Burnout Paradise

GAMING Video Games
1

So the demo is out and it’s pretty awesome. I played the PS3 version and the online intergration is really simple and neat. I had to set up an account with EA, which seemed stupid, but after that you’re instantly dumped into a game filled with other racers. Your PSN friends list is integrated nicely so I think the real obstacle will be knowing enough people who have a PS3 to get a good game going. I need to get a headset for the online trash talking.

The only bad things I can think of so far (I only played for about half an hour) are that it will take a bit of time to recognize the auto shops and find your way to them and that they seem to have taken out the aftertouch system.

2

Really looking forward to this one. Demo’s definitely a blast.

3

The Burnout series remains among the very few 360 games my wife will play, so I’m sure I’ll own this whether it’s any good or not. So I’m hoping it’s good. I slightly preferred Burnout 3 to Revenge, but I’m intrigued by the open-world concept.

4

http://www.chud.com/mastercontrol/12937

I’m in love!

5

The one demo all year I actually give a damn about, and I need a Gold account to get it. Awesome.

Really looking forward to this one. Burnout is like an event for my crowd. Gather round for days, shooting for 100%.

Sucks about no Crash mode, though. The thing they replaced it with, Showtime, looks ridiculously stupid. Better than “Traffic Attack” maybe, but not by a lot.

6

I’ve been playing the demo from The Playstation Network a lot too. Never bothered with the online aspect (never cared about that in any game). I’ve never been a car game fan either but I’m definitely picking this up full price when it comes out, which I rarely do.

7

Great write-up, Alex. Thanks for mentioning how to start up races and stuff. I spent all my time screwing around online and never even touched an actual race or other event and wasn’t even sure how to trigger them. Seeing your online rival just ahead of you as you weave in and out of traffic trying to take him down is so awesome.

8

I was sold on the article (well, plus I loved Burnout Revenge).. but watching that clip had my rolling my eyes..

Maybe I’m just a Crash purist, but that Showtime mode where you can keep flipping and spinning your completely wrecked car around into shit, even hopping over a crashed bus in a tight tunnel after both vehicles came to a complete stop.. seems a bit much. I guess I just liked seeing how much damage I could do in one hit and then enjoying the carnage that followed.. is Showtime a timed ‘event’ or what? Cause that guy flips his car down an entire stretch of highway into every vehicle around for 3 minutes.. doesn’t look very challenging to rack up big scores that way

The damage models look great though

9

You can keep moving (and hopping, apparently) your wreck as long as you have “boost”, which it seems like you get from wrecking certain things and getting multipliers (buses, I believe).

As its own thing it’d probably be fine, but as a replacement from Crash mode it looks awful.

10

I like almost everything about this demo but Im really missing the ability to traffic checks. It liked being able to check cars across the road into enemy racers. I also never really liked having to dodge traffic like in need for speed, though I guess in this case the traffic isnt really very thick most of the time so its not a big deal.

11

Honestly, Traffic Checking was a nice diversion but I’m glad Criterion realized it basically saps most of the tension out of the game. Yeah, it was fun as fuck for awhile, but it started to feel really silly.

Almost as silly as this Burnout Damacy shit they went ahead and added.

Finally got ahold of the demo. It is, of course, brilliant. Had some difficulty with the open world, until I discovered the handy new E-brake.

I don’t really miss aftertouch as much as I thought I would. Sucks that it’s gone, but I was way too busy ogling the new pre-impact slow motion bits to notice. The crash sequences overall are just about perfect now, though I really could have done without the EA-Extreme-Desaturation-Filter.

The first time my car actually ‘crumpled’ against a wall… I said something out loud. I don’t remember what it was, but probably my grandmother would be ashamed.

Is there some trick to landing barrel rolls? I ALWAYS wreck. DJ Fucktard said to “move the left analog stick”, which is pretty vague. Also, are there really only two events in the demo? I found a race, which was really short but a kinda nice taste, and a stunt event. I hate stunt events in ‘any’ game, so there’s basically only one worthwhile event until the end of January? Bummer, man.

I am absolutely buying this fucker.

12

There’s also a time attack event starting at the far south east intersection and ending in the same place as the race event.

13

I really want to love this unreservedly, but the loss of crash mode hurts oh so much. Crash mode IS Burnout for me. The races I can take or leave. I’ll reserve judgment until I get to play around with Showtime, but right now, I’m pretty bummed.

It seems kind of like Test Drive Unlimited with better crashes and damage modeling. Or Midtown Madness, for that matter.

But that said, I still kind of like it. Jumping off of the parking garages, smashing through billboards, finding shortcuts…that stuff all seems pretty great. And I can see great opportunities for fucking around with friends.

14

Me, Nate and a few guys from my friends list had a quick mess about with the online mode. Exceptionally fun, nothing like stalking your friends across the map waiting for them to fuck up so you can fuck them up. Immense amounts of fun trying to do the challenges too, especially the boosting one.

