By John Walker on February 5th, 2009 at 9:45 pm.
I can see it in your eyes. You want to download a 2.9GB demo. No, really, you do. Because ta-da, the PC release of Burnout: Paradise goes shopward in the morning, and entire game is available to download, for free, in a time-limited way. Perhaps from Fileshack, perhaps from GamersHell. Or maybe from NVidia. (Actually, the servers are crazy busy at the moment, and hopefully they’ll be echoed in a few more places. Post links below if you find them – but please, no torrents unless officially sanctioned.)
Burnout: Paradise has been out on consoles for 450 years, but the PC version isn’t simply a belated port. It is, in fact, the most complete version of the game (although the consoles will catch up as the various patches are applied by whatever arcane means those demonic boxes use). All the free add-ons that have appeared since the original release are already in there (including motor-o-bikes), along with various gameplay and engine tweaks. And the first pay-for content, the Party Pack, is also bundled. RPS will be bringing you its definitive opinion on whether it all works out well very soon. In the meantime, we give you permission to form your own opinions via the entire game (while the demo lasts). Once time’s up, you can pay to unlock the version you already have, making this possibly the largest shareware game of all time. (Go on – point out the bigger ones.)
Criterion explain it all in enormous detail here, but you’ll note they’re extremely vague on how long the demo version lasts. If any of us live long enough to download it, we’ll let you know. If anyone else already found out, you let us know. We’re friends like that.
05/02/2009 at 22:01 Nighthood says:
Jesus, 2.6gb. I remember thinking that Crysis was big at 1gb for a demo, but obviously I’m not thinking outside the box enough. What happened to demos that are just a small section with unlimited playtime, instead of the whole thing for a short period. Silly developers.
05/02/2009 at 22:07 RiptoR says:
The demo is the full game actually. You can buy it from inside the demo itself (in the Burnout Store).
I’m picking up my copy this weekend in my local retail store. Been playing the demo all night since I got home from work, and I’m addicted :D
05/02/2009 at 22:09 Optimaximal says:
The sad thing is, ‘they’ have already got a crack out that unlocks the full game and because of the way it works, even allows full online play.
05/02/2009 at 22:14 Brainboy says:
As far as I can tell from booting it up shortly, it restricts you to 30 minutes. But it said something like “offline time limit: 30 minutes”, so there may be another 30 minutes for playing online.
Just from the menus, though, I wasn’t too impressed with the game. It seems like a pretty lazy port, you basically have to navigate through the menus with F1 and F2 (change menus) and the arrow keys. How hard is it to produce a mouse-driven interface in a year?
Luckily the Ultimate Box is coming to the 360 in Europe, so I might pick it up for that instead.
05/02/2009 at 22:16 RiptoR says:
I was able to unlock a second car in the demo. I did a fair bit of sightseeing, and it looks like the whole city is available to explore.
05/02/2009 at 22:23 Shariq says:
Anyone know of any non-cracked/hacked torrent for the demo?
05/02/2009 at 22:26 Theory says:
Keep an eye on GameUpdates for legit torrents.
05/02/2009 at 22:35 Severian says:
I’d like to try this out, given all the interesting things I’ve heard.
Here’s my question to y’all: I never play racing games and don’t own a steering-wheel contraption. How necessary is a wheel for enjoyment of such racing games? And which is better between keyboard and gamepad?
05/02/2009 at 22:41 Gunrun247 says:
The keypad works fine, infact I preferred the D-Pad controls in the older games on PS2.
Gamepad is best, I don’t think you would do well with a wheel in this.
05/02/2009 at 22:49 RiptoR says:
I’ve been playing with my x360 pad, and I must say it’s a lot easier and relaxed to play with than with keyboard.
05/02/2009 at 23:01 RiptoR says:
The 30 minutes were fun, the wait for the weekend has begun.
But I think I problably end up buying it through the ingame store later on tonight anyway, I’m just too eager to explore the rest of the city. Driven around with 2 cars, was able to knock down 53 of the shortcut barriers (there are 400 of those), and crashed into 3 Burnout signs (50 in total can be found).
