The official Burnout Paradise for Xbox 360 thread

[Neo003]

Is it just me or after loosing an event you have to backtrack it all the across the town, you just cannot restart the race like before (or ever other racing games out there) . You love to game or not that was just the stupidest thing EA did in the game by no putting restart and also the map doesn't move to your direction which is kind of annoying while racing.

Thanks DL the code work, I have only 10 races left for rank A.

[+BeLGaRaTh Subscriber¹]

Is it just me or after loosing an event you have to backtrack it all the across the town, you just cannot restart the race like before (or ever other racing games out there) . You love to game or not that was just the stupidest thing EA did in the game by no putting restart and also the map doesn't move to your direction which is kind of annoying while racing.

Thanks DL the code work, I have only 10 races left for rank A.

To be honest I thought that way too about backtracking, but after playing it for a while, and you have played a bit longer than me if you have 10 to go before Rank A, the restart is not really warranted as there are that many events its hard not to find another one, I mean there's a new event at every junction :p. So really it's a moot point. If you get stuck and don't know if you have done an event you can always pull up at a junction and the ticker will tell you if you have already completed it, failing that it will even announce it before the race, another alternative is to use the big map, all the events completed will have a tick over them, so it's not really that hard :)

I agree in part about the map not rotating, but again its not that hard, with a bit of spacial awareness, and the top of the screen flashes, gives warning beeps and displays which way to turn next anyway :)

I am absolutely loving this game (Y)

[kazuyette]

the few things I miss in this game are : no more signature takedowns , no GPS . But if you put these 2 little annoyances apart, it's a real masterpiece; once again the guys at Criterion knows how to code and produce one damn fun game !!! kudos to them all :)

I'm going back for another session !

[Nightz]

To be honest I thought that way too about backtracking, but after playing it for a while, and you have played a bit longer than me if you have 10 to go before Rank A, the restart is not really warranted as there are that many events its hard not to find another one, I mean there's a new event at every junction :p. So really it's a moot point. If you get stuck and don't know if you have done an event you can always pull up at a junction and the ticker will tell you if you have already completed it, failing that it will even announce it before the race, another alternative is to use the big map, all the events completed will have a tick over them, so it's not really that hard :)

i agree with this for the most part, but i'm getting to the point where the no retry option is biting me in the butt. i have my burnout paradise license, and i'm now going for my elite license...which requires 120 wins...which means i have to beat all the events. i'm trying to finish the burning routes, and it really is a pain when you lose the event by 1 second and you have to go all the way back to where you started, so it tends to get frustrating. i feel that the workaround to this is to mix up the events that you do and to not focus so much on one event type so that you don't end up throwing your controller at the tv. :p

the game is still awesome and super fun though and i don't think the no retry option is that big of a deal, but the complaints about it are reasonable.

[Xtreme $niper]

I had written this up for a board that I run, but I figure it would be suitable here as well so I'll post it here too. Excuse the length, I can get chatty.. hah.

Well I have been looking forward to a new Burnout game for the series since Burnout Revenge came around (best racing game on any platform, ever) so needless to say, I picked this one up on launch day on my way home from work.

I have been playing the demo for a while so I generally knew some of the ideas in the game, but even though at the time I thought the demo was pretty amazingly open and free, the full game blew me away even more. Basically, for those who don't know, Paradise is a complete shift away from the traditional "select your event from the menu" style that most racing games use. The only other two mainstream racing games that I remember that had an open concept was Midtown Madness (Oh how I miss that game) and Need For Speed Underground (Oh how I do NOT miss this game).

What Paradise has done is radically change the way racing games may be designed in the future. You have a huge open map for you to drive through freely. Basically the map is divided up into sections designating different areas/themes. One area is downtown urban, another is the beach front / fancy, another is industrial, another is the country side, etc. I cannot stress this enough: This map is huge, and highly dynamic.

Each and every intersection in the game is a start point for an event. Different intersection, different event. Some events can only be done with certain cars that you have to unlock and be using at the time, some events don't care about your car. On top of that, every street in the game has a Show Time (crash mode) and Time Run record that you can try to beat. In other words, you will be kept busy for a looong time.

As soon as you start the game, you are tossed in with the last words of the narrator being "What you do next, is completely up to you". And that is true. They start you at the junk yard with your first and only car, and then that's it. You decide what you do next. No linear progression through events, no menus, just pop the disk in, and start driving.

To briefly talk about the show time mode, you can basically decide to make any point in the game become your crash mode. You'll just be driving down a street, and you may see some perfect situation up ahead with a lot of cars, a ramp and an intersection. Hit show time (without ever leaving the game to see a menu) and do your thing.