My jaw nearly hit the floor when I had a quick look at the map and realised that the open area of the demo was about a tenth of the overall map. My only complaint is that the crashes themselves seem to be a little more genteel, on Burnout Revenge you could create Final Destination 2 style feats of destruction, now I can barely scratch other cars paintwork.

15

Quoth a famous horse: “No sir, I don’t like it.”

I’m all for throwing a changeup into this series. While I loved Revenge to death, and the changes made to Crash mode were all for the better, one can’t deny that the game as a whole was basically a loose-playing update of 3, and I was kinda looking forward to the overhaul. So, don’t take it as me entirely missing the structure of 3 and Revenge.

But everything about the demo just strikes the wrong chord. For one thing, I knew there was gonna be trouble the second they brought DJ Cunthat back, and now there’s no option to silence his ass. I at least pray the lack of that option’s just for the demo.

The map system’s a disaster. If you’re going to have a city this dense, the least you can do is have a zoom function, or at least a way to mark sections of the map outside of the start menu. The present design, admittedly, will do wonders for the field of cataract research.

Same goes for the city itself, which *looks* beautiful, but it’s also a cluttered fucking mess, which, for a game that, while Takedowns are great, prides its race portion on speed, is just self-defeating. Where you once had stretches allowing you to track your enemies while dodging in and out of traffic is now a game of “Guess What The Fuck That Black Thing Is Up Ahead?” The fact that the world of a racing game is open now certainly isn’t a bad thing: Midnight Club’s been handling this in stride for years now. But that series has always been much better at making it abundantly clear what you can do, shouldn’t do, and where you’re at least advised to go. Judging from the demo, these principles have not yet made their way into this game.

But worst of all is, of course, the lack of Crash mode. It’s a huge part of the reason this game stood out to begin with, and although the crashes and takedowns do look extremely pretty this time around, I can’t lie and say I don’t miss that mode, and what I’ve seen of Stunt mode and Showtime don’t even hold the jock of what Revenge’s Crash mode was.

So, yeah, I’m disappointed.

16

I imagine they force DJ Cunthat on you in the demo because he kinds of “guides” you around (a bit). I doubt you’ll have to keep him around in the real deal.

Does anyone’s demo actually have music? Mine is dead silent except for the DJ, which seems pretty weird.

17

Music kicks in on mine when I do challenges, DJ Automatica is a pox on us all. I think I heard his ‘hilarious’ tale about the coastguard and his car about a dozen times in the hour I played.

Also this game is screwed in Standard Definition. The screen is so cluttered already, but obstacles don’t appear until they’re unavoidable and the horrible camera angle means you’re essentially driving blind most of the time. I think on HD it’s probably fine, but my crappy TV can’t make anything out.

18

Quote:
Originally Posted by Spike Marshall Also this game is screwed in Standard Definition. The screen is so cluttered already, but obstacles don’t appear until they’re unavoidable and the horrible camera angle means you’re essentially driving blind most of the time. I think on HD it’s probably fine, but my crappy TV can’t make anything out.

That’s consistently becoming more of a problem with modern games. I have HDTV, but I have a friend who doesn’t, and I’m always hearing about new games that we’re both playing, but he can’t make things out on them. More and more developers seem to be assuming that everybody has HD now, and I really doubt that we’re the majority yet.

19

Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg David The Burnout series remains among the very few 360 games my wife will play, so I’m sure I’ll own this whether it’s any good or not. So I’m hoping it’s good. I slightly preferred Burnout 3 to Revenge, but I’m intrigued by the open-world concept.

Try FlatOut: Total Carnage while waiting. It’s like Burnout Jr (even has the same interface graphic layout) with different modes. I got it because it’s a tradition for our 4-day New Years party to play Burnout all weekend, but the new one doesn’t come out until well after.

I only played it for about 30 mins yesterday, but it was fun.

20

You can turn off the DJ by hitting right and going to options, then turning off hints or tips or whatever it is. I’m glad, cause he’s horrible. I don’t care if he’s going to be updated when you play online.

Speaking of playing online, anyone try the challenges with the other racers? It’s different depending on how many people you’re playing with. For 3 people the first challenge is to go down to the beach and do barrel rolls over the other two guys… pretty damn funny to see us all crashing and flying over each other’s heads. There’s only 3 challenges for each in the demo, but I hope there’s a ton in the main game. So much fun online.

Funniest competitor I ran into was a guy who literally fell asleep at the wheel because he’d apparently been playing the game for almost a whole day. He woke up when he found out I broke his flatspin record by a ton, and kept screaming at me that he was going to beat me. Never did.

I like how it tracks all your accomplishments. And who would’ve thought parking was so much fun?

I really, really love this game.