Burnout 2 was the highlight for me, they toned down the difficulty so that it was more fun but still held imminent danger, and added crash mode. It was also excellent on the Cube with the logitech wheel.

The later games (I only got as far as Revenge), made things way too easy, added too much luck to crash mode (heart breaker indeed), and went for visuals thrills over any real challenge. It became a tedious mission-fest. The presentation of the EA published versions were offensively patronising too.

When I fired up Revenge and found the first head-on collision challenge was essentially endless as you could top up the time limit forever, I gave up on Burnout for good.

LOL that's piss poor.

I still wonder about Paradise though. I'm ever so slightly curious as to whether it's any good or not.

I also find it sort of odd when developers can't work out why a game is good and build on it, as opposed to breaking things progressively, more and more, with each iteration.

Luck should in my opinion never be a significant factor in any game. Sure it has to be in there and can be mightily entertaining, but it shouldn't be the make or break of it.

I Loved Burnout 2. Heading into oncoming traffic, grazing by to infinitely loop boosts, knowing all the while that one tiny mistake could ruin everything. It's the sort of game where you always feel like you could do that little bit better... a lot like Crazy Taxi.

Burnout 3 I found to be quite enjoyable but in a totally different way. Crashing into opponents is pure fantasy racing, very satisfying. It adds a whole new dynamic to the racing that actually makes Burnout 3 a wholly different game to its predecessors.

Sadly, the series went downhill from there for me. Burnout Revenge bored me to tears. Being able to cut through traffic as well as other racers meant you could virtually win a race with your eyes closed. Burnout Paradise, meanwhile... I actually found that unplayable. How can you win an open-world race when you have to look at the sat-nav every 2 seconds?

What in the heck is Paradise?

Its insane levels of patch land.

I am curious just because of the levels of patching!

http://www.dpadmagazine.com/2009/02/06/burnout-paradise-16-before-after-video-comparison/

Look at that vid! Its mental, its a constant work in progress, and they've just rereleased it in the shops with all the DLC embedded.

I don't get it ... I might pick up the non DLC'd version if its knocking around cheap... but man, the game itself was a bit bobbins, but it looks like they've tried to fix it up.

Well, I picked up the game 2nd hand, for the PSTriple, had at least a gig of patches to do, which is automated... and not very verbose as to what its trying to do.

The actual game is really really really boring... I was trying to think what it reminded me of, and then I remembered, its like Burnout, at least the ones I played... what happened to me in Burnout is once "you got it", i.e. it all made sense you understood the traffic flows, the car dynamics and all that, you just could turn your head and eyes off and bumble to the end... this is the racing part of it, I remember in either 1 or 2, on the longer tracks, you'd be so far ahead and understood how all the junctions worked, that it would be quite dull, and more a attention span thing.

In Paradise, they've tuned the game idea so much, that its really freaking mundane. Forget the fact that its "Open Plan" or "Free Roaming" thats kinda irrelevant, I mean it breaks the game, as you can take shortcuts that the CPU never takes, or make it more difficult. Without at fixed path, you just amble along, work out you might be behind, boost a bit and you win. As the 'dron implies, you spend most of the time looking at the map, or squinting at the on screen map.

There are several modes, Race, Stunt, 1 v 1, Marked Man all that, maybe more, basically boils down to 2 games type, fixed destination, there are only 8 locations you ever race to, and just bouncing around the map doing the takedowns, which are embarrassingly easy, or stunts which are really boring. Stunts entail very restrained non interesting flopping around the course, no particular stunt is particularly visceral or interesting, just a jump, or an air or a flip thing that is too dangerous to attempt, or flying through ad boards.

So it seems they've obfuscated a kinda normal Burnout game with the notion of freedom (which there is, but its pointless) and made the game really dull as it is too easy because there isn't enough traffic and the AI and the general crashyness of the whole enterprise is too toned down.

All that's saving it at the moment is that I've unlocked a few cars that are quite fast, so the races are over fairly quickly, and I am only halfway through the speed rating, so it might get super quick and interesting later on... but the level of commitment and balls you have to go through to get to something remotely interesting, and I mean remote, is staggering.

