Burnout Paradise wants to prove that crashing is awesome and thanks to the next generation technology, the developers of the game offer an unprecedented level of crash deformation allowing players to experience the most explosive pile-ups in the series’ history.