Let me preface this rant by saying I should’ve already been in bed for two hours when I read on NeoGAF that the Burnout Paradise demo was available on Xbox Live Marketplace. I’ve been anticipating this game since before Critereon told us the crashes would scare us. I couldn’t go to sleep knowing the demo was “available”, I just couldn’t. So I started the demo, knowing I’d at least get a crack at it before I went to work the next morning. Shyeah… like I’d go to sleep knowing the demo was partially on my hard drive either…
After about twenty or so minutes, the demo was downloaded and installed, I loaded it up and was forced to listen to a bunch of DJ Atomi-GAH! Let me race! Let me do insane stunts and have terrifying crashes! Finally, I was able to drive around. Yup! Looks like a racing game. Yup! Arcade style gameplay… insane acceleration, crazy cornering, boost. Everything was looking good. I mean even the graphics were looking good.
So I drove around some more… then some more… then I looked for some awesome stunt spots… then I looked some more… then I looked for someone online to play with… then I looked some more… then I started a race and was given the starting/ending points and was given the choice to look for the best route… I started racing… and I looked some more. Are you noticing the trend here? If not, look some more.
I spent a whole hell of a lot of my gameplay time looking for things to do and a very disproportionate amount of time actually DOING the things I thought I’d be doing. Now admittedly, I was playing at 2:00am PST before most people knew the demo was out (which explains why nobody from my friends list was on and well, frankly, playing Xbox Live with strangers is just Something I Don’t Do™… lesson learned there), I was tired, and the demo only contains a fraction of Paradise City, but… I’m quite worried. Worried that while the game may have the technology right, the sense of speed and racing dynamics right, and it may have even redefined how we’ll want multiplayer gaming implemented in the future, but, well… I wasn’t having much fun.
The open-world sandboxiness might have left things too open. There was no compelling sense of direction. I felt “lost”. Not lost as in I was stuck, hopelessly in some area I couldn’t get out of, but lost as in I knew where I was and I’m pretty sure there was fun around but I just couldn’t get there. And sure, there are a lot worse places to be lost in than Paradise City, but I guess I was expecting Criterion to cause me to need to replace my socks, or underwear… or, both. I’m sad to say, my socks and underwear are completely intact.
I’m anxious to read other folks’ takes on the Burnout Paradise demo throughout the day today and in particular I want to give PS3 version a shot to see if I can spot any differences between the two. It could just be that in my drowsy state the game wasn’t able to give me my needed boost to shake off the funk and really get into things. I couldn’t help but shake the feeling I was playing some next-gen GTA game where the city itself was front and center with better-than-average (but not amazing) driving/racing/stunt aspect to it.
Whenever I play games like Need for Speed (not ProStreet, but the previous few installments) or Midnight Club and even to a large degree the GTA games, all I end up doing is driving around the city seeing what kind of chaos I can bring to the virtual city and its inhabitants but Paradise City doesn’t have any pedestrians at all though. There’s nobody to rob; nobody to shoot at or back, etc. So I’m left with the sandboxiness overshadowing the racing and when I look at it that way, I’m left “missing” something. How can I not automatically put the racing front and center when it’s a Burnout game I’m talking about?! That shouldn’t even be an option. This is Burnout. It should exude “racing” from every nook and cranny. I should have no choice but to bow to its racing prowess.
You go play the demo. Play both versions if you have access to them both. Then come back here and tell me what YOU think. Does Burnout Paradise take racing to the next level or does it seem to you like a GTA game minus the pedestrians, shooting, and well… hookers. And to be fair, maybe Paradise City does have a redlight district that just wasn’t included in the demo. Here’s to hoping it was just me being too tired to see the awesomeness!
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6 responses so far ↓
1 Jeffrey // Dec 13, 2007 at 2:04 pm
Well I WOULD be playing it right now but unfortunately I got the ROD:*(. Hope it’s good!
2 NeonSkull // Dec 13, 2007 at 3:51 pm
Played the demo on ps3, looked nice, but it did not feel like burnout it felt like nfs:underground2. Only had a quike go will try the invite friend with my cousin later but on my own i could not work out what it was i needed to do to complete the demo, most things i went to were not avalible in the demo, it felt more like a tech demo than a demo of a burnout game. I totally blame EA. maybe the online is the main focus of the demo.
