I have run through the Burnout Paradise demo a few times now. Which is surprising because the tutorial mode is really annoying. Tonight I played the full version for a few races, and I had fun. It may have been the beer, but I love getting back to unrealistic driving games. Ever since Gran Turismo came out I have had an extremely jaded view of car games. I don’t play car games for realism. Maybe it’s just me, I don’t know. If I want to drive realistically, I will get in my car and drive. There is a better soundtrack in my car and the controls are very responsive. Playing driving simulators just isn’t for me. Burnout on the other hand, I’ve always had a soft spot in my fighting/action gaming heart for this franchise.

The game looks great on a decent tv, and the turbo effects are still adrenaline-inducing. The cars sound like beasts and within around an hour my mates and I unlocked around 4 cars, had knocked off races, and were starting to get the hang of it. I was enjoying the thrill, the takedowns, I was even willing to negate the fact that there were only 3 tracks I would really listen to on the radio. Then we unlocked the next licence. Like a harbinger of doom, the voice over guy told me that the next 15 races weren’t going to be as easy, and this was only a small part of Paradise City. This made me think, oh crap, this is a sandbox game.

Instantly images of driving through a race, failing, driving all the way back to the start, winning, then driving back again to find the next set of lights came flooding into my mind. More visions of chasing elusive cars across cities in an effort to unlock them before having to get back to where you were when you first saw them. This is what I don’t like about these games. It’s what stopped me in the Grand Theft Auto games at number 3. I liked Need for Speed Underground, but that was more because I could customise my own car(which yeah, I am a total sucker for) but you get given the same generic paint jobs. We did go through a paint shop, but I will be honest and say I didn’t pay attention to the outcome. Luckily they haven’t tried to implement a money-based system there.

Overall, I am quite tempted to get this, but the sandbox element, which is often a selling point for some, is really holding me back. Eh, I’m weird like that.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 4th, 2008 at 7:08 pm and is filed under PS3, Rant, Xbox. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.