Now where’s my creditcard…
05/02/2009 at 23:01 Klumhru says:
At the risk of sounding condescending (I’m not trying, really) the more console-y the game, the less the need for a specialized controller. In BO you’ve never really needed one for the PC versions, since they’re designed for the pads of the consoles. You’ll lose some precision for the lack of analog input, but not so great as to make the game hard to play or less enjoyable. If you have a controller though, things improve.
In regards to other games I’d recommend a controller or a wheel. I do have a MOMO wheel. I enjoy using in GRID, GTR, RACE, DIRT (what is it with acronyms in racing titles anyway?) and other titles, and I must state that they raise the enjoyment I derive a great deal. For GTR and other “sim” racers, I’d go as far as saying a wheel is a must. For GRID, which is a borderline sim/arcade racer, maybe not so much. Speaking from personal experience I don’t think I could have finished the final races in GRID without a wheel with the caveat that having used a wheel for so long, keyboard control in racers comes very hard to me.
Kudos to BO for a nice comeback of the shareware model but 30 minutes of play sounds pretty short to me. Something like 1-2 hours would have made more sense in my ears.
05/02/2009 at 23:08 Fede says:
30 minutes? The download is much longer than the demo then :D
05/02/2009 at 23:15 RiptoR says:
Anyone already bought the game through the ingame store? If so, was it easy to do?
I want the boxed version, but I also want to continue playing. Argh, choices :s
05/02/2009 at 23:20 Shadowcat says:
Half an hour of play for a 3.114 * 10^9 byte download.
That’s not a demo. That’s a way for people who have [i]already decided to buy it[/i] to make absolutely certain that it runs well on their machine before putting down the cash.
Which is quite laudable. But it’s not a demo.
05/02/2009 at 23:22 Heliocentric says:
30 minutes is kinda shitty… considering the 2.6gb investment.
Ah well… 30 minutes to decide if I want it is better than 0 minutes.
05/02/2009 at 23:30 Sp4rkR4t says:
It’s about time Burnout made it’s way to the PC and it’s nice to see we have the definitive version, I’ve already unlocked this game and I have to admit I love it.
05/02/2009 at 23:39 David McBride says:
The nVidia demo servers are flying at full speed; currently pulling it down at wire-speed of about 1.2MB/sec.
05/02/2009 at 23:44 RiptoR says:
@Sp4rkR4t: How does the buy-option work exactly?
06/02/2009 at 00:02 nakke says:
getting 12MB/s from NVidia. Quite okay I’d say!
06/02/2009 at 00:28 hydra9 says:
I freakin’ loved this when I tried it on PS3.
But hold on, hold on, this (quoted from Criterion’s info-page) is what I find really interesting:
“if you’ve bought the full game on disk, once it’s installed, you don’t need the disk to play, so you’re free to share it around.”
Am I reading this correctly? Buy one copy of the game, install as many times as you like on as many machines as you like???
06/02/2009 at 01:34 Caiman says:
That demo is 14.5% of my monthly download quota. However, that’s not so bad considering it would take about 7% of a month for me to download it. Interestingly, these percentages have been about the same for the past 15 years – it’s an arms race between my download speeds and demo sizes!
06/02/2009 at 01:37 hydra9 says:
@Caiman: You need a new ISP, by the sounds of it ;)
@me: Just realised my own stupidity. If you buy the game, you can share it with your friends, and they’ll all be able to play the time-limited demo. Ah…
06/02/2009 at 01:43 Gunrun247 says:
@Hydra – without a valid key the game acts as a demo disc, I assume this is what they mean.
It does have the child killing limited install DRM but it has 10 installs, and there is a revoke tool right there on the shortcuts (at least in vista) so it’s not as bad as Spores 3 shots and that’s it. Plus Criterion are cool dudes and will probably patch that out eventually.
