Burnout Paradise Comments by Quintin Smith

Showtime is the replacement for Crash? Not just an additional? Bad show. It looks rubbish. :-(

sounds intresting.

Showtime sounds like a removal of all the interesting gameplay elements of Crash mode.

"Haha. Ah... I wouldn't like to say. But I think it was just an evolution and being bold again. We could have put junctions in but it wouldn't have fit the seamless gameplay, because ultimately you would have had to have selected an event and the world would have had to set everything up. So this is what we came up with to replace it, and we're really pleased with how you can just do it anywhere."

But it so would have fit the world. Just like the stunt jumps of Grand Theft Auto.

Just find the specific jumps to start crash mode.

God damn lazy designers.

I don't like the sound of Burnout without Crash mode, but I trust the team so look forward to seeing how Paradise plays.

Demo's up today, for anyone who doesn't know! :)

Then there's Stunt Run, which gives you a timer and a score target and sets you on your way. When you perform a stunt the timer stops for a few seconds and you start building a combo, so it's all about figuring out paths through the city that'll let you cram in the most jumps, slides, and spins - a new addition to Burnout that can only be done on lopsided ramps. You'll want as many billboards and fences as possible to smash through, too.

This sounds exactly like what I wanted Stuntman to be.

From what I've seen of Showtime, it's one of the most idiotic designs ever. Seriously, I thought this was something only really really bad developers would come up with. I wasn't thrilled with traffic checking, but this is just ridiculous.

Other than that, I look forward to the game. And will the demo be out soon?

It does sound interesting although I have my doubts about Showtime. It's not really that I miss the crash mode but with being able to do it everywhere and not only at set up junctions I think it will be too random to really stay interesting for a long time.

Obviously the crash events were always about how much damage you can cause and you could perfect your impact as the scenes always played the same. With that element missing I think it's just tacked on if you are bored with racing and just want to explode instead. Might be fun the first couple of times but I wonder if it will be able to keep my interest for a long time.

The racing sounds good though. I have the feeling Burnout this time is focused more on racing again; Just like many other fans I still think that Burnout 2 is the best Burnout and while I agree that Paradise will be drastically different it still might be the closest to Burnout 2 in terms of how the racing works.

This sounds exactly like what I wanted Stuntman to be.

You do have a point there. I really enjoyed the Stuntman demo but I didn't buy it because it seemed like a lot of work. I usually enjoy games where I have to get better and better doing the same things but it can be tiresome and I had the impression that Stuntman would get a bit too repetitive after a while. Another problem would be that if you don't like the set you are working on then it's a lost cause anyway and it won't be much fun; With every set being quite different I am sure that I would have come across 3 or 4 that just aren't fun enough to be played over and over again.

Looks like that in Burnout I can find my own routes that are fun and then try to get the best out of them. Should be even more fun because there are probably more ways to do it, deciding not to jump as far as possible to get the next turn better, which is something that Stuntman didn't offer because you had to do every stunt exactly as planned without giving me the opportunity to find my own ways to improvise to get better results.

Anyway, another long post. So the demo really is out today? That's probably the best news of the week! Thanks for the info, I'm short on time this evening so I definetly would not have checked (especially since there hasn't been anything new on the marketplace in the last two weeks and I got tired of checking every now and then just to find out nothing's there) but now I will make the time.

Supposedly there is a demo on the US PSN tonight. Hope it's true.

The racing, crashes and so on looks great. And Stunt Run sounds like Crash mode without the crashes.

They can happily rip out the crash mode for all I care, it's always been the weakest component in Burnout.

Maybe I'm just old and scared of change, but I wouldn't object to menus. I think they're a handy way of selecting things.

Also, I'm a little worried that Crackdown has ruined me, and I'll never again enjoy a free-roaming city game where I can't leap hundreds of feet between rooftops and kill people by throwing corpses at them.

