By Jim Rossignol on February 9th, 2009 at 7:46 am.
Burnout Paradise was released last week on PC, via a gigantic time-limited demo. It was one of the most popular console games of last year, thanks to its open-world racing model. But is it any good? Here’s Wot I Think.
Playing Burnout Paradise on PC was rather like biting into a large, delicious sandwich, filled with quality meats and condiments. Sadly the first bite revealed that the sandwich also contained an elastic band. Once the inedible foreign article had been spat out, and cuss words uttered, the meal was delicious. After all, this is one of my favourite sandwiches. And I am so very, very hungry.
Yes, those sign up problems were ludicrous. A form that requires you to click and press enter? What? No option to recover previous sign up? Unskippable intro? Broken servers? Yes, it’s embarrassing for them and frustrating for us, but I’m over that now. I’m going to be kind to the rest of the game, because it deserves a manly punch on the shoulder and a big smile.
The distribution of the entire game as a demo might have strained our info-pipes, but it was a brave, intelligent move. How else can you demo an open-world game? And if the pirated version is going to be out there in a snap of your fingers, no matter what dance the publishers might perform, why not put your legitimate buy-me-in-a-moment demo out there too? Isn’t this the kind of move that all publishers should now be looking at? Putting aside the fact that the demo was clearly too short, isn’t this one of the best ways to distribute, advertise, and sell a game on PC? (No sign of it on Steam yet, which seems like a major oversight.) I’d almost buy Burnout Paradise on principle.
Anyway, before we get the gold-valved heart of Burnout Paradise – a smart, fun, progressive racing game – I’m going to meander a bit.
Racing games are essential to my gaming library. They’re one of the things that videogames do best: that sense of speed, and potential impact – it’s something I fell in love with on the earliest computers, and never let go of. And yet it’s so very easy to fuck up. I think it’s something to do with the tactile nature of the controls, the continuous feedback loop of input and output. If the balance is even slightly out, then the whole thing is a waste of time. You see it all the time.
But these days I feel as if I’m learning to love racing games again. The root of this was when the love affair went sour. It was with Grand Prix Legends, a PC racing game of unflinching realism and startling depth. Having played the game for many weeks, I understood that its dedication to realistic racing was a heavy achievement. I get like that sometimes – I did it with Quake 3. I dreamed about the racing line, about holding on for all those laps. I also understood that I hated the game to its core. I went off racing games in an instant. It took a long time to get them back.
Now, now, don’t think I’m judging you, Grand Prix Legends Fan. Because you are, in fact, one of my closest friends. I understand your interests. For me, though, games need some give. I take games far too seriously, clearly, and I can’t do that with racing games too. I want Midtown Madness. I want to drive round the track backwards in Indy 500. I want to fly off a bridge at 150mph, and be laughing.
Racing needs to have some kind of bungee effect, where I’m always able to claw things back. I don’t want realism. I want the illusion of just-about-gripping-tarmac, not the reality. I want to crash horribly, with all the spinning glass and shards of metal that entails, and be instantly back in the race. Having been burned in the past, and drowning my sorrows in the sci-fi speed-porn fantasies of Wipeout games and their hover-rocket pretenders, I am now re-learning my love for wheel and lap-time racing games. Particularly the ones that do not care too much. Last year was particularly rewarding. GRID was entertaining. Burnout Paradise was better.
Criterion’s bold open-world racing game isn’t the prettiest trinket, nor is it quite as ferociously compelling as earlier Burnout games. Nevertheless it feels astonishingly responsive, and rewardingly solid. The design is all about functionality of fun. It wants to sell you two things: a sense of speed, and the believability of its collisions. And it does that.
The functional nature that extends to everything in it: this is the fifth (?) time an open world racing game has been attempted, and pulled off (first being this), thanks to the simplicity of its challenges. Roll up to an intersection, spin wheels at the traffic lights, and you can be thrown straight into a race. When the race is done, you’re still on the same street, rolling to your next goal. It feels organic, zipping about, always rolling into the next challenge. The open world feels integral to the experience, and it changes the tone of racing, just Stalker’s open world changed the tone of shooting. If nothing else, it points the way for other open world pure-racers, such as FUEL, and suggests they might have a future. (This game is nothing, nothing, like GTA.)
It’s superbly brutal too. The road rage events, where you simply have to destroy your opponents, give new meaning to the term “muscle car.” In fact, cars aren’t simply rewards in Burnout, they’re trophies, in the hunting sense: you collect cars by forcing them off the road and wrecking them.