Completed the game to the credits, on which I now have to complete every single event on the map... which is 120 events, minus the one time only jobbies that unlock rad-er cars.

To get to this point it has taken 12 hours... the game is almost interesting, the cars are now silly to drive, which makes it entertaining.

Its borderline San Francisco Rush in its comedically bad play style vs entertainment... the its so bad its good line is almost upon me. I guess if you were one of those people who went for all the keys and all the mountain dew cans... this is the game for you.

I was playing 2049 on a projector just last month. It's still got it where it counts

I thought the whole point of Paradise was the online play? Have you tried that?

It is?

I can't get the EA login working... and the PS3 game seems to want to align my PSN with my EA, and as EA aint talking to my MX or vica versa its all gone wikkity whack to the fly.

Hey wait...

Minus the stabilising boosters San Fran 2049 has a freakishly similar idea of what stunts are as to Paradise... the we've got a game engine where cars can move and jump a bit then applying some kinda statistical analysis to it.

A year on... and I've bought the 360 version.

I have no idea why.

I think it might be the perfect mong game.

Instantly the better controller of the 360 over the PS3 has improved the game slightly. Just being able to hold the pad, it's quite an improvement.

I hope it was very very cheap.

Cheap enough.

I am just playing it, instead of watching bad TV atm, how strange.

30 more wins and I will be as far as I got on the PS3 before giving up.

On the PS3 I was using component to vga converter so the gfx was a bit slimey and it hurt my eyes, now I have HDMI and the 360, with the pad... you don't even have to think.

HOW

COOL

IS

THAT

?

They have some cheeky in game ads for the DLC and the bridge to the DLC island too is just sitting there ready for you to bumble into and buy... what swines.

I understand that Criterion are working on a Need for Speed game, it'll be interesting to see what they come up with, considering we have Blur and SplitSecond on the horizon.

What's with the UK and driving games?

We love 'em

Split Second looks interesting. Not been down with the shizzle on the genre for some time. Last driving game I picked up was Forza 3 and I find it hard to fault in terms of mechanics and structure. They've hit the sweet spot with that game. Different sort of genre to Burnout et al.

They need to bring Burnout back to it's roots. It should be like Thrill Drive, not the overblown takedown cruftiness we have now. Paradise I take it, is aight though?

Paradise is typical of new wave gaming, where the actual game is 12 hours in.

It spends so long holding your hand you get bored with it before the game actually starts.

Really, its quite high concept, but incredibly conservative in delivery, like they were too scared to pump up the jam, or maybe incapable... maybe some of the more derivative Burnout games crushed their confidence.

Once you get over that there will never be a crash mode like there was in Burnout 2, then maybe even decide its not really a Burnout game as such... I mean the game itself barely calls itself Burnout, its always called "Paradise City"...

Anyways, once those chips on shoulders have been brushed off... and you get past DJ Atomiton and some of the more EA'esque presentation, it hangs together quite well. I takes a long long time teaching you the map in a stealth way, a long long time ramping up the speed. The difficulty is not really there, and the AI only exists to jostle but not really test.

The day night cycle doesn't make any sense, other than a little technical demo.

You can see the conservative and unfinished ideas throughout the game... and the DLC is all wrong, the Cops and Robbers game is wrong, its capture the flag, and the Party game addon is wrong, it just allows sequencial playing of the game with a more obviousl pad passing UI (I guess).

The DLC Island might be interesting, and that might be where the crazier computer gaming ideas are, the trailer indicates a drift car park column and an insane jump.

Its just a shame the "stunt" mode is so dreary.

So how much should I be looking to drop for this on 360 and how practical is it to meet up online? Isn't there some sort of ultimate package with all the DLC rolled in?

DLC is some expensive shit. They seem to think that because a game sets you back 40 notes they can charge the earth for a few more vehicles or another level. I'd have to seriously love a game to bits to entertain dropping more than a few quid on some extras.

The Ultimate Box was going for less than a tenner before Christmas, which has about half the DLC included (missing the island, and maybe the movie car pack). I think the low price is because it was also a system bundled game.

The DLC on top of that isn't so bad.

There is also meant to be a complete PS3 bundle, download only, in some territories, no word if that will happen on the 360. That is likely to be more expensive than buying the disk version though.