3 NeonSkull // Dec 14, 2007 at 10:32 am
tried the online, its smooth works seamless with the single player, 3(might be 2) taps of right on the D pad and your playing online. with real players trying to do takedowns on you it really changed the feel of the game. i like it and will probly get it if my friends also get it.
4 wolvergram // Dec 14, 2007 at 5:57 pm
I’m going to apologize for my long winded rant, but I’ve been bottling up how pissed I’ve been all day because of the mishandling of this franchise. Then I read this review and totally agree. So I want to vent too.
BP Sucks IMO: Instead of being an arcade style game about racing fast and knocking out the other cars or having fun crashing into stuff, it is now an exploration game all about memorizing perfect routes through a city and slowing down to make a right turn or pulling into service stations to fix your damage. You are given a map and a compass that points to your objective, but that is where the help ends.
I really hate the open world racing in this game. I’m NOT an exploration player, I could give two sh*ts about crap like NFS and GTA and learning the best routes in a racing game. I to be able to pick up and play, get a fix for five minutes. I’ll still rent it hoping there are options in the live game that don’t require me to learn racing routes (boring to me). EA is the antichrist… they killed my favorite racing franchise, maybe one day they will learn that if something isn’t broken leave it the f*ck alone!
Crashes are still there but you don’t fly, or shoot sparks when you rub metal.Takedowns are way harder to accomplish w/o getting your ass handed to you, because turns aren’t blocked off to guide you back to the road…. if you rub a wall you most likely will total yourself. lots of turning around, going to body shops, going in reverse, stopping at streetlights to start an event for that particular location, constantly hitting start to access the city map in teh middle of a race to see how to get to the finishline, etc.
boring environment here… no different locations, no different weather … same sunny weather in dreary “LA type city”. I’ll be interested to see how gracious the reviews are. You know GameSpot and IGN will saying how fresh the new direction is and give it high reviews. In itself, its not a bad game… but this ain’t Burnout… It’s Need for Speed with crash physics.
on the plus side, it’s the concept that’s flawed, the game itself is well constructed… at 60 fps its fast as hell, and everything graphically is quality. but i’m used to beautiful 1080p games like Ninja Gaiden Sigma, and this has bad as hell antialiasing.
I played my original xbox right after and burnout 3 is so much funner. WTF!!!
It’s like somebody decided to replace Coke with “New Coke” (ok now i’m really dating myself) and expect everybody to love it automatically. EA, you arrogant f**cks.
oh p.s., thanks for making the world’s laziest PS3 ports. thanks so much for taping together PS3 versions of Madden and Orange Box and shoving it down our throats for a quick buck. I hope Activision wipes you guys out.
5 NeonSkull // Dec 15, 2007 at 6:00 pm
played the demo again some more, well a lot more on freeburn. its not true burnout but i’m gonna get this the day it comes out. the online is a lot of fun. playing with some friends list people was excellent cant wait for it now.
6 Saint70 // Dec 26, 2007 at 12:54 pm
EA killed the Burnout Star…
The original Burnout was a flawed but innovative racing game. It\\\’s sequel was a breakout masterpiece. Burnout 3 was the pinnacle of the series in terms of pure adrenaline racing (even though 2\\\’s crash mode was far superior).
Burnout Revenge was good but the gameplay felt like it was going in the wrong direction. Too many shortcuts, tricks and gimmicks.
Now with Paradise, the franchise is disastrous. No one cares about lame DJ Atomika or putting a picture on your license. The game is so open ended it feels like you\\\’re are driving around NYC in I Am Legend. Paint Shops? Auto Body Shops? Find the street signs?? WTF??
Burnout used to be one trigger = brake, one trigger = gas, A button = boost. Objective: Go as fast as you can, do as much crazy s**t as you can without crashing, and if you do, take out as many muthaf***ers as you can, so you can win the race…
Paradise is a stillborn excuse of a once-killer franchise. I couldn\\\’t delete the demo from my hard drive fast enough. I\\\’m getting my Burnout 3 disc right now.
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