There’s no hidden agenda here, just caricatured automotive ultra-violence. Some folks have suggest that the lack of a circuit-based, here-to-there kind of racing model means the game doesn’t pull you in, but I reject that. As soon as you’ve found the beat of doing event after event, you have no problem with forward momentum. Collecting cars, beating the various events – which include staying on the road as other cars try to take you down, mad stunt routes, waypoint-driven tours around the cityscape, as well as straightforward races – it’s a well-punctuated progression, allowing little sideshows of car-swapping housekeeping and exploration between the events. Hurtling off the given route and still thundering your way into the lead makes for brilliant racing, particularly when the last few moments of a race are a wheel-grinding chariot-race to the line.
The bikes – added to the game after its initial console outing – are a new game mode in themselves, focusing more of sheer speed. The bike events are far less numerous, but they feel minimal, brutal There are fewer cars on the road. You move faster, even without the Burnout boost. Far more than with the cars, you are dragged into the notion of open street racing. Enter first-person view on the bikes and you taste what is possibly the best sense of high speed racing in any game. It’s breakneck stuff, even if your rider is never actually visible to break a neck in those brutal crashes.
All this is facilitated by the city itself – a sprawling, explorable space. It’s one of those games where you can really see how game and architecture work together. Just as shooter maps are spaces designed for gun battles, so this is a city designed for high speed absurdity. Those moments when you assume you’ve lost yourself to a deadly crash, and you find yourself bursting through a barricade, across a chasm and onto another road – in what is actually a short cut – make you hoot with joy. Criterion have clearly put the time and effort into testing their city – carving out the secret routes and off-street pathways that make the game such a mad joy. They’ve not tried to bend the game to their level design, quite the opposite: the pedestrian-free avenues of Paradise City are a guiltless exercise in creating an environment that scaffolds your fun at every opportunity. They’ve driven every alleyway, tested every curve and bend, dropped insane, arbitrary ramps and jumps into a city where there is nothing but motorised lunacy.
This becomes even more obvious in the drop-in drop-out multiplayer, when you find previously unseen portions of the city, where you and your chums enter playgrounds of ramps, jumps and death-traps. Obliterating your vehicles over and over is a distinct joy.
Having lost my 360 disc earlier in the year – a pitfall of physical media – this is the first game I’ve bought for myself this year. It makes sense to me: it Alt-Tab’s out perfectly, and I can put on my own music, or stop to correct Kieron’s spelling mistakes on RPS. I am using a 360 controller, but it seems to play reasonably well with a keyboard too. This is a decent conversion to PC, but there are some problems. No text chat in multiplayer, for example, and people are also reporting some crash bugs, which will hopefully be patched out. While it runs beautifully on a mid-spec gaming PC, it hasn’t really been buffed for the higher end PCs, and could have been a shader-number more beautiful.
I suspect Burnout Paradise will keep some people at arms length with its manic, broadly ludicrous take on racing – not to mention the piss weak rubbish that pads out the soundtrack, the nauseating radio DJ tipster, the sheer macho bullshit of it all. But it’s brilliant, and I recommend that, at the very least, you play the demo.
09/02/2009 at 08:11 Matt says:
Barring Test Drive Unlimited, of course, which was simply wonderful, particularly once a steering wheel was involved. Doubtless there were other examples that others more monied than me can fill you in on.
09/02/2009 at 08:18 Turin Turambar says:
I think i am more conservative in racing game, i am not liking a lot the directionless structure full of arbitrary challenges in Burnout Paradise.
09/02/2009 at 08:44 Lewis says:
So does the demo time out ‘per-download’ then, rather than the L4D-style ‘demo expires on X date’?
09/02/2009 at 08:46 Jim Rossignol says:
Yes, it’s forty minutes in-game, or something.
@Matt, that’s my crack smoking showing itself again. Clearly there have been open world racers for years.
@Turin, aren’t the challenges of any other racing game just as arbitrary, except you’re not driving around between the events?
09/02/2009 at 08:56 Mister Yuck says:
Did they change the third person view on the PC version? I put down the 360 version in disgust when I got the Manhattan. The car was undriveable because it took up too much of the screen; I couldn’t see the road.
Also, Midtown Madness 1-3?
09/02/2009 at 08:58 Jim Rossignol says:
I tend to drive in first person. Hah, yes, I even referenced Midtown Madness writing about it before! Duh. Also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo_Esprit
09/02/2009 at 09:12 Alex Hopkinson says:
Sadly alt-tabbing is not a universally ideal experience – when I do it, it switches to Windows instantly but actually doing anything is almost impossible. It took dozens of clicks to Ok the firewall message, for example. Otherwise great stuff though. It’s making me really want to upgrade my CPU/Motherboard to get much better performance in the glorious high speed destruction of a road rage event.