In terms of online, I have only gone online in the demo version so far but I have to say even that was intense and fun. You enter a mode called "freeburn" where 7 other players (maybe more, haven't checked) are tossed into your game as you are driving, pretty much seamlessly. You can then completely interact with these people by taking them down, racing them, playing tag (making your own imaginary events), trying to break records or doing co-op challenges, or even working together on a show time crash. It keeps track of "the most" records in the top corner of the screen. Things like the most barrel rolls, the longest drift, longest air time, etc.

Overall, this game is pretty intense and it has all but erased any fear of disappointment. It's a great game so far, and who knows what else will come up as I keep playing, but there are just a few things in there that I kind of miss from Revenge. I find sometimes you end up crashing far too easily if you slam into a wall at high speeds while drifting. In Revenge, you could use the wall to your advantage, but in Paradise if you so much as touch the wall in the wrong way you are putting yourself at risk of crashing (and wasting a lot of time staring at the destruction).

Speaking of destruction, the graphics are amazing. The physics? Awesome. If you crash, it pretty much recreates how a real car would look after such a situation. Hit a pole? The car collapses around the point of impact. Hit a brick wall dead on? Your entire front half of the car crumples into a pile of junk metal. Glass shatters, doors and wheels fly off, bits of metal are everywhere. They also include a camera angle to make things look cinematic. And the sound? With surround sound, I can easily say this is the best use of surround sound in a video game that I have played so far, second to Call of Duty 4. You know there's a car behind you without even looking, and you hear traffic zip by you from front speaker to back. It's definitely something to hear.

*drools* I go play now...

UPDATE: Well since then I went online in the full game, and we did some challenges. They were definitely fun, though sometimes I wish there could be more than 8 players on such a huge map like this.

[Vykranth]

Backtracking can be extremely boring. When you join a free burn session where you're at one point and everyone else is at the opposite side of the map and you spend 5 minutes crossing the entire town, it's 5 minutes wasted not playing. An option to join in the middle of the other players or a spawn at nearest junk yard would be fabulous.

The way people set up races can be a problem: I was in a session yeseterday and a race was set-up: it was a round the entire town race with checkpoints in random order: the race was over 50 miles long: we all started and took different paths: most of us ended up lost or miles away from each other. I parked my car somewhere and I waited until that race was finished. A race when you don't see anyone and try to take them out is not a Burnout race.

It's really the most beautiful Burnout I have ever played: the environment and the cars are fantastic but I do miss Revenge: its more structured gameplay and the intensity of the races.

[Nightz]

I had written this up for a board that I run, but I figure it would be suitable here as well so I'll post it here too. Excuse the length, I can get chatty.. hah.

snip

nice review. you should also put it in the game ratings/reviews section. :yes:

[Pheee]

I do like this game, and love that when driving around I get updates on when people rule a road, and who is best out of my Firends list. Freeburning is cool, annoying as said before if you join and are quite far away, but then on my way to join them I try to get highest positions in the stats.

Also when you start an online race, it shows you who to look out for, listing some stats about some racers, like how many online takedowns, how many rivals, curent leader etc, nice touch.

All in All loving this game, and look forward to some freeburning with Neowin Members.

[Guest]

That's it, I give in. I'm picking this up tomorrow.

[spaceelf]

I don't really care about the lack of retry myself. It only ever bothers em on the Burning Lap races, and I get the feeling they're not supposed to be easy... So I'll certainly try to do em but if I can't, no big deal.

[DirtyLarry Veteran]

So can someone explain this to me, and it may seem silly, but I have yet to read further than Page 3 on the manual (to someone who asked earlier, I think there are at least 10 pages! :laugh: )...

Anyway, do you have to be online in order to beat the Fast Times & The Showtime Crashes scores?????

What I mean is I press up on the D-pad, so I see the top times and scores for Fastest Street Times and Showtime Crashes, and it even said I had one of the Fastest times at one point, but I saw a Showtime score for a street, obliterated it by a massive amount (it read like 700k, and I got 3 million+), and I never got credit for it, and in fact I am not sure if I even get credit for the Fastest Time either?

So does that make sense? If I am viewing the current online scores, does that also mean I am trying to beat them, or do I actually have to go online to beat them?

[+BeLGaRaTh Subscriber¹]

I wondered that too, I beat a score by a good margin (few million) and the ticker across the bottom announced it, then today it was reset to 700,000 again :(

[Xtreme $niper]

Well when I played I set a record in show time for one of the streets, and it showed that I made the record on both offline and online, but I haven't gone back to see if that stayed up. Besides, I was playing offline when I did that so I don't know why it would say I set an online record too...

nice review. you should also put it in the game ratings/reviews section. :yes:

Thanks! I just might do that.