06/02/2009 at 01:44 El_MUERkO says:
no such joy with speedy download for me, should be able to get 2.4mbps from a decent server but they’re all giving me 69 to 80 kbs :P
will get it tomorrow once a decent torrent is up
06/02/2009 at 01:57 noexes says:
They are vague with how the demo works I think because it’s kind of random. Every once and a while I get kicked to the buy the game screen, and sometimes I’m forced to quit at semi-appropriate moments (like right after a race). It’s weird, but it kind of works.
06/02/2009 at 02:15 Ginger Yellow says:
“How hard is it to produce a mouse-driven interface in a year?”
No offence, but what the hell are you doing using a mouse in a driving game?
As for me, I can’t justify picking this up a second time, even with the pretty high resolution graphics. The 360 version’s good enough for me.
06/02/2009 at 02:26 noexes says:
Thought: if they released a demo like this, would GTA4 have sold more?
06/02/2009 at 02:32 Gunrun247 says:
The interface can be used with the mouse anyway.
I don’t see his problem.
06/02/2009 at 03:31 bansama says:
Looking forward to this =) Had a blast with the PS3 demo, although not enough to buy the game. It’d be nice to see how the PC version shapes up.
06/02/2009 at 03:31 alex says:
@Brainboy: Pretty much anywhere in the menu that there’s an icon for a key, if you mouse over it, the cursor will turn red, indicating that you can click.
06/02/2009 at 03:33 Ben Abraham says:
Now the obvious question is “Can anyone beat it in the 30 minutes in the demo?” Go on. Have a crack. ;-)
06/02/2009 at 04:22 Y3k-Bug says:
What an insanely well designed game. Gorgeous to boot.
Love how everything from the repair of cars, to starting races, to getting online is EXTREMELY streamlined and easy to do.
This is pretty much what I wanted NFS to be all these years.
Even the music is great.
06/02/2009 at 04:42 DF7 says:
I don’t know, it took me five or ten minutes to even get to a playable screen. That was after not being able to find a settings menu or use my mouse to click on anything. And then when I went to quit, I had to alt+F4 out. Am I missing some magic button?
I had heard good things about the “total conversion” port, but it seems like an xbox game to me.
06/02/2009 at 05:39 KruddMan says:
I really enjoyed this demo. The 30 minutes I think are limits for the mission types in the game. You can still drive around and run into stuff after that timer is up…
I’m looking for a place to buy the game now. Not really into buying it directly from EA… think it’ll be on Steam any time soon?
06/02/2009 at 06:28 dadioflex says:
noexes says:
“Thought: if they released a demo like this, would GTA4 have sold more?”
Or less?
06/02/2009 at 09:27 unclelou says:
The sad thing is, ‘they’ have already got a crack out that unlocks the full game and because of the way it works, even allows full online play.
I wonder what the excuse is this time. (Bearing in mind that I have less of a problem with people admitting they pirate the odd game than those who find excuses and blame everyone and everything else).
As for the game (bought a boxed copy this week) – it’s quite good, and a fantastic port, but I am not quite as hooked as I’d like to be. I am not quite feeling the love I felt for Burnout 2 yet. :)
06/02/2009 at 09:48 Jim Rossignol says:
Worth getting chums to join in for multiplayer on this.
06/02/2009 at 10:44 Markoff Chaney says:
This is a fantastic port (Menu issues aside, but I’m using my wired 360 controller and it works like a dream) and it’s one of the new breed of ports that changes on-screen prompts based on prior input. e.g. – You hit a key on the keyboard last, so now I show Mouse/KBD keys for prompts. The 360 controller plays this very well. I get a full 60 FPS Vsynced with everything maxed (except that funky AOSO stuff or whatever) and am very pleased with performance.
The one thing I was worried about was the apparent lack of some form of crashing into stuff for fun and pleasure. Then I hear you can hit LB + RB and it opens up another world of crashing bouncing goodness (I don’t think this works in the demo though).
I notified the wife last night we will be procuring our copy soon. I’m thinking of doing it through the demo to support the shareware model Criterion seems to have brought back. Also to try to show them that some of us will do the right thing.
