Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box Comments by Richard Leadbetter

Have Criterion ever hinted at a back-to-basics Crash mode reappearing in the Burnout series?

We STILL end up playing Burnout 2 (Gamecube disc via the Wii) on 'party nights', taking in turns on the various Crash junctions just never gets boring, both from a playing and watching perspective.

The later versions got too fiddly (aftertouch, blowing up your car etc), I would love a whole new load of Crash junctions.

We can't be the only ones, right?

Question: does this new Ultimate box have an extraordinarily long initial load time, like my regular Xbox 360 version with the bikes download? Once those bikes were downloaded, the whole game had much much much worse load times. It would almost be worth starting again with a fresh Ultimate disc, if the load times are back to normal.

@secombe

I really hope they put crash mode back in, and I too that that if they do it is a pure form. The bells and whistles of crash in BO3 were a nice distraction, but they changed the mechanic completely. It became far more about hitting the multipliers than hitting a high number of vehicles. I fondly remember trying plan after plan in BO2 in the pursuit of the (sometime) seemingly impossible gold medals. And when you somehow managed to find another 60,000 points from god knows where, it makes it all the sweeter. BO3 crash mode seemed a lot kind of "consistent" and flat by comparison.

@Ignatius_Cheese

'Its been said many times before and shall be said, by certain people, many times again: the restart option is a cop-out and goes against Burnout Paradise's design premise.

That said, if it makes people happy/less impatient, far be it from me to throw my toys out of the pram over the slow retardation of games.

Edit - Oh, and if you haven't already, buy this game. It is phenominal! Would recommend using the restart option only on the "one side of map to the other" events, otherwise you just won't memorise the map layout quickly enough.'

I understand your views - they could have been mine 15 years ago, but these days I don't have the time or patience for having to trek back to the start of a race that I finished second place in, and only due to there being no rotating minimap for me to navigate to the finish line. Even trying to look left results in looking right, which can put me off and lead to a crash.

I bought this game a month after launch, and gave up on the races within 3 months, as I simply don't have the time considering that so many losses are due to me not having time to learn the map, and hitting a corner due to looking at the static map and trying to get my bearings.

The restarts don't affect you, as you don't have to use them, but they've made me pay attention to the single player game again.
I've not even mentioned Burning Routes yet. After my first few annoyances with racing, I didn't even bother to enter a single burning route. For a year since I bought the game. I like 360 controllers, and my TV, and I'd have only destroyed both by trying to beat time trials under the conditions that the (broken) design has forced since launch.

Again - if you've got the time and the patience in your life - then no problem. I on the other hand have not - and would have ended up abandoning the game, and thinking twice about buying any sequels - just like with San Andreas and Vice City with their broken save systems, which force a reload and a trek across the map to get back to a (trial-and-error) failed mission.

Unnecessary - my games don't load from a VHS tape, so there's really no need.

I like your style Ryze. I too am old.

The restart option DOES seem to make this easier though.

Reading some of your comments about the amount of time you lot have put into this.

I didnt start playing until the latest patch was released on Friday.

.. i'm 8 hours in.. have just 4 super jumps left to find, 10 bill boards and a handful of gates.

I'm a Class A driver with just 8 events to win to get to the next level (dunno what it'll be)

So it seems the game MAY be easier now? Or does it mean i'm better at racing games than you lot? That'd make a change - as im shite at fps games! :-)

+1 on the "Can we please have a crash junction mode without all the extra shit like aftertouch and car blowing up" pleads.

Easily my game of 2008 - I'm still playing it! BURNOUTEERS UNITE!

Oh man -- I just saw that the update is 800MB! I only have a 20GB hard drive, and I need the last 4 or 5 GB free to install one game at a time. I can't believe some graphics and gameplay tweaks are 800MB! I don't think I can spare the space for this. Dammit, that's reason enough to buy the new disc.

Question: is a save file for the original disc going to work with the new disc?

yeah i had same problem.. i just deleted everything else :-)

@squeakyg

I reckon they've sneakily included all of the cars that they're about to sell to us over the next few months.

Otherwise, upon release of each car pack, EVERYONE would have to download all of the cars to continue playing. Better to get the content out in one go via a mandatory update, eh?

@ Darren

The game starts without any traffic as you're a newbie in the city. With each upgrade on your license, traffic in the city goes up a notch. By the time you reach B, you're dodging a LOT of traffic.

@khaz - I know there is more traffic as I played the PS3 version for over 20 hours until I got truly bored of it.

However, there's still a lot less traffic than, say, Midnight Club: L.A. and that coupled with the odd lack of car drivers and pedestrians makes the game feel empty and lifeless. Even the racing isn't particularly that exciting anymore for me but maybe that's because I've played all the Burnout games up to now and the series no longer appeals to me as much. I found the open world structure actually distracted from the game, it seems to have lost a lot of its arcade feel.

It seems to me that the focus of this game was multiplayer first, single player last and it shows in the dullness of the offline racing. If you love online gaming then it probably isn't a problem but I've never been and never will be a big fan of multiplayer gaming so I judge games by their single player components only.

Personally i enjoyed this game very much. But for me Burnout Revenge on the 360 is the best Burnout without doubth.

Well I think Burnout Revenge on the 360 actually has better graphics than Paradise IMO but then it isn't an open world game so that's probably why. I certainly enjoyed that game far more than Paradise too even though it isn't as good as either Burnout 3: Takedown or Burnout 2 on the Xbox.

I still play Takedown on my 360. Every now and then I play online with someone who generally kicks my arse.

Just started playing after the patch on PS3. About 3 hours in. As a complete newbie to BO and having DL the game (with no instructions), the biggest issue I have is "what do I do?". I like the structure of PGR/Forza/GT, this openworldyness is great I guess but its not entirely clear what I do other than drive to the next set of lights and start another race.

I suppose that the point?

PS. an I'm way too old to work out what multiplayer is all about.

PPS. My point is in general download games need more of a manual to accompany the game.

The gameplay is pure bliss, except it's hard to learn the map. Can't wait to get my RESTART on.

i applaud the restart option! Not the best game in the burnout series though. The engine is a technical marvel but your enjoyment will peter out after 4 hours or so. Sure its an open city but too much of it all looks the same. Sure there are lots of cars but there are 3 major different types of cars and all handle the same within each class, except some go faster. I wanted to like it.

Well, I just want to say that my enjoyment still hasn't petered out and my in-game clock reads 150+ hours!

Awesome. Just picked up a used (non-Ultimate) copy for $16 last night, and will patch with DLC.

i really enjoy this game its wide gameplay and its easy ways to use any mode from single to multyplayer

"Well, I just want to say that my enjoyment still hasn't petered out and my in-game clock reads 150+ hours! "

Mine reads 10 hours and i've almost completed it?

Or are you playing online lots?

Just got this on my PC, 1080p with 8x AA looks great, quite liking the gameplay too. Glad I waited for the PC version.