"They can happily rip out the crash mode for all I care, it's always been the weakest component in Burnout. "

I agree completely - I've never quite understood what's the fuzz was about... BO is about fast and furious arcade racing and Paradise sound like another great game in the series ;)

But it's stolen from Test Drive though right?

Are you guys kidding? No Crash Mode, no Burnout. Simple.

True, it was conceived as a fun add-on but it has become an integral part of the gameplay. Opening up an entire city to crashes is nice in theory, but there is no chance in hell the devs would be able to hone each of them to the degree that the standalone junctions used to get.

Also, why the f*** everything has to be seamless? I'd rather have 50 tracks set in different environments rather than a wide open city. When was that EVER interesting except for GTA, NFS MW and perhaps TDU.

Come of the rut. NFS guys had the decency to do it with Pro Street (although due to other factors the results are mixed), why can't you, Criterion?

I suspect EA have a policy of having at least one free-roaming driving game, and this year they have forced Burnout to adopt this route. Nauseating.

Quintin, the video going around of Showtime mode on Gamersyde looks bloody awful. Did you form a positive impression of it?

Another important info-nugget: 60FPS! 30FPS racers should be outlawed.

I'm surprised so many people are down on this game. It looks fantastic to me, like Test Drive done right.

Well, stripping off Crash mode makes this game a no-buyer for me. Over the past editions of Burnout perfecting all the Crash courses was the only reason for me to pick the game of the shelves from time to time.

"and if you came upstairs into the studios I don't think anyone would tell you it's been easy."

Translation. Everyone has been doing 15 hour days for months.

Good to see they're trying something new with crash mode.

Restarting those pre-set junctions over and over was starting to get on my tits

Let's hope it works, eh Criterion!

So, that endless car rolling, completely devoid of physics laws, in that Showtime video is the substitute of Crash junctions? What were they thinking???

I have to admit that a free roaming, full dynamic city could give the player more interesting crash opportunities and improve on the scripted predetermined crash junctions of past, but if that video is representative of their implementation, it leaves a lot to be desired. Hope I'm proven wrong, though...

/waits impatiently for the demo tonight...

Yeah, the constant restarting/load-times of Crash mode meant I never really enjoyed it, no matter how pretty the mess I made.

Showtime == "Every Extend Burnout", from the sounds of things, which sounds interesting if not perfect. If they pull off the multiplayer they're describing, though...

It's interesting.

But it isn't Burnout.

Booooooooooooooooooooooo

Bring back Crash mode you $%#$^$&@%$!#!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sounds really good and looks really good. I was very unsure of Showtime when I saw a video of it, it does look absolutely ridiculous, but I never really got on with Crash, so I'm open to new things! Bring on the demo!

I for one welcome our new Showtime overlords... sounds interesting... let's not slag it off til we've all had a chance to try it out! :)

I'm a little concerned over the scale of change, but the team hasn't let me down yet, so faith is what's required.

ps Crash mode restarts were fixed on Revenge, practically instantaneous.
pps It has to be 60 fps or it won't feel like Burnout.

Well for me burnout was always about 'mates on the couch multiplayer' - specifically road rage mode from Takedown, and crash zones.

I'm not interested in a flashy crashy TDU, I want burnout and this aint it. No sale.

Why do people always suggest that you need drugs to be creative (sigh).

Can you do this showtime shennanigans in the demo?

It all sounds very meh to me . :(

No surprise really, all the burnouts after point of impact were pretty much shite imo, tried them all apart from revenge and traded them in after a few days.

Showtime looks rubbish, all the stunting looks quite unnessecary.

gief burnout 2 hd :(

What's with the frame rate drops in the Xbox 360 version? I mean that's supposedly Burnout, that stuff shouldn't be happening. Is it the amazing powah of Xbox or the programmers just being lazy (not meaning to sound fanboish, I'm closer to a MS fanboy if anything, but the frame rate drops being an issue with many Xbox 360 games these days make me angry)

Another "booo, no crash mode!?" here.