Sadly, EA seems to have tied online play to an EA account which has no License Key info tied to it so, if you create a random account based on a free email address you can play the cracked Burnout or Mirror’s Edge online. Seems to be quite an amateurish mess up, imo. Unless you want freeloaders stealing your bandwidth after they stole your game too, tie the online portion of the game to a freaking code, EA! That’s the one place where DRM seems to work as it should, with server based authentication checks. The way it appears to be integrated with this game, with instant drop in-drop out playing and leaderboards continually being updated, it’s a huge component of play.
Regardless of the DRM (or somehow lack thereof even online), great port. Great Game. I still miss some of the crashbreakers, but I can fire up 3 if I need to. Great work, Criterion. Thanks for the demo.
06/02/2009 at 12:30 Kakrafoon says:
Hi there, Burnout crowd!
How, how can I access the blasted MAIN MENU in that damn game? So far, the only solution I have come up with is to start the Game in “Party Mode”. From there, I can change key bindings, change graphics and sound and all that, but HOW THE HELL can I do that in single-player mode? The only options I’ve got there are “driver statistics”, and there is no “Options”-option in the Main Menu, either – just Burnout Shop, and Paradise City. Am I missing something?
06/02/2009 at 12:36 hydra9 says:
@Karafoon: Press ESC, then use F1/F2 to flick through the various stats screens and menus. It took me a bit of getting used to, but it works. And you can use the mouse to select menu options.
I agree with Markoff and others: This is an excellent port. Real care has been put into it. Also, it runs perfectly with everything maxed out on my (somewhat antiquated) system!
06/02/2009 at 12:45 mrrobsa says:
Could any of you lovely people inform me if I can somehow use my stock 360 or PS3 pad with my PC to test out this mutha? Or would I need special wires? I think maybe I saw a PC specific 360 pad in HMV? Thanks for any tips anyone can offer.
06/02/2009 at 13:01 MarvintheParanoidAndroid says:
Damn, much as I’d love to buy it from the in-game store and keep playing, I’ve ordered it from Play.com for £5 cheaper and now I have the painful wait for it to actually arrive. Definitely looking forward to trying this online as well.
06/02/2009 at 13:01 AndrewC says:
http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/download/download.aspx?category=Gaming
Go to the above link, choose ‘controllers’, ‘xbox 360 controller for windows’ and then your operating system and download the drivers. Then all you’ll need to do is plug the controller into a USB port.
It works and is wonderful.
06/02/2009 at 13:07 Gunrun says:
@AndrewC
There is actually a decent chance it will work by itself when you plug it in, without the need for drivers.
06/02/2009 at 13:30 AndrewC says:
Then Mrrobsa has no excuse not to plug in and rock out. I really, really like being able to use my 360 on my PC.
*cough* especially when i’m emulating Nintendo games *cough*
06/02/2009 at 13:33 Markoff Chaney says:
I’m using a stock USB 360 controller and it works perfectly. If you have a wireless one, you need the receiver that plugs into the USB port, but you should be golden. I have no PS3 on PC experience.
06/02/2009 at 13:43 Irish Al says:
@noexes
Having played both GTA4 and this extensively on 360, I think it’s a mistake to compare them. This is a racing game pure and simple, and while it’s more sandbox-y than most racing games, it is nowhere near the level of GTAIV in those terms. Also while the city is nicely modelled it really is just a series of racetracks that look like a city, as opposed to the realistic modelling in GTAIV. And there are no peds, no drivers, in fact no biological entities visible at all – it’s a sunlit ghost down with robot cars driving round. This means there can be spectacular crashes without having to deal with bloodied ragdolls everywhere, thus opening up the under-18 audience. The only things that die in this game are cars.
Having said that it’s still a fantastic console game although I’m not convinced it’ll do as well on PC.
06/02/2009 at 15:12 iainl says:
This is a wonderful idea. I was hugely unimpressed to the point of being a bit angry at what they had done to my lovely Burnout series when the far more restricted 360 demo came out. I only bought it in the end because it was cheap, and loads of people convinced me I was being foolish.