09/02/2009 at 09:23 Optimaximal says:
Bias? :)
09/02/2009 at 09:28 Ian says:
This has been one of the few drunken credit card purchases that I haven’t instantly regretted. Having really enjoyed the first(?) Burnout on Game Cube I was desperately in need of a racing game that didn’t require all sorts of extra peripherals to be able to control the cars adequately.
Adding on the whole open world and day/night cycles really is the icing on the cake for me. Even the DJ isn’t as annoying as he could have been. Although I’d opt for Angry Bob if there was a choice.
09/02/2009 at 09:45 skillian says:
Does it have any offline multiplayer, maybe hot-seat based?
09/02/2009 at 09:49 Ian says:
@skillian — there’s a thing called party mode. Don’t know if that’s the sort of thing you were after. Not tried it myself yet, though.
09/02/2009 at 09:52 Golden says:
I finished Bioshock just in time as Burnout was delivered by my friendly postperson.
After the initial whoha as mentioned by Jim I’ve found the game to be fab, just what I have been looking for in a racer. I get tired of the ‘Flatout’ circuits.
Showtime is addictive and you may have noticed I have a few high scores (check out Goldengray).
The only annoying part is the fact that those hosting online races do not opt instigate races and opt for free burn which is OK but I want to enter ranked events.
I will curse myself for saying it but I think this could have benefited from being linked to windows live. I only say this as now I have this damn windows live (via GTA & Fallout) I want to get the most out of it.
If the Xbox version can have it why cant the PC.
Anyway, I am not disappointed in the slightest. Good solid game
09/02/2009 at 09:53 Irish Al says:
The DJ is indeed an utter tube, but thankfully he shuts up after about 20% completion.
09/02/2009 at 09:55 Schmung says:
I’ve got this on 360, but I didn’t spend quite as much time with it as I did with GRID. The single player experience is a bit broken – too many identical events and no crash mode to speak of just makes it a bit too much of a chore and the lack of a restart option of any sorts is near criminal. Fine, they don’t want loading screens – just zip us back to the start as quick as the engine can stream instead of forcing me to bloody drive there.
They’ve done lots of things very, very right with Paradise but the things they did wrong just contaminated the experience a little too much for me.
09/02/2009 at 10:04 Alex Hopkinson says:
@Schmung: There’s an event restart option on all versions of the game as of last week.
09/02/2009 at 10:05 Nervous Little Tit says:
My only peeve is that there’s no friggin driver in the car. Sure, we’ve established it’s about as realistic as my chances of leaving this basement alive, but when you bust the windows out on a particularly percussive driveaway ding and see that empty seat as the car drives itself… well, I let out a PFFFF that would have dislodged a theatrical moustache.
09/02/2009 at 10:07 Golden says:
forgot to add that it looks gergeous and runs fantastically (settings at high) on my mid-range system.
8800 GTS, 2GB ram, AMD 4200 processor
09/02/2009 at 10:10 skillian says:
@Ian
Thanks, that’s exactly what I was looking for. Guess this is a buy for me then :)
09/02/2009 at 10:11 lhzr says:
@Schmung: now there is a restart-event option. update your 360 version and you should get it too :)
09/02/2009 at 10:17 Irish Al says:
@Neverous Little Tit
Yep, but blood-stained ragdolls means no sales to Little Johnny.
09/02/2009 at 10:26 Switch625 says:
I absolutely LOVED Turbo Esprit on the Speccy. So much so I used to drive around for hours, not even playing the game. Just exploring.
I can still remember the 5 second theme tune that used to play when the game finally finished loading.
Yes, I spent many an hour during my formative years exploring a wireframe city whilst controlling a car with a Kempston joystick. Good times.
Erm, anyway, I played a lot of Burnout Paradise last night – it’s actually the first Burnout game I’ve played – and really enjoyed it. I’ve played a bit on my mate’s PS3 but only ever just driven around aimlessly. Actually unlocking cars and doing the challenges (I love Marked Man) is tremendous fun.
09/02/2009 at 10:26 clive dunn says:
Amazed to find that this runs really well on my laptop, (8400gs), yeah it looks a bit cruddy but smooth as all the black ice currently entombing me in my house. First racing game that’s been able to run properly on this machine and loved the Burnouts on my old PS2.
Something vaguely wrong about the demonic look my wife gives me as she barges me off the road for the umpteenth time!
09/02/2009 at 10:27 Heliocentric says:
the bikes have riders, the cars should have a driver.
