So that's what it's been, eh? Give and take. I do admit, amidst grueling shifts and my one class that I barely mention (embarassed?...maybe. Final was tuesday and I killed it.) I have been playing my Wii a bit too much, showing it way too much love, as if I'd just bought the system and hadn't had it since launch at all. Weird..

Every so often I stop back to the high-definition systems for a spin, something that's become harder and harder to do since they almost wholly represent shooting men in the face for me now. It's strange. Perhaps playing my Wii has given me wind of this, but it seems that when you can pump out realistic visuals and Unreal Engine-assisted textures on a whim, the only thing you can figure to do with all that horsepower is create an endless parade of "these men/creatures/things are here, please shoot them" games. However, when you can't do such, and your representation of humans is decent at best, like on our low def unavailable-system-that-could, the push seems to be toward actually being creative, and making games that are simply...fun.



Granted, these games are very few and far between, but then again...so are the titles on our beloved 1080p pushing systems. It takes several MoH: Airbornes, Jerichos, Timeshifts, and Soldier of Fortunes before we recieve a Call of Duty 4 or Bioshock.

That having been said, I popped on my 360 one day after a delightful session of Super Mario Galaxy, and was surprised to find out that a demo of Burnout: Paradise had snuck it's way onto the marketplace. Having invested, literally, hundreds of hours in the last two installments, it was a no brainer for me to download. I had been deliberately straying away from reading details, seeing videos of the game in action, because I wanted to be completely surprised by what I'd seen, and I was certain that the prospect of an open world burnout would be thrilling. Crash anywhere, do anything? No limits? Should be heaven, right?



This is what I found out:

I don't like Burnout Paradise.

I gave it one chance, I simply assumed I wasn't in the right state of mind, or I was distracted, so I reserved my judgment. I played it again, and I had the exact same issue I had with it before.

It's simply too much.

In my opinion, Burnout has always been that fast paced, arcade racer that is indeed, fast in every aspect. As soon as you pop it in, explosions are heard. You spend no more than 30 seconds in the menu readying yourself for a quick burst of action, and if your hunger for speed and destruction isn't sated, you jump into another race, just as fast. Then another. Then another. It's this addictive quality that makes Burnout so endearing in the first place, and what fuels it's balls-to-the-wall World Tour mode. That feeling of "one more race" that has you going and going and going until you realize it's 3 am and you have to be to work in a few hours....so you do one more for good measure.



It's lacking here. Namely because of something I've named "post-GTA syndrome". Remember the 1-2 year period after Grand Theft Auto 3 came out, when every game simply needed some kind of ridiculous "hub world" to sustain itself? When every developer thought it'd be a good idea to have everything from fighting to racing games involving you running from one place to another to do even the most basic of funtions like you're in some kind of RPG?

I remember reading countless articles on how introducing an unnecessary open world format can kill your game. This game exemplifies this.

Even though the presentation is full-on Burnout, and does a great job of preparing you for what's certain to be an off-kilter experience, the game immediately becomes an exercise. You're forced to drive to "repair shops" in order to fix your car, "paint shops" to change the color, "auto shops" to get boost refills, and search for traffic lights in order to be involved in races. Basically everything that was handled by a menu or button press is now several blocks away, and it serves to drag down the experience rather than enhance it. I thought it may have just been me, perhaps I'm too lazy, but no. Burnout has always been about speed, and it seems that in that aspect, the game drags. Factor in that the demo offers only a slice of Paradise City, and it seems as if those extended driving sessions may become even more tiresome.

When you actually do manage to find a race, the game becomes Burnout again. It's never been faster, visceral, or more intense. Tweaked physics give the game a more realistic, but still arcade-like feel, and with the addition of a E-brake to the controls, you have a lot more freedom with how you work your car. Traffic checking has been toned down, and taking down opponents actually feels very rewarding this time around, with spectacular crashes happening all around you. The AI is much better this time around, and it seems like they're interested in taking out anyone around them, not just you. The Midnight Club style race structure is welcome as well, with an open city, your only mission is to get to the end, and it's up to you how you'll get there. There are tons of shortcuts, makeshift ramps, alleys for you to take advantage of, and an onscreen map and GPS do an adequate, but not perfect job of pointing you in the right direction. This is probably done so you will feel more inclined to learn the city, as experience with a game like Saint's Row has shown me, if the GPS is too well done, you'll end up following it instead of your surroundings.



Fortunately, they happen to be surroundings that are quite well done. Paradise City genuinely looks like one of those cities where you can go anywhere and do anything at any time, and has tons of things to uncover underneath the initial impressions. In fact, I have a very good feeling that by the time someone becomes a seasoned player at the game, it'll be in a very different shape than it was before.




This is my problem with the game however. As nice as Paradise City is, and as great as the races are, it's the sections inbetween that get me. What makes GTA feel so free is the fact that you are a person with ability. A person, who can do a great many things. In Burnout, you are a car. Imagine what Grand Theft Auto would be like if you couldn't leave the car, and you have a pretty good idea of what being inbetween races feels like.

Actually, I have a question for anyone who has ever played a GTA game: Remember those missions that required you to stay in the vehicle, and how restrictive they felt as a result of it? It's the same here. Your orientation is strictly horizontal with few exceptions, and the game itself actually seems quite bland because of it. In the midst of speeding around, I uncovered a shortcut, and it was meh. I bobbed and weaved inbetween traffic while looking for ramps, and it became boring because I wasn't in a race, it was it was aimless. I caused a few pileups, (bringing the excellent damage system into play) but again, it was for no particular reason. The demo has a great deal of it's events blocked off, and that could be why I'd been doing so much wandering around in my car, but it further drives home the point that whenever you're not caught up in an event, multitude of events or not, paradise is truly lost.



There are also a great deal of co-op and online options that I didn't have the opportunity to test, but given how fun Burnout can be as a party game, I'm sure it's well done in it's own right. Online however, is an addition, and not a replacement for the foundations set in the singleplayer. The same problems remain.

I genuinely want to like the game given our history, but I can't help but shake the feeling that this new unnecessary addition, one the entire game happens to be based on, is going to ruin it for me, and many others.

We'll see.