Is environment (houses, signs, fences n' stuff) destructible this time around? Probably not too much, since they've taken this free-roaming path... Since the first time I've played Burnout 3 I've been dreaming about a next-gen Burnout where you would be able to destroy everything, not just cars - especially in Crash mode. And; no restart option is NOT next-gen! NOT fun, more like it.

No Crash mode, no sale.

Bye Burnout. It was nice knowing you.

"The easiest thing is to just go into a menu and select 'I want to do this event'. Alex Ward, our creative director, believes really passionately that we should try to be bold and create something that we feel is truly next-gen"

Not having menus to select which things to play is next-gen is it? So presumably Alex Ward thinks GTA1 is truly next-gen?

What's with the frame rate drops in the Xbox 360 version? I mean that's supposedly Burnout, that stuff shouldn't be happening.

Are you judging by the demo? Haven't played it yet but I wouldn't be surprised if the codebase of the demo isn't final which means that they are probably still working on improving the performance until launch and fix the framerate issues.

Hmm.. I think I'll enjoy exploring the Burnout Paradise city and some of the play modes sound very interesting (being hunted by a mass of black cars being one of them!)..

But I have to agree that the Showtime sounds pretty lame. If there are no specific junctions, what's the goal of exploding your car? Some sort of general damage counter you're supposed to try to break everytime? Like, if I explode my car in a suburb (assuming there is one) and I get $200,000 worth of damage and then realize I can go downtown and easily explode for $2,000,000 worth of damage, then what's the point?

I hope someone who's played the demo can explain this change to me, but it sounds awful right now.

peterfil typed I'm a little concerned over the scale of change, but the team hasn't let me down yet, so faith is what's required.

I feel this way ^.

The Showtime video does make it look... well, a bit rubbish, in honesty. Is it something that goes on in the persistent world, so that I could be hopping from car rooftop to car rooftop whilst a race whizzes past me?

No?

Then what is the problem with having it as a separate event, not, as somebody on the forums pointed out, something more like Katamari?

edit: The Demo is up today? Going to plug the sexbox in and download it, then...

Der_tolle_Emil: Yes, I'm judging from the demo, of course. Here's hoping that they do fix it. It isn't so obvious nowadays... :(

Looks, from the scrolling text on the demo description, like the Paradise 360 demo has Multiplayer!

I've been playing the demo all morning. It does have multiplayer, infact, I can't imagine playing Paradise without it now. Maybe the full game will sway me to the single player a bit more.

Edit: Can't say I noticed any framerate issues. But then I don't notice hardly any of this nerdy stuff most people complain about. o_O

If you think the open world changes sound like they've knackered it, the demo will confirm that for you, they have thrown the baby out with the bathwater.

At leastit has for me.

And why has the DJ come back? WHY?

I don't think the open world map has ruined it. Weaving in and out of traffic while boosting and chasing your mate online, feels just like ordinary Burnout.

I have to admit - I'm really looking forward to this now. The loss of Crash mode seems a small price to play for the rest of the stuff we'll be getting.

after about half an hour it's fun yeah, nice burnout fun but.....

personal preferences unfortunately get the better of me, Free roaming is a lot of work, trying to find races, yawn. can you quickly jump to races?

Amazing crashes and super super sound effects. But yeah meh to the free roaming, it's kind of off putting for me

OllyJ: "can you quickly jump to races?"

I don't believe so. What is even more annoying is that you can't set a specific race up as a "flag" in the main map menu. So unless you have an amazing memory and can recall, from a brief glimpse, the roads you have to travel to find a particular race, it's going to mean opening up the main map over and over again just to be sure you're on the right path.

Stupid and not very fun at all.

Who care's about crash mode anyway, I always thought of it being random and pointless to be honest!

My other half told me to kick you in the bollocks but you're not close enough...

Peej