09/02/2009 at 10:37 Irish Al says:
The bikes do, yes, but you’ll notice that if you hit something on a bike at warp 7 there’s still no ‘death animation’, it just fades out and comes back. I think they should have put in peds and drivers etc, but allowed them to be turned off in the options.
09/02/2009 at 10:45 Jim Rossignol says:
@Optimaximal: It’s John’s job to correct my spelling, I blame him.
09/02/2009 at 10:47 groovychainsaw says:
The biggest issue i have with burnout paradise, and its petty, is that i frequently lose in the high-end races because i look at the map to see if im going the right way
Crunch.
Straight into car/bus/wall/lamppost/odd concrete bench that hadn’t been there a second ago. I have to race some of the harder races several times until I’ve learnt the route so i don’t have to look at the map. Which doesn’t feel right for burnout somehow. IU think project gotham 4 (boo/hiss console game!) got it better because it had these open cities but locked down you course for each race with barriers. There were lots of corners etc. you recognised, but you never had to look at a map to complete a race. They could have opened it up for a burnout-stlye road rage race, thats fine. Plus, when you inevitably fail due to looking at a map, you have to drive all the way back across town… which is dull. And burnout should never be dull…
09/02/2009 at 10:59 Irish Al says:
@groovychainsaw
Yep, but in my case I put this down to being too old for this shit at age 40. It gets easier as you get familiar with the map. The recent patch has made it easier to pick out what’s in the far distance, it used to be terrible when everything was lit in super-saturated midday sunlight.
09/02/2009 at 11:01 SPLastic the Racer says:
I absolutely adore this game, even with it’s niggling little problems.
Picked it up last year for the 360 and had a ball with it, but never got into the online scene as the Xbox Live community is less than desirable and none of my friends had it. The release on PC has changed that – my PC friends are much more open-minded.
09/02/2009 at 11:03 Nervous Little Tit says:
groovy/al/et al:
Listen for the audio cues… they sound like a booping open door/seatbelt’s off warning on the left or right audio channel, but I guess it’s supposed to be a GPS turn left/right thing. Whatever, it works like a charm and the minimap can be relegated to twitchy checks for bends/junctions trying to ruin your new-found full-tiltage.
09/02/2009 at 11:04 Sarajlija says:
Why would you have to drive back across town? Just pull up the Easydrive menu (numeric keypad) and choose Restart. This feature wasn’t in the original BP, but it’s in The Ultimate Box.
Also, I very much disagree with Jim’s opinion. It’s a hard hitter at first, to be sure, but later on it dissolves into a buch of samey races where it feels you repeat the same tasks over and over again. Yes, at higher speeds, but this seldom means higher difficulty since your driving skills are progressing to. At the point where you get to the A License and the game demands that you complete FORTY more events, yet features only FIVE different and unstuctured race types, it all boils down to Pokemonish gotta-collect-them-all mentality to progress even further. Its a good game, yet it’s a lot better at the beginning than at the end.
09/02/2009 at 11:16 Jim Rossignol says:
Agreed, it could be repetitious as you progress. But it’s a racing game, which means the larger part of the entertainment is you getting more skilled at driving. I played through to the A licence on 360 quite happily, and I’m doing so again on PC (only with bikes as a side-order this time). I’ve never really worried about the number of event types.
09/02/2009 at 11:20 Po0py says:
It runs great and even though I have a pretty beefy system it still looks good enough. I know it could do with a few extra shiny bits but when your barrelling down a road at 200mph who the hell is gonna notice?
Demo was painfully short. I was just starting to have fun with it smashing up some european dudes when it cut out on me. Still not so sure if this is a buy for me. Empire: Total War and Resident Evil 5 are just around the corner. They could have given us an extra half hour just to seal the deal.
09/02/2009 at 11:31 UncleLou says:
It’s a good game, but I like it rather than love it. Something of the excitement of Burnout 2 is missing, even if I can’t quite put my finger on it.
And boy, do I miss crash mode. The showtime event thingy isn’t an appropriate replacement at all. Seeing how many people have mentioned this, I am rather astonished that it hasn’t been announced as DLC yet.
09/02/2009 at 11:50 Barts says:
I personally love Burnout Paradise. The sense of speed and the feeling of satisfaction after crashing an opponent are unparalleled.
Also, on my mid-specs PC this game runs beautifully and the effectiveness of porting sets an example to all other developers (hear that, Rockstar?! *shakes fist*)
09/02/2009 at 11:51 Bhazor says:
But if I was a pirate would I spend the exact same amount of time downloading a half hour demo of the whole game as I would the cracked game?
I haven’t played it yet, need to sort out my internet connection, but I think limiting the game to say a couple of districts would have made the demo a lot more tempting and hidden all the trekking that was criticised on release.