I've been tempted to switch to the 360 UB version of this myself now its cheap, its about the same as buying half the DLC for the PS3 version.

Ah, there you go:

http://www.gamestation.co.uk/Games/Xbox-360/Burnout-Paradise-Ultimate-Box/~r413520/

might still be able to find in store, otherwise:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B001PGW3HQ/

I think the ultimate box just has the party mode in, and the rest of the free DLC.

So that'll save you some gamernachos.

Although the party mode does look a bit limp.

So, Split/Second: Velocity

http://www.joystiq.com/2010/02/24/split-second-may-18-release-date/

Split Second was ok, slashes, colons and subtitles... bit insane.

I can't decide why I am interested in these types of games.

SplitSlashSecondColonSpaceVelocity looks the most interesting since its from the Pure guys, but Blur is from Bizarre and that might easier to spell in the long run.

£23.99 until the end of March, and only on the PS3. 360 disk version + DLC works out about the same if you can find it for a tenner.

Think I'll pass. Would like to play it at a meet though

Buying more games now will just entice me away from playing Bayonetta, which I don't want to happen any time soon.

So Blur is dead to me, so now to get unreasonably interested in Split/Second:VelocitySquaredUltra

http://www.joystiq.com/2010/04/07/split-second-game-multiplayer-preview/

Another useless bit of journalism, but at least the writer had fun! I wonder what he had for lunch?

Split Second demo is out on Xbox cLive, I am away from base camp so I can't try it till... I don't know when.

I need my people on the ground to test and report back.

What do I pay you for?

Regular VD screening.

Only for golden members.

Will begin download in CSI ad break

It feels a lot like Burnout >= 3.

In summary

> Simplistic drifting mechanic tap break to initiate a drift, it's OK.
> Build gauge by drifting, jumping, drafting
> Use gauge to trigger scripted events, following a visual cue, around the circuit to Wreck (or should that be Takedown) your opponents, open up new routes yadda yadda yadda.
> Learn what each scripted event is, its location and adjust for timing so that you trigger it at the right time following the cue for maximum effect.
> Your car sounds like it has infinite gears. Speed seems to build and build and build, or maybe the engine note and gear shift sounds do.
> Getting hit by the periphery of a blast appears to spear you out of control and can result in a Wreck.

That's it really. In terms of twitch gameplay and that adrenalin rush it doesn't have anything on Burnout 1. It's meh as far as I can tell.

PB 04:10:64

yay! conservative mediocrity! looking forward to it!

I've been thinking on Split Second some more and I think it fundamentally fails for similar reasons to Burnout >= 3. Essentially they have removed a huge ammount of the risk to the player. Sure shit is exploding all around you and massive aeroplanes are scraping over the roof of your car etc. etc, but you have to stuff up in a spectacular way to actually die. All those pyrotechnics are little more than a distraction as mostly you can just bulldoze your way through the chaos. This is the same mistake they made when they allowed you to smash through the traffic in Burnout 3. It removes all of the difficulty and the fear. The result is a game that is totally banal.

Maybe in the full release there will be an option to turn up the pain, but then the danger is that you end up having a whole bunch of cheap and unavoidable deaths.

After about 6 run throughs of the demo there was only one moment where Heroness(TM) was felt. There's a section where you drive through a hanger and there's a shortcut which is blocked by a barrier that can be raised. The barrier was down I headed towards it, visual cue, 'A' button, and it popped open a split second before I was going to ram into it. A few seconds later it dropped back down and crushed an opponent.

It screams "cheap death" all over it. But I've not played it.

Maybe its my advancing years, but this game type is almost impossible to balance successfully.

Mario Kart barely manages it, and Burnout<=2 was successful because it just really committed to being fun and difficult.

I actually don't know what the gametype is, an Environmental Mario Kart BurnOut thing?

I've got a bit muddled.

Burnout was just Need for Speed with the boost bar eh...

Beards.

It's spectacle over gameplay. It will look great in trailers and TV spots and promiss so much excitement. The stupid thing is that once you've learnt the scripted events at no point are you going to be taken by surprise and have to react in a split second. It's all about positioning your car correctly to prempt a possible event. What I wanted was something much more random where you have to actually make split second decisions and react to unpredictable non-scripted events. This game doesn't deliver that at all.

