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I have been awoken from my legendary lurker status to comment on a little XBL demo I sampled just 24 hours ago. I am also very angry at things lately, like Spider Man: One More Day/Brand New Day completely raping the Spider-Man comics of anything enjoyable and then shoving 3 issues a month down our throats on top of it. I'm not going to get into that right now though, as my opinion is lost among a sea of fanboys agreeing with me, and really, you don't need another reason to hate that storyline. What I'm going to post about today is something in a similar vein to Spidey's current disaster, but the opinion has swayed in a different direction, generally either for the change, or simply not caring. I talk of course (and if you guessed from the title, +1 cookie for you) of Burnout Paradise, the new "arcade" racer from EA and Criterion.
For the uneducated, the Burnout series started out rather uneventfully on the PS2 as an above average racer with awesome crashes, but little else to get people off Need For Speed/Twisted Metal/(insert your fave arcade racer here!) and take notice. Burnout 2 improved on the racing formula found in the first game, and added on an immensely fun mode called "Crash Mode" The goal of this mode was to slam into traffic in such a way as to cause the most damage. There were the straightforward slams into intersections, and the more strategic multilayer mountain roads where the high scores could only be achieved by pushing a bus down to the high way below as you crashed. And did I mention that near the end of a successful crash, as the few remaining cars try to sneak by, you can blow up your car with a "Crashbreaker" for one last chance at points. Crash Mode quickly became a fan favorite and a staple of the series.
Burnout 3: Takedown was the first multiplatform Burnout title (EA bought Criterion out after 2 and shoved it on the other consoles) and as such, a jumping on point for most current Burnout fans. (Including yours truly) It is hailed as the best of the series then and now and with good reason. The game was the perfect pick-up-and-play game, with the World Tour throwing quick and addictive events at you at a breakneck pace. Added in was Road Rage, a mode where you have to make the most opponents crash before they total your car. Crash Mode had Power-Ups like 2x score multipliers and extra Crashbreakers placed on the track in such a fashion as to make combos where whole interstates were filled with carnage. The only bad thing about the game was an annoying DJ announcer that you could thankfully mute. It was truly a legendary title, and I could go on forever about it given the time.
Burnout Revenge was the fourth edition of the series. It was almost a straight sequel to Burnout 3, with only a few differences. The crash mode was made less player friendly than in Burnout 3 (I remember hearing talk about a golf meter for boost in the PS2 and Xbox versions, but I played the 360 edition of the game, where they fixed that little flaw) Traffic Checking was added, allowing you to launch pedestrian vehicles by rear ending them, basically using them as weapons to take out opponents. The game still retained the arcade-style World Tour mode with pick-up-and-play events that you could burn through (stop it Pudge...) whenever you felt like it.
It was a workable sequel, and enjoyable to play.
I was expecting a lot when I picked up my controller for the Paradise demo. I had heard much about it, but I was saving my judgments for the game itself. It died in my hands. I could feel the disappointment bursting from me as I discovered each new feature.
- The entire game is now a sandbox game like GTA and Saint's Row. Instead of a series of events like the World Tour mode, we get events triggered through hitting a button when you pass through an intersection. All well and good, until you fail the event, and realize that you have to backtrack to the same intersection to try again. Criterion said that this was to take out load times. I'd rather spend 30 seconds watching a still image than spend 5 minutes getting back to the start of the race.
- Crash Mode has been replaced with "Showtime Mode" in where whenever you get into a wreck with other cars involved, you can activate Showtime Mode and try to make the most damage possible as you bounce from car to car. While this might be fun, it takes out all the fun and strategy of knowing Crash levels and playing your friends online, as every crash is different.
- Speaking of Online, that's screwed up too, as Online is just getting into a city with more than one player and driving around. That's it. You can play events with others, but without any kind of structure, no one will want to race. Everyone will just want to ram each other until their bored. Considering that Takedown and Revenge had good online communities where you could always find a game, it's a shame that the online mode is so short cited in this edition.
- Several of the cool features introduced in previous Burnout games (off the top of my head, Traffic Check, Aftertouch [which was controlling your car in bullet time after a wreck to get opponents, but since everything is real time you can't do that anymore], and true Burnouts [using all your boost in one shot]) are nowhere to be found in this sequel.
- Oh, and the DJ's back, this time without a mute button...
May DJ Atommika be shot
-Pudge