It is wonderful.
But the only thing I’m missing on the 360 is the Party mode stuff, and who wants to play pass-the-joypad on the PC instead of in the lounge in front of the big telly? So I’ll grab the PC demo out of curiosity to how well my new computer fares up against my 360, but I can’t see me paying money for the full thing.
06/02/2009 at 15:29 Jim Rossignol says:
The USB 360 controller for PC is pretty much a must-have addition to a gaming set up. I was actually thinking about posting to say: “guys, just get one of these, save yourself hassles.” It makes that much difference, particularly in games which are cross-platform.
Burnout, like the recent Tomb Raider and a bunch of other games, immediately sense a 360 controller and automagically updates on screen prompts. It’s one of the gaming functionality things that MS got really right on PC.
06/02/2009 at 15:35 Bobsy says:
I think I’d feel weird playing PC games with a pad. Like, a constant nagging voice suggesting I ought to be on a comfy sofa rather than a desk chair.
I played TR: Legend and Underworld with mouse and keyboard pretty happily, too.
06/02/2009 at 15:43 Rei Onryou says:
100MB/minute of play != well thought out demo. Still, if I keep hearing good things, then this may be the first racing game I’ll ever have bought (GTA games don’t count as racers).
I think the question would still stand as to whether this is a better game on PC than console.
06/02/2009 at 15:45 Jim Rossignol says:
I spend quite a lot of time with the 360 at the moment, but ultimately my attention span is too short to play games on a console. I need to suddenly alt-tab out to blog, email, or read about ghosts. I guess the habit of taking hundreds of screen grabs, or having a dozen chat panes open at any one time, doesn’t help either.
06/02/2009 at 16:10 Dinger says:
I wonder about this:
.
Anyone have any data on console controller usage for PC games? It’d certainly be informative to know the percentages of PC gamers who have and use:
A. A console controller for PC games regularly.
B. A game console.
For something that’s “Indispensable”, I suspect that the majority of PC gamers — even hardcore gamers — don’t use console controllers for PC gaming. In fact, I’d be interested to see those values plotted against Valve’s hardware survey. Are there fewer systems with console controllers than with DX 10.1 cards?
I mean seriously, reviewers have to play these things, as do software developers, so of course they’ll hook up a controller to do QA, even with embarassingly poor results. But many PC gamers, I suspect, just don’t buy games that are optimised for console controllers.
PCs are all about wonderful Human Interface Devices, and console controllers are part of that mix. But a “multiplatform game” for which the controller designed for another platform is indispensable isn’t a multiplatform game, it’s a console port.
06/02/2009 at 16:11 Markoff Chaney says:
I’m a born and bred KBD/Mouse guy, but, for some things a pad (or 2 little thumb sticks) just feels much better. Usually, for me, it’s any 3rd person game with a tweakable camera. Tomb Raider, Prince o Persia, Psychonauts and now Burnout. That, and when I’m sitting on the couch next to my wife, it’s easier to snuggle, even if it greatly limits my game selection. I had to spend money on that DVI -> HDMI cable for some reason and, for all intents and purposes, my PC can act like a console (but only if I want it to!). The controller really does work better on some gaming platforms.
The biggest issue I have with the 360 controller is that some older games don’t work properly. I think it’s some funky DXInput thingy. Cue Xpadder for that and I even get to do my tweaking metagame. :) That and don’t try to use the D Pad for emulation. Grab an old Gravis USB or a Saturn USB for that.
06/02/2009 at 16:16 Drool says:
This game is fantastic, and it looks beautiful at 1680×1050, but there are two glaring mistakes that need to be patched.
First, there’s no text chat. This is a pretty big oversight that shows Criterion hasn’t really done PC games. Not every PC gamer has a mic, and even if we do, we don’t always want to use it. Also apparently there’s no push to talk functionality I had to mute several people who were piping their game through their headset last night.
The second thing they left out is custom soundtracks. I know both of the previous versions had this functionality. I can’t understand why they would remove it for the PC version. I already have a hard drive full of music ready to go. This is forgivable until they patch the game since the default music is pretty good.
