The blazing speed, the intense moments before crossing the line in photo finish race, flinging your car off of an overpass and gleefully watching the ensuing pileup. That is the kind of shit I expect when booting up a Burnout title.

But what I got when I plopped in Burnout Paradise was a job at the DMV. So the question must then become, how can you ruin a game that asks you to plow into other cars in order to win? Well the answer is deceivingly simple. All you gotta do is inject it with a bit of bureaucracy, take out a mode that made the title unique, and then slap on a big old heaping of existential crisis. Mix it all up and you have what Sigmund Freud would describe as, "sum Buushit. Mayn."


This screen is waaaay to busy...

Here is the thing. Just as 3D is not the natural progression of every 2D side scroller or brawler, an open ended and realistic sandbox world is not the natural progression of every successful franchise. Other games have found success with the style because they all have what Burnout has never had nor does it need. People.

The games that pull off a sandbox style populate their cities with objectives and storyline that give the player the illusion of purpose. You are this guy, going to do this thing, to reach these ends. So the idea that the the buildings around you all have little people in them going about their little lives is already implanted in the end user and placed in proper context. And its all created so we never get bored exploring the world or interacting with the NPC's.


Them...

These dudes...

The problem in this situation arises for burnout in the fact that any reference to a living person in the game besides the disembodied voice of and incredibly annoying DJ conjures up images of "deathrace" style vehicular manslaughter.



But to me, the idea of EA trying to avoid a murderous connotation from the burnout franchise is a lot like a developer creating a title called "Little girl tickle fest 08'" and saying that it has nothing to do with molestation. EA, calm down, the bad stuff is what we are paying money for. You are only 75% of the problem. If you were gonna do it, you shoulda done it EA BIG. ya know? Kill people, like you do smaller companies.

So what you end up with in Burnout Paradise is a city devoid of personality and empty cars crashing into each other in it. And it is this choice to make Burnout open ended and more realistic that robbed the game of a lot of its fun factor for me.In real life I would have to meet a bunch of objectives to get a license. In real life if I lost a race I would have to drive back to where I started it. In real life I would have to drive halfway across the city to get my car washed and painted. I don't wanna do that shit in real life. Why would I want to do it in a Burnout title?

The fact that John Riccitiello has been publicly going the Ken Levine route of "talking like a real person" about the problems at EA got the hamster wheel in my head spinning. Below are two EA titles.


Skate.


Great balls of fire!

One is an open ended sports title that focuses on exploration and objective completion, displays shiny new gen graphics and a great frame rate, made a lot of moneys, and is fun to play. The other is Burnout Paradise. They both look alike, play alike (relatively),are from the same company, and attempt to cash in on the popularity of a new game play style. The only difference is one fits perfectly into the new genre and the other struggles in it like a fat lady caught in a dolphin net.

EA, we have put up with you releasing the same game every year for as long as you have been in business. But now just releasing every game in your lineup on the same engine with the same design? A new low.

P.S. Riccitiello. I see what you are doing there. Sneaky sneaky.