This is where Burnout succeeded, the "Bus at a junction" scenario was predictable, yet unpredictable when there was more than human players, so you had to know where the player ahead was to then predict the carnage or not as and when it may or maynot have occured, and place the car in an optimal position to take advantage.

Split Second might only be successful in human multiplayer. Since having working decent competitive AI has been superseded by getting games to be passable online I don't think we'll get back to anything like that for a while.

Besides AI has always failed to really be programmed to be vindictive, malicious or charitable.

Hmm. The traffic in Burnout was scripted wasn't it?!

It's difficult to assess Split Second as an online experience based on the demo. It could work, but equally it could be total garbage.

The thing about the scripting in Split Second is that the consequences are predictable, but the initiation isn't (unless you're the one initiating it).

The game also falls apart when you're out in front as there's nothing to do other than activate a few shortcuts. I can't be sure but I think the old Burnout rubber band is back in full effect too.

Yeah, elements of Burnout were scripted, completely, but some were activated scripted events like the buses on cross roads.

I think cars on key bends were positioned rather deliberately and were activated in the same way.

This kinda falls apart with mutiple humans, but they were activated by the first, and there was a reset time for each pass.

Ahhh, Burnout<=2, if only we knew the whole industry was gonna go to pot.

Well the driving genre in particular needs a bloody good shake-up. I think devs have pretty much polished the existing game types to the nth degree. There seems to be a real lack of innovation now.

Having said that I don't think anyone has nailed the car based combat sub-genre (OK so there is Wipeout, but that's not cars and there's Mario Kart, but that's not really driving). Here's what I would do:

1. Develop on the Wii using the Nunchuck to drive and the remote to aim and fire weapons.
2. Implement the overshield from Halo to give the car in front a fighting chance of survival
3. Huge slow motion jumps into on rails shooter minigame = booost
4. Permit you to shoot at objects in the rear view mirror
4. Outrun 2 style faux drifting which will allow you to position your car precisely on the arc you want.

OK so not exactly revolutionary...

I liked the demo, you just hold down the win button (accelerate) and that's it!

Ahh crap, forgot about this. Was a busy weekend. Ended up watching Frenzy instead of booting up the box.

Maybe get a look tonight, wonder if I queued it via the website?

I am naturally disappointed about the feedback we've got here.

It kinda sounds exactly how I was expecting it really.

They have to crank (high voltage!) up the AI because it doesn't take advantage of shortcuts that I could see, it's much too lenient with the triggered events as well for it to create a sense of urgency and danger. As a demo it hasn't sold me on the game but I would certainly give it another go if these problems are sorted out.

Cynic mode: sounds like fundamental game design problems to me. Pure only survived the AI because there were alot of them... bit like FZero (in terms of the mass of AI making up for more or less non existent I)

Come on Jib get your finger out and give this one a go. Interested to know what you think.

Yeah I'm keen, I'm just away from my 360 during the week at the moment, this weekend is race game weekend with the Grand Prix, decent F1 Wii game, Forza and this to have a look at. I just worry I might have over prejudiced myself already.. but Pure was a slow burner aswell, and that came together really well for a single pass kinda game.

I am keen on a Burnout<=2 type game, I guess thats just a racing game with traffic and a bit of finesse really. Blur was just bland, but they've updated that beta recently apparently, so maybe they've addressed those issues, although that does just feel like an MSR mod.

Whelp, I've had one go at it, and its pretty dull.

Might give it another go, but I'm not really compelled to at all.

Single powerplays are just odd localised bombs that skew the driving a bit and the double powerplays are not that interesting and may even have a negative impact on yourself.

The route changing is a bit pointless and dull, bit n64y.

And when you are first there is nothing to do other than ensure you've got some power play juice to fend off Captain Rubberband on your 6.

That reads like a classic gaming cynic, but come on... this has nothing going for it at all. All these half arsed demos have been doing recently is putting me off the game. Strange.

Back to Metroid Prime Pinball.

I'll try and go after this and see if anything magical happens.