Of course maybe you can do both of these things and I just didn’t find the proper menu options, but I’m pretty sure I looked everywhere.
06/02/2009 at 16:20 jalf says:
Ooo, demo was fun. Let us know when this becomes available in a DRM-free version, on Steam or elsewhere. :)
06/02/2009 at 16:27 Drool says:
@Dinger
My wired 360 controller has become indispensable since I bought it. It’s actually broadened my PC gaming horizons. Before I would just avoid any kind of platformer or driving game because lets face it digital controls just don’t feel as good for those types of games.
If I just had a mouse/keyboard I probably would have avoided Burnout altogether. And that’s not the fault of the game or the designer, but the nature of playing a driving game with a keyboard.
06/02/2009 at 16:42 Flappybat says:
Two cars, no bikes, three races… that’s kind of rubbish. Thirty minutes of driving time but only fifthteen minutes of content. You can go online though there’s not a ton of point.
Graphics feel suprisingly out of date too. No shadows just make everything feel weird. Very flat lighting.
06/02/2009 at 16:45 CAW! says:
BURN OUT PARROT EYES
BURN OUT PARROT EYES
BURN OUT PARROT EYES
BURN OUT PARROT EYES
06/02/2009 at 18:16 Chris R says:
@Dinger:
A: I would never use a controller for the PC. Reason: I love the mouse too much to give it up for a contoller. Why not just play the game on a console if I’m going to use a controller?
I play mostly shooters and RTS’ however, so that’s why I can’t stand controllers. The only “racing” I do is in GTA4 on the PC, and I think the keyboard does just fine for driving. Also, I really don’t like platforming types of games. So that’s another strike against controllers.
B: I have a 360 (which I regret buying), and only one game for it: GTA4 for 360. I haven’t touched the 360 since last June (after I finished GTA4).
I feel hampered and gimped by playing on a console… NO MOUSE, no mods, can’t alt-tab, no Ventrilo or Teamspeak, no keyboard to quickly type messages, etc.
Also, my deskchair is just as comfy as a sofa… I spent $300+ on a really nice plush leather chair, so I have no trouble sitting in front of my PC for hours on end.
If I was really into driving games, I’d probably go for a wheel over a controller…
06/02/2009 at 18:36 espy says:
This is driving me mad, tbh. So far it’s been an experience in how not to make a pc game for me. First, it installs the EA downloader. Then it attempts to install plugins that are most definitely there. Then I have to regsiter online, because there apparently is no non-online way to test the game. The account creation is annoying, everything requires a ludicrous amount of clicking and pressing enter, plus tabbing doesn’t work. Then I continue, and it suddenly starts a browser and shows me a web page. The page says it is only viewable with IE7. Really? I mean, really? Come on. Then there is no discernable main menu where I can set stuff up, the game launches directly into a lengthy intro movie. An unskippable intro movie. You must be joking. Then it crashes more thoroughly than anything else I’ve ever run on this pc and does a hard reset. Yay.
Second try.
Reboot, first thing I see is EA Downloader telling me to install the flash plugin. I have an installed flash plugin. I’M A BLOODY FLASH DEVELOPER. Click that away. Nice that this now autostarts without ever asking me whether I want that. Start the game again, go online again, watch the bloody intro movie all over again, finally get to play. Controls are weird. You can steer with the arrow keys but not accelerate or brake. Clever. I try to change that, but there is no discernible main menu to be found. I decide to go on regardless, drive around for another 8 minutes, actually having some fun after 15 Minutes of aggrevation, only for the game to hang up so severly that I have to disconnect the mains and remove the battery to reset my notebook.
Come on.
And this is a new, fairly good notebook that plays Fallout 3 and Stalker and everything on decent settings. I’m beginning to understand what people like about consoles.
06/02/2009 at 19:50 Markoff Chaney says:
Apologies espy, my experience has been good, albeit different.