‘ey? Got that Criterion? Got that stewing in the old noodle?
09/02/2009 at 11:58 rocketman71 says:
No LAN = No buy
I’m tired of this BS from EA, first with NFS and now with Burnout. I wonder if anyone at all there plays their own games.
09/02/2009 at 12:14 bansama says:
In case no one said it already, the demo is supposed to time out after 30 minutes, not 40. The actual game play is brilliant fun even offline. But the menu system isn’t as good as it could be. Took me forever to realise I could redefine the keys by several presses of F2 to finally get to the appropriate menu selections.
And as I said in the demo post. I really want to buy this, but it seems the server issues even extend to the EA store as all I’ve gotten is server errors that are preventing me from even adding the game to my shopping cart. Trying to buy from within the game just leads to a white screen. Blah!
I’d inform the EA store staff of the problem, but they only offer phone/fax support where I am, and I don’t have a fax machine and cannot justify the premium rate phone number. Why they don’t offer web based support is beyond me >_<.
I can’t describe how frustrating it is to want to give them my money and not being able to do so. This game is that good (in my opinion of course), I’ll be posting my full opinion on the game up on my own site as soon as I can =/
09/02/2009 at 12:23 Po0py says:
I should also mention, the webcam feature was excellent. In the brief time I was playing online there was two other guys using webcams. It recognised my webcam instantly. Gave me a fright, actually, as I had forgotton all about it and on the licence setup page I suddenly found my ugly mug staring right back at me. I suspect a lot of pc users will have webcams attatched to their computers. Maybe more-so than the 360 or PS3 versions.
09/02/2009 at 12:30 Gunrun says:
How on earth do I add my own music? You mention it but I have found no such way.
09/02/2009 at 12:37 Sarajlija says:
Agreed, it could be repetitious as you progress. But it’s a racing game, which means the larger part of the entertainment is you getting more skilled at driving. I played through to the A licence on 360 quite happily, and I’m doing so again on PC (only with bikes as a side-order this time). I’ve never really worried about the number of event types.
It’s the bane of sandbox games. The races aren’t structured and designed since the developers only pinpoint the starting point and the finish, then it’s up to the bots that have to adapt to provide a challenge. It’s a price to pay to drive around a free city – but it’s a steep price in the long run since the game does get very monotonous. This is also true about the crash mode that can’t really hold a candle to the dozens of nicely structured crash challenges from Takedown or Revenge.
The situation is actually a bit like comparing a well-written review to a random rant. The latter can be fun and engaging, but I prefer the first any day.
09/02/2009 at 12:40 Sarajlija says:
@Gunrun: run Winamp in the background ;).
09/02/2009 at 13:38 The Shed says:
@Golden: That’s a mid-range system these days…? Man I suck.
Something like Advent 3.2 GHz Intel Ptm 4 (the good part)
512MB RAM (DDR2 I think/hope)
Radeon x700?
It’s so painful…
09/02/2009 at 13:52 Anonymous says:
No Steam release?
Oh well, I ended up buying it on 360 instead. It was 10 dollars cheaper ($20 + 800 points DLC), and it is great great fun.
Also, I must be the only one who is fond of the DJ, he is the same “DJ Atomica” who narrated SSX3′s radio, another brilliant game. Can’t say I like the soundtrack though.
09/02/2009 at 13:55 dwmr says:
It plays great on my dusty old logitech MOMO racing wheel unlike GRID and DIRT.
09/02/2009 at 14:13 Chris Evans says:
Been playing for a couple of hours total so far, really having a good time. Spent more time just charging around crashing through all the signs and barriers than doing anything constructive :D
Had a quick dabble in the multiplayer, seems fun. Though I would much rather have a manual to explain the different modes to me, I can’t find one after downloading the demo and then purchasing it via the in-game store.
09/02/2009 at 14:17 Velvet Fist, Iron Glove says:
@Jim: Another earlier attempt at an open-world racing game was Vette! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vette!
Downloaded BP demo last night, but haven’t installed it yet.
Any news on DRM in the full game? I’m still avoiding buying (and playing) games with SecuROM, Tages, StarForce, and the like.
09/02/2009 at 14:37 Bananaphone says:
I got tired of Burnout after the third game, the fourth was more like a Scaletrix simulator, you didn’t need to look where you were going, just hold the accelerator and bounce off the walls. FlatOut Ultimate Carnage is far superior, IMO.
09/02/2009 at 14:37 bansama says:
Spent more time just charging around crashing through all the signs and barriers than doing anything constructive
That reminds me, any one else with an Nvidia card and the latest drivers getting flickering on the “mended” broken signboards? it’s the only annoying graphical glitch I’ve seen.