OK, that adds a bit of something, although the variables are so extreme you can't really do anything other than play damage limitation and tickling the AI for powerplay juice.

Might have a certain something with hooomanz though, the idea of leading would be quite terrifying and an intelligent foe might flip this from a procession to a possession.

ha ha di ha.

Damn I did get down to a 4:05, but can't prove it. Still like you say it's completely pointless as a TA game anyway.

I swear I've played this game before... anyways, the powerplays are so dependant on using the AI, and you do start to do nonsense drifting to up the meter on straights if there are no AI about... I can't understand why the game isn't, well, better.

If you are first, there is nothing to do, if you want to explore the track you have the wait for the AI to appear or cock about on straights, I almost thought I could chain drifts, but you can't.

There is something just a bit bust about it really, I mean the track design in itself tells you that, for the 1 zone powerplay (or whatever) they've had to lace the track with helicopters that drop bombs... I mean, thats a bit difficult to take. I'm not wanting realism, it just seems a bit weak.

It might hold together in faster, crazy speeds, if thats the format. But there isn't anything new or interesting in this game to warrant even producing a demo... the gfx aren't even that impressive?

Just me? Has my cynicometer broken?

No, not just you. What you've said pretty much confims where my thinking was going. There's nothing in the demo to 'sell' the game. I'd have to refresh my memory banks, but even Full Auto has more going for it than this.

So Split/Second Velocity has trickled into the 2nd hand market, so I impulsed purchased.

And, y'know what, these Black Rock people know what they are doing... it has a very similar arc to Pure in my personal discovery process... clawing back the cynicism from my bedraggled consciousness and actually getting into the game bit...

Basically the demo represents the most slowest speed the game offers... which is slower than pedestrian... also that particular game mode, the "race", isn't really the best demonstration of the idea. They seem to have several ideas knocking around for the best way to have fun with the destroy a track whilst you are on it.

The best so far could be the missile mode, where targets appear on the track where missiles will drop and you have to chain avoiding them for scorage, with bonus based on the most amount you avoid in one hit. The design is a bit ropey on that in so much as you have to maintain a certain speed, or else it moans, which is fine, but sometimes you can find yourself in a bit of a bottleneck, and it might be impossible to scooch through.

The other one is the "lets have a look at what you missed" where instead of the explodions happening triggered by you, they are are scripted in a continuous sequence and its just a time trial. Which is excellent fun, the balance, again is a bit off, as the first iteration of this was harder than the second.

Unfortunately they've decided to wrap the entire concept up in a sort of embarrassing TV show concept, to try and justify the game idea of stuff just exploding... similar to Stuntman, which doesn't quite work and it totally pointless. The voice over guy is trying to do an impression of someone, I can't quite remember, and failing... the cadence etc sounds probably familiar.

So shit demo, OK game?

Well the for me and myself the missile mode would've made a better demo. Or the rolling destruction one. The old race and blowing stuff up is a bit misrepresentative, made me think the game was more derivative than it actually is. Bit like Pure really.

Also, in the demo, the car you have, although it looks like a beast, is 1 bar speed... 2 bar speed cars go quickerer (maybe 20% faster) and I think it might go up to 10 bars of speed (maybe twice as fast)... so pretty insanely fast, which might explain why it feels uncomfortably sedate in the demo, and kinda pointless.

I'll keep you updated, but with the ramping up of insane speed town and the lean forward avoidance of stuff blowing up, it could be pretty interesting.

What is also promising is the drift mechanic is pretty good, you aren't really expected to do much with it in the demo, but its quite nuanced. Its a proper feather and hold job, versus a jam down and steer, so you are rewarded by actually thinking about driving.

Have a go on the demo again, and try initiating a drift and holding the turn properly by feathering, you'll be surprised (I hope).

Well, there's a game in there in Split/Second(:Velocity)

The straight time trial with the stuff blowing up around you, is excellent.

They've actually set competitive times to get 1st place... by the 10th second.

3rd "Episode" in it gets tough... on the timetrials. And its proper perfect lines action, but with stuff flying at you. It's great fun. You have to learn the nuances of the engine, and they force you to use a specific car, so its totally on the level.