I ordered off the demo and just put the authorization info into the demo. It unlocked properly and I’ve been on the streets ever since, thinking no one else is enjoying Showtime mode as much as I am. I didn’t muck about with the EA downloader/manager thing. I never do trust those middlemen.
For menus, hit Esc, then Use F1 and F2 to navigate through further menus. You should be able to modify your key presses from there. I hope your experience improves.
06/02/2009 at 19:53 espy says:
Actually, half of it did. The actual driving works great, but the game really likes crashing in the menu screens :( I never got far enough to change the keys, so I just avoid the menus as far as possible.
06/02/2009 at 19:57 jalf says:
I just clicked finish instead of next when it wanted to install the EA downloader. Then it skipped it, and I got to launch the game. The account creation was a pain, yes, but after that, I had zero problems. Well, except I couldn’t figure out how to quit the demo… Any tips? :D
06/02/2009 at 20:17 espy says:
It does all the quitting by itself :D
06/02/2009 at 20:19 Heliocentric says:
So if i buy a copy off ea’s shitservicecrap all i need is my key and i need never use their service again.
and obviously. Not needing the disc is nice if i get retail. Criterion know how to endear themselves to the user base. I’ve tried to download the demo a few time but the server slowed to a halt last time.
Might have to find the torrent to download it.
I hope this model serves them well.
06/02/2009 at 20:30 Drool says:
@jalf
To quit go to the menu by hitting ESC on your keyboard or start on your controller. Then use the F1/F2 keys, your mouse, or the bumpers on your controller to navigate between menus. At the bottom of one menu is a “Save & Quit” option.
It isn’t a hard interface to navigate, but it is different than your standard PC game UI. It’s a UI built for a controller modded to mouse and keyboard, but you can still click all the buttons if you want.
06/02/2009 at 20:54 easyE says:
i played the demo, defiantly gonna buy it.
06/02/2009 at 21:21 shinygerbil says:
That’s right, show your defiance!
In other news..The only thing wrong from my experience is the lack of a custom soundtrack. As has been mentioned, it is fairly forgivable right now as the music is not too terrible, but still, it’s a pretty glaring oversight. Especially as they have already had to patch the PS3 version in the past to include this feature.
06/02/2009 at 23:22 Devan says:
Just bought the box (yay employee discount) and will get a gamepad later today. Looking forward to some crashing and burning tonight :)
07/02/2009 at 01:17 KruddMan says:
Hmm. I’m looking at the digital download on the EA website and apparently you can only download the thing once? Unless you pay an extra 6 bucks for some extended download service. And even then it only lasts for two years?
Anyone know anything about this? I’m not going to buy this (online at least) if it’s going to disappear.
07/02/2009 at 01:20 rocketman71 says:
Interface is stupid. Doesn’t use most PADs. And NO LAN!?!?!?!? (either that or they hid it really well). How stupid is that?.
Went from a probable buy to an instant no buy after that.
07/02/2009 at 03:50 Gunrun says:
Kruddman it lets you download it as many times as you want within 6 months, but you can still back it up somewhere else. Plus the demo is the full game anyway, so all you need to do is note down your CD key, and then download the demo and activate it that way in the future.
07/02/2009 at 04:11 bansama says:
Hmm. I’m looking at the digital download on the EA website and apparently you can only download the thing once? Unless you pay an extra 6 bucks for some extended download service. And even then it only lasts for two years?
EA still pull that stunt? Thankfully the EA store in Japan gives you the 6 month extended service free of charge. It’s still a horrible client though and I won’t be using it. Of course, with this game, we don’t even need to as you can install the full game with the demo installer =) I have the added bonus that EA Japan actually sell the English version of the game for $30. And at a cheap price like that, I’m sold.
In comparison, they sell the English version of Undercover for $80. Just to give you an idea of the usual domestic prices for games here.
07/02/2009 at 09:43 Simon Jones says:
Runs nice and slickly, although my PS2 gamepad doesn’t seem to be recognised at all, which is annoying.