09/02/2009 at 14:39 bansama says:
Any news on DRM in the full game? I’m still avoiding buying (and playing) games with SecuROM, Tages, StarForce, and the like.
It’s using SecuROM — at least it has related DLLs in the install directory. It does come with a deauth tool too, so I really don’t see why they even bothered.
09/02/2009 at 14:55 Markoff Chaney says:
Paradise is a mixed bag. The open world format leads to some nice lazy sunday driving, and many different race, even if they are only variants on a theme, you go from a different A to a different B most of the time, so it’s different enough. I miss my crashing puzzles. The new per street mode is fun, but lacks my OCD must get Gold Stars completionist aspect.
I’ve only played offline so far, and have about 9 more races before I’m done with the B license. I’m having a blast, so far, though. Burnout always had, to me, one of the best balances of fun with “reality” with over-the-topness. It may not be Carmageddon, but I can still have fun behind a pixellated vehicle.
As another aside, I had no issues purchasing the game from the demo. The EA website was a little slow when it got to giving me my key, but there it was in under 60 seconds from me giving them my credit card details. It also just felt right buying from the demo. I wanted to let Criterion see at least one referrer from that model, and I endeavor to applaud and support great Developers for a good port and for finally coming to my preferred format.
09/02/2009 at 15:39 Jockie says:
My favourite thing about the game is that they actually bothered to make a console port PC friendly, i mean the menu controls aren’t great. But that it actually lets you alt-tab with minimal fuss (2-3 seconds max for me) means you can have a quick blast on it, indulge in whatever insanity you feel like at the time, whether it be crazy stunts or blistering speed, dipping in and out of the game at whim. Alt-F4ing to close the program works as it should as well, with the game shutting down in a couple of seconds.
Shame they totally butchered Crash Mode though.
09/02/2009 at 15:48 MonkeyMonster says:
Its the mode where you have to cause the biggest crash possible that only just tops my hubba hubba meter (from maybe burnout 2?) But the sheer joy of racing against other humans and you nudging them into a hilarious crash etc… One to play against my brother for sure!
and then I re-read the post above (sad face)
09/02/2009 at 16:15 bhlaab says:
I like this game, but two things annoy me: The lack of a custom radio and the fact that finding your way to the finish line is so much of a hassle that it distracts from the actual race. The minimap could be a LOT clearer and it would be nice if you could set waypoint markers on it.
09/02/2009 at 16:26 Trousers says:
I played the demo and thought it was great, but…
Seriously? They got rid of the “jump your car over this bridge, cause a 200 car pileup” mode?
That was really the only reason I was going to buy this : (
Thanks for the heads up RPS commentators, I was this close to christening by new credit card with a purchase..
09/02/2009 at 16:33 The_B says:
Because I’m annoyingly persistant, I’m also going to request that you lovely RPS readers who want to join other RPS readers in Paradise City could do a lot worse than checking out this forum thread with player names in as well as adding your own.
I am of course – The_B See you in game. Probably my wreckage first mind.
09/02/2009 at 16:44 Markoff Chaney says:
One other thing to point out about the races that some other readers pointed out – Be mindful of dinging sounds and flashing lights. The preferred route of any race is spelled out to you as you approach a turn. You hear some beeping (or dinging) and you can see the turn signal on your vehicle light up showing the direction you should turn. Also, if you look up at the street name signs, one of them is blinking if you need to turn that way. If you miss your turn, helpful blinking starts back up usually at the next intersection. Be mindful, however, if you miss the first turn you’re out of the approved best path. I’ve won races from going alternate paths, however.
I’m still sad I lost my crash puzzles. :( I just remembered one of the other things I loved in prior Burnouts that’s missing – Aftertouch Takedowns. I’d pay another 40 dollars to have those 2 things in Paradise.
I posted in that thread as well, The_B. Thanks for the reminder. I meant to post yesterday, but a gnat caught my eye or something.
09/02/2009 at 16:50 Drool says:
I don’t understand the “events are repetitive” complaint. It’s a racing game. By its very nature it’s about driving from A to B and back again. All racing games do this, but Burnout Paradise gives you a giant city to roam around in when you feel like it.
This game hits the, “Oh what’s that, I bet there’s something cool down there,” button that only open world games can.
Of course I haven’t played Burnout since the first one so I don’t have any sort of longing for crash mode. Showtime is a fun diversion and I’m ok with that.
09/02/2009 at 17:23 Irish Al says:
@bhlaab
The map is indeed not spectacular and it’s also hard to distinguish between orange and red race markers on it.
