It seems Criterion Games aren’t quite content with utterly dominating the online racing scene with their fantastic, ever-expanding venture we all call Burnout Paradise. In February, PC gamers will be able to take a spin around Paradise City for themselves, and a bunch of extra content will bring more of the game to your living room, rather than leaving the crashing online. Oh, and there will be some rather familiar guest cars hitting the streets soon too…

A massive, um, burn-tastic (?) slew of details away after the jump!

You should know by now that Burnout Paradise has changed the way we look at racing games, especially online. It has shown us that playing a racer online doesn’t necessarily mean sitting in a lobby for 5 minutes tinkering with settings, then driving round a circuit a few times, until you get bored and play GTA IV instead. With Paradise, Criterion let us jump into an online game without navigating a single menu screen, and without any loading times.

From there, the updates we’ve had over the past year have given us new cars, motorcycles, new challenges to play with our friends and a lot more. Criterion dubbed 2008 “The Year of Paradise” but I have a feeling that 2009 could be deserving of that title, mainly because there’s a lot of content being planned already and it’s only the start of the year.

First up, for instance, is the PC release of the game in the appropriately subtitled The Ultimate Box. The Ultimate Box will become the standard release of the game on all platforms following its release on February 6th and will come loaded with all of the previous updates along with Criterion’s new hotseat add-on titled The Party Pack. The Party Pack lets you and seven of your buddies to have Paradise’s answer to a party by facing off against each other in a bunch of challenges: anything from landing barrel rolls to causing expensive crashes.

The Party Pack will also be released as Criterion’s first piece of paid-for downloadable content; a trend they’ll continue with the release of a whole new island later in the year. That’s not to say it’s a bad thing, though: Paradise still provides more fun than plenty of other games after a year and I wouldn’t say no to providing the developers with a little extra ‘thank you’ in return for more toys to play with.

On the subject of toys, one set of vehicles Criterion has planned is, um, toy cars. The ChoroQ-inspired midget cars will come as a set of 9 and will, again, be an optional paid-for download. There’s no word on whether the “Legendary Cars” pack – based on the Ecto-1 from Ghostbusters, the General Lee, KITT from Knight Rider and Back to the Future’s DeLorean – will cost you anything (or the “Boost Specials”) but I’d be willing to bet that there will be a small price to pay for the continuous effort that Criterion is putting in.

I don’t think there’s been a game that’s been so well-supported post-release and you have to give it to Criterion as they’ve done an amazing job so far. Would it really be too much to ask if you actually paid for some of this new content, given how much work the developer has put in over the past year (and possibly even further into the future)? I wouldn’t think so! My wallet’s open and ready…

Criterion Dates PC, Ultimate and Party! – Criterion Games

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