I just tooled around in the Burnout Paradise demo now out there on Xbox Live for about half an hour. Short version: it's boring. Longer version: There's lots of things in the world but they don't really amount to much. Sure there are jumps and traffic and shortcuts and the crashes are the nicest I've seen to date in a Burnout game, but they serve no purpose.



Maybe it's just because it's a demo, but in that half hour I found 1 race and 1 stunt challenge. And it's a decent-sized area to drive around in, too.

I worry that this is going to start a rash of what I'm coining Altair's Syndrome. A big open playground with very little to do. The term of course comes from Assassin's Creed's big cities that are fun to run around in, but there's really not that much to accomplish. Saving a citizen in AC is like winning a race in Burnout. It takes 5 minutes to get to and the challenge is done in half that time.

Burnout 3 was and remains popular because it's very easy to get into the action. Pick an event, and Boom, you're off. Assassin's Creed could have worked in this fashion. Pick a challenge, get warped there, and play the game-within-a-game. All this mucking about in the world is fun for a little bit but after so many hours, it gets tedious.

The recent Spider-Man games have this issue as well. The developers take a lot of time building these fantastic places to run around in, but they seem somehow empty and without purpose. The game takes a backseat to the world.

GTA solved this problem very well. At any time you could start a taxi mission, play a mini-game, or just start shooting people up and seeing how long you can last against the military. There are many levels of game stacked upon each other ranging from tasks that can be accomplished in minutes along with the longer tasks such as the story.

Skate is a good example as well. It's a HUGE world, but at any moment you can start filming and try to crank out a good video to add to your score. Not to mention the large amount of obstacles and challenges in the form of spots, races, picture challenges, and other junk.

Developers should start to focus on balancing the creation of worlds and filling them with content. A big place should have lots of little challenges. Say in AC for instance, at any time you could start a mission to steal some money from vendors or people. Or maybe more random bits of violence where a robbery is taking place and Altair can quickly kill one foe instead of dueling a dozen at a time. Sprawling epics need to look at the small picture too. It helps the player move forward, rewards them for finishing challenges, and gives them a sense of accomplishment all throughout the game.

Also, those flags should really do something besides give achievement points. If collecting a hundred flags gave me limited flight powers or laser beam eyes, then I'd still be in the living room searching for them.