09/02/2009 at 18:00 Anthony Damiani says:
“(This game is nothing, nothing, like GTA.)”
It’s an open-world, ultraviolent, fun-over-realism, modern-day urban racing game.
How different could it be?
09/02/2009 at 18:05 unclelou says:
I don’t understand the “events are repetitive” complaint. It’s a racing game. By its very nature it’s about driving from A to B and back again. All racing games do this, but Burnout Paradise gives you a giant city to roam around in when you feel like it.
But it’s not that giant, or maybe simply feels no different enough. There was more track variey in Burnout 2. Much of the city layout is rather interchangeable, with the exception being the east side with its couple of uphill/downhill roads. And with its only 8 endpoints, you inevitably race on the same sections again, and again, and again.
09/02/2009 at 18:05 unclelou says:
West side, baby. I meant West side.
09/02/2009 at 18:40 StalinsGhost says:
Alice in Chains – Would? Faith No More – Epic. Soundgarden – Rusty Cage. Janes Addiction – Stop.
Oh mai.
I very nearly bought it on those terms alone. Shame about the rest of the music mind.
09/02/2009 at 18:50 ulix says:
Game also works perfectly with the Logitech Cordless Rumblepad 2, even supports rumble (so few games do it on this particular gamepad). Although I’m not really satisfied with the rumble-design.
Totally over the top in crash-mode, but not even noticeble anywhere else.
09/02/2009 at 19:06 A Delicate Balance says:
I’ve had BO:P for the PS3 for nearly a year as I was looking for half-interesting games to get for the PS3 when Blu-Ray won and I wanted a BR player. I was disappointed from the word go. I know they’ve fixed the restarting the races now, but a year after I bought the game, I really couldn’t care less. I’ve tried to like it, over and over again, but it just fails to please me in all the ways that count.
In particular I have to strongly disagree that BO:P is better than GRiD. I meticulously played GRiD to completion and have spent hours playing it online, even eventually switching to manual gears for increased control, whereas BO:P is so lacklustre I’m sure I’ll never bother to complete it.
09/02/2009 at 20:58 The_B says:
StalinsGhost – You haven’t played this game properly until you’ve done a Road Rage event to Avril Lavigne’s Girlfriend.
09/02/2009 at 22:07 iainl says:
I love, love, love Paradise. After about 4 hours I knew the city well enough that looking at the map wasn’t an issue most of the time, and as every race involves the traffic and other racers doing different stuff the fact that I’m on the same roads is actually useful, rather than repetitive.
10/02/2009 at 00:31 Buemba says:
@A Delicate Balance
Well, they’re both pretty different games. While GRiD isn’t a full-on simulator it definitely veers more towards realism while Paradise is a pure arcade racer (The type that hardly ever requires you to stop pressing the accelerator). Both games are great at what they do and in the end the “better game” depends much more on personal preference than any of their particular merits.
But as long as we’re comparing both games: I do think GRiD has much better car damage modeling and tracks, but the over the top twisted metal porn and sense of “Jesus I’m driving a freakin’ rocket” of Burnout suits my tastes better.
10/02/2009 at 01:58 KBKarma says:
Well, I’m sold. I’ll buy it once my machine can handle it.
10/02/2009 at 04:52 bansama says:
As another aside, I had no issues purchasing the game from the demo. The EA website was a little slow when it got to giving me my key, but there it was in under 60 seconds from me giving them my credit card details.
Yeah, I’m fairly sure this problem is specific to the Japanese store and EA’s love of regionally redirecting based on IP (which is why it won’t work in game either). Someone in charge of the Japanese store obviously messed up something in regard to this game. So it looks like I’m not going to be able to buy it at all >_<
And I need my “driving fast” fix dammit.
10/02/2009 at 05:18 Y3k-Bug says:
That, and GRID has somewhat horrid control, at least in the later stages of the game, while using a 360 controller.
The only time that happens in Burnout is when I’m trying the entirely wrong care for the event I’m currently in.
10/02/2009 at 05:20 Kanakotka says:
Just like a delicious saaaandvich, that’s delicious with one bite, it can be too big to be consumed upon one time, while normally that’s not a problem, the sandvich gets stale upon the longer you take eating it, as you find yourself that there isn’t much in the way of filling other than the first few bites, and everything else is exactly same.
10/02/2009 at 05:36 VTGamer says:
Try this for fun, Burnout for me is a multiplayer single player game, what we would do is play a race and then swap out, when you arent constantly doing the same thing over and over again, the game is much less repetitive, because of the open nature of Paradise we generally had a time limit or a certain amount of races, but the glorious part was that even watching, the entertainment of the vehicular carnage was worth it since when you are racing you are not really watching the mayhem that is going on.