It’s as fun as ever, but I’m slightly surprised by the visuals. Either the PC version has been uglified, I’ve got it set up completely wrong, or the game has dated much more than I expected since I played it on the PS3 a year ago.
07/02/2009 at 10:19 Po0py says:
I second Jims recommendation of the 360 controller for your pc. They just work. I have the wireless dongle and use a genuine 360 controller and not one of those wired games for windows ones. Still works. Even on Vista 64bit.
07/02/2009 at 13:40 kuddles says:
I was too impatient to see if Steam would eventually get it, so I bought it off Direct2Drive.
I must say I’m highly impressed, they’ve done a hell of a job optimizing this thing for the PC. I can run it with everything on high and 8xAA. Also, I was running FRAPS with it and the game seems to have it’s own vsync/triple buffering built in, since it ran smooth as butter with no screen tearing.
As for the game, I’m liking it a lot. It’s probably the first arcade racer I’ve actually gotten into in a long time.
I hope Criterion/EA gets rewarded for this effort. I have a friend who works in marketing for a game publisher who told me that the reason there’s so many bad ports of console-to-PC games is because the cost of doing a good port is much higher and yet the increase in sales is negligible, so making a decent PC port is actually seen as a bad business decision. It’ll make me sad if he’s right.
07/02/2009 at 14:41 unclelou says:
espy:
I realise I am too late, but you don’t need to make an account to play offline. I’ve played it for a couple of hours before I could be bothered to try it online.
07/02/2009 at 16:57 The_B says:
To be fair – the only difference between a wired XBox 360 controller and a Wired 360 controller ‘for Windows’ is the packaging.
08/02/2009 at 00:01 Y3k-Bug says:
I own a 360 controller for my PC games, and I don’t even own a game console.
Also, does the wireless 360 controller work for PC as well?
08/02/2009 at 09:38 bansama says:
I hope Criterion/EA gets rewarded for this effort.
I really want to buy this. As I said above, I’m sold on the game, sadly though, the EA store has a some unspecified Server Error which appears to only affect this game — preventing me from purchasing it. Blah. I hope they fix that next week.
09/02/2009 at 00:26 Argyle Warrior says:
Anyone having a problem with the download? I keep on getting a 4kb Zip file that won’t open by my multitude of unzipping programs.
09/02/2009 at 02:12 Phil H says:
@Y3K-Bug – You’ll need to get the wireless adapter(~$20), but once you’ve got that, you’re golden.
I’d absolutely love to pick up Paradise on the PC… only I’ve already got it on the PS3 and can’t justify buying it at full price again. Doesn’t mean I won’t in the future, but I’ll wait until I can (legitimately) find it on the cheap, preferably on Steam.
The new Party Pack’s visual refresh seems to have made things a lot clearer visually for me as I’ve been tearing through some spots that I’d been having trouble with before, but that might all be in my head.
09/02/2009 at 02:40 Garrett says:
@Argyle Warrior: it sounds like you’re downloading an error page of some sort; try opening it in Notepad or changing the extension to .html to see what it says. This is probably caused by your browser not retaining the required referrer information. For some sites you will need to enable cookies before files can be properly downloaded.
Having said that, for files this massive I’d strongly suggest using a download manager. I use GetRight, but it isn’t free (the unregistered version uses nag screens like WinRAR etc., although not nearly as frequently); FlashGet is a good free alternative. Download managers will never drop the file before the download is complete (which browsers will). In the case of GetRight if you download a web page rather than the expected file you’ll be given the option of opening it to see what’s wrong. The default configuration of both GetRight and FlashGet should be able to correctly pick up referrer information from your browser, although you may still need cookies enabled for some sites.
10/03/2009 at 08:33 00 Buck says:
I bought a Saitek P2500 Rumble game pad for my PC, they make any kind of controller you could ever want for PC. And for the guy who said it just didn’t feel right using his XBox360′s controller with his computer. What’s the difference? Same fkin thing! XBox360 is a computer. Your just too set in your ways and are not used to a change. Move your computer in front of your couch then, cause it sounds like an environmental problem.