Burnout Paradise

[Number45]

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/840/840945p1.html?RSSwhen2007-12-11_164800&RSSid=840945

Hands on with the final build, apparently. All sounds good, except:

If you enter a race that takes you halfway across Paradise City and wind up failing, in order to try again you'll have to drive yourself back to the start. There is no quick skip option, which is a trade-off for having no load times once the game begins.

That could get annoying on the harder challenges, hopefully they'll consider the possibility of allowing you to set a marker like Skate.

[watusi]

If thats true then thats a game breaker for me, far too frustrating and a daft design decision.

[Dezm0nd]

Hmmm that's a bit pap, suppose you could find another race and race back to where you need to go!

Bit of an oversight, should have a restart option which is always essential in burnout games.

[ChrisF]

Sounds exactly the same as Test Drive Unlimited?

[TheForce]

They should have a look at TestDriveUnlimited, there it worked just fine (and that one also ran without loadingtimes).
It would be a big letdown if there is no option to warp to a specific marker on the map.

but beside this.... I still can't wait to get my hands on this !
This is (could be) online gaming nirvana !

[Uli]

i have yet to finish Burnout 3 & 4... and i wonder if this one will finally get me back to the fun i had with Burnout 2.

[The_G_Man]

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3163983

January 22nd confirmed (US I assume, though I doubt there will be much difference), with a demo for PSN and XBL coming in December. I've ignored the franchise since BO2 () but I'm very interested in this, seems to at least offer some variety on what's been available in the last couple of games. As long as there's actually non-contact racing and the chain system from 2 in here (As I understand it is) then I'll definitely be picking it up.

Good, we will be able to download both demos and that should make choosing between PS3 or 360 version a bit easier.
From what I am hearing this has been built from the ground up for PS3, is this correct?

[PeteJ]

xboxyde had two videos up earlier but they have been pulled at the request of EA.

One showed the new feature called 'Showtime', which I thought looked pretty rubbish. You press L1 and R1 and your car goes into 'crash' mode - basically it turns to the side and keeps on rolling, but you have aftertouch control. The powerbar runs down if you bounce of the ground but fills up again if you crash into a car. I can't quite see the point in it to be honest. I guess it replaces the crash junctions since it is an open city, but it looked really unfun.

On the plus side the graphics are really, really good. The screens don't do it any justice, and it seems to run well too.

I still don't like the idea of the open city, but being a burnout whore I'll pick this up as soon as possible

edit - showtime on youtube, really poor quality but hopefully you should see what I mean...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3ybat1DTJ4

Also just found out there is no restart option - you have to drive to the start of the event to retry a race. I really hope that isn't true!

[angelx]

That does not look half as fun as crash mode, if that is the only alternative it may be a big mistake.

[Number45]

Yeah I saw that earlier. I was never a fan of the crash mode in the games I did play, but to be honest Showtime looked dull as dishwater. In fact it looked like a car based version of Pain.

[EvilBoris]

It reminded me of the stone skimming minigame in Flatout, it could be kinda fun.
I doubt they've ditched the Crash mode though, so don't panic.

[mr_woo]

It's hilarious reading all the different message boards where people are going mad over the Showtime mode, you know something that's ****ing optional and that you don't even have to do. Can't say I miss 'Crash mode' either, never been a fan of it in any of the games, it's all about the racing as far as I'm concerned and stunts (and cool crashes, just not a whole mode out of them)

Roll on tomorrow for the demo and then January for the full thing, I just don't see it being that disappointing (for me anyway)

[Number45]

This suggests it's a replacement rather than an addition:

Something else that's changed quite a bit is Crash mode. Rather than having individual intersections set up and awaiting your destruction, you instead start a Crash Showtime at any point by pressing two shoulder buttons at the same time. Your car will then begin tumbling down the highway, taking out whatever you can manage to smash into. You earn boost for each vehicle you hit, which you can then spend to bounce your car a bit, keeping you on the move at all times. Busses are the only vehicles that will give you a multiplier here, which makes sense considering that we've been able to rack up a 430+ car Crash Showtime outing. We weren't sold on this new design at first, but it's getting more enjoyable as our skills increase.

[FatGit_UK]

According to Criterion's site (here), the demo is due tomorrow, so maybe we'll find out for ourselves what it's all about

[EvilBoris]

the demo will be up at 4pm.