10/02/2009 at 13:17 Surgeon says:
I played the original Burnout on the PS2, and thought it was amazing.
I agree with what Jim was saying on the podcast though, Paradise doesn’t seem to be quite as mental as the previous games.
Although the sense of speed and feeling of destruction is still spot on.
The best parts of Paradise for me are Road Rage, and the random encounters with the cars that you need to take down to win.
10/02/2009 at 17:28 schac5 says:
That was cool
Call Of Duty Comedy Sketch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhufrnT4818
From The Whitest Kids You Know
10/02/2009 at 22:07 G-Master says:
@ skillian
Yeah, it has a party mode, where you complete little challenges in turns, like
“Do the most jumps along this road” or
“Drive furthest in oncoming traffic” or “Get the best time around this route.”
11/02/2009 at 11:53 Matt Webster says:
Hi all, we really appreciate all the feedback that we’re getting, as you all know this is our first time on PC so we’re learning a lot!
In particular I’m interested in players having problems with servers. If you can let us know at mailbag@criteriongames.com with PC Server Problems in the subject line and we’ll do whatever we can to solve them.
Thanks again, hope you don’t mind me using this page for our customer feedback requests!
The Burnout Team
11/02/2009 at 15:53 Drool says:
Custom soundtracks and text chat Mr. Webster. That is what I desire for ultimate Burnout PC perfection.
I haven’t had any problems with games online other than mouthy Russian dudes, but your in game news feed is still borked.
12/02/2009 at 16:05 Matt Webster says:
Thanks, we’ll add that to a nice-to-have list!
We’ve had some reports on the new page and I’m in the process of changing the error message. Seems some version of IE don’t come with the same security settings (or users play with them)
If you go to Tools \ Internet Options \ Security Tab \ Custom Level Button
Search for the scripting level, you should have
“Active Scripting – Enable”
“Allow programmatic clipboard access – prompt”
“Allow status bur updates via script – enable”
“Allow for websites to prompt for information using scripted window – enable”
“Scripting of java applets – enable”
That should sort it!
12/02/2009 at 16:08 Matt Webster says:
actually… we think that just enabling “Allow status bar updates via script” should fix it…
-Matt
12/02/2009 at 17:25 Drool says:
Man, I don’t even know where a shortcut to Internet Explorer is on my PC. Who uses IE anymore?
But thanks for the tip I’ll go fix it up.
12/02/2009 at 20:18 iainl says:
Spoken like someone who hasn’t reached the later cars; they’re eyeblendingly fast.
12/02/2009 at 20:46 jalf says:
@Matt Webster: Any chance of seeing the game on Steam?
I’ll buy it the moment I can get a version with no limits on how often I can download/install/activate it. (Obviously a non-Steam non-DRM version would be even better, but any version with no limit on activations will do)
Loved the demo, so this officially gets on my coveted and highly exclusive “list of racing games that don’t suck” (which now contains a whopping 2 games. Doesn’t get much more exclusive) :D
13/02/2009 at 07:13 bansama says:
Yay, I finally got through to the Japanese EA store support system (which was offline itself =/) and within an hour, they fixed the problem with Burnout paradise. Snapped it up as soon as they informed me =)
The only problem I have now is that none of the ingame news information displays. It just gives the message “News not available”.
Also now looking forward to the “cops n robbers” content, the one thing I found missing with this game.
14/02/2009 at 07:30 Tom says:
Thanks for your message Mr Webster!
A editable playlist is highly welcome because most of the soundtrack is simply bad teen rock music.
But also the soundtrack menu is awfuly badly done, it doesn’t make any use of the resolutions and size of our pc screens. It is obviously a copy of the console menu, like all the rest of the game menus which are a real pain, honestly.
I’ve had issues of savegame corruption when exiting to windows via the bottom choice in the ingame options menu, those corruptions don’t happen if I first leave to the main title screen and then exit to windows.
Your game if for the rest a really really good game, It surpasses the NFS franchise on every level for me, mainly because there is none or very little frustration from missing a turn or not winning a race. I’ve been longing for a pc version of any Burnout for years, thank you.
15/02/2009 at 17:38 Y3k-Bug says:
A question to the room:
Anyone else have problems getting the Winamp’s global hotkeys to work while playing the game?
17/02/2009 at 14:48 1nsane says:
Guys i have problem with the game:
My steer wheel isnt working on it. I have: Trust Steering Wheel GM-3200 VFB. Do you have anything to do with the settings to get it work, or just plug & play?
PLz help me