[Huleboeren]

Does it come with dts sound on the x360 version?

[kazuyette]

Does it come with dts sound on the x360 version?

nope my friend ... DTS Interactive only saw the light of day on the PS2 on games like SSX Tricky (bext surf game evah ! ) and a few other sports games from EA. And that's a real shame, because teh X360 and PS3 got more than enough horsepower to handle it. But worry not my friend, the guys at Criterion did a damn fine job in the sound department even if it's "only" Dolby Digital.

[Huleboeren]

nope my friend ... DTS Interactive only saw the light of day on the PS2 on games like SSX Tricky (bext surf game evah ! ) and a few other sports games from EA. And that's a real shame, because teh X360 and PS3 got more than enough horsepower to handle it. But worry not my friend, the guys at Criterion did a damn fine job in the sound department even if it's "only" Dolby Digital.

The PS3 version of Burnout has dts sound

according to this site cod4(x360) has dts sound, but the ps3 version does not

Can anyone confirm cod4 has dts sound on the x360?

Reason Im asking is why there is a difference :/

[kazuyette]

you're about this mate ? because last time I checked the box of Paradise on PS3 and X360 the little DTS logo was nowhere to be found . Same for Call of duty 4 BTW. And think about it for a sec : If such games had DTS Interactive , they must have the DTS logo slapped on teh box since this technology must be licensed right from DTS and in some review they would have mentionned that fact.

[spaceelf]

I don't think the 360 can even do DTS (except most likely pass through from DVDs.)

Either way I'd like to see the newer formats than basic DD or DTS...they've been pretty much ignored so far.

[Huleboeren]

you're about this mate ? because last time I checked the box of Paradise on PS3 and X360 the little DTS logo was nowhere to be found . Same for Call of duty 4 BTW. And think about it for a sec : If such games had DTS Interactive , they must have the DTS logo slapped on teh box since this technology must be licensed right from DTS and in some review they would have mentionned that fact.

My Logitech Z5500 (which is connected to the PS3/X360 through TOS link thingy) detects dts when I played the burnout demo, uncharted and SKATE.. (all on the ps3)

Bunch of other EA games that feature dts sound too.

[kazuyette]

My Logitech Z5500 (which is connected to the PS3/X360 through TOS link thingy) detects dts when I played the burnout demo, uncharted and SKATE.. (all on the ps3)

Bunch of other EA games that feature dts sound too.

same here mate with my 360. My Amp is set to auto detect the bitstream that goes through it and mine always goes to Dolby Digital. Are you sure that your Logitech is not set on DTS-Neo ? As for the PS3, I cannot confirm anything as I don't have one.

Anyway, who gives a **** !? Burnout pwns with or without DTS :D

[DirtyLarry Veteran]

I found out last night BeLGaRaTh, you have to be online for the time or crash to stick.

Went online for the first time last night with a coworker, and kicking myself for waiting so long. What a great game online as well. At first we did 2 player challenges for about an hour or two, got up to challenge 30 out of 250 I think it was. Then 2 of his friends came on, so we started doing 4 player challenges and got up to like 15 before I had to sign off and go to bed.

So we really want to get 8 players going soon, so if any of you get an invite from me while playing, accept it, we will be going for 8 players.

Funniest thing is I was the only person with a Live vision camera, so I got to make funny faces everytime they took me out.

[+BeLGaRaTh Subscriber¹]

I found out last night BeLGaRaTh, you have to be online for the time or crash to stick.

Went online for the first time last night with a coworker, and kicking myself for waiting so long. What a great game online as well. At first we did 2 player challenges for about an hour or two, got up to challenge 30 out of 250 I think it was. Then 2 of his friends came on, so we started doing 4 player challenges and got up to like 15 before I had to sign off and go to bed.

So we really want to get 8 players going soon, so if any of you get an invite from me while playing, accept it, we will be going for 8 players.

Funniest thing is I was the only person with a Live vision camera, so I got to make funny faces everytime they took me out.

Nice, just found out too that there are 2 achievements that you can only get online and have a camera, one is getting 30 mugshots of takedowns and the other is ... erm ... can't remember at this time, but it was on the stupid aceybongo xbox news thing on dashboard yesterday (why can't we have MajorNelson)

Online play is really very good, but there never seem to be UK players on so have to play against US players, which causes a bit of latency issues :(

[Nightz]

i forget what that achievement is called, but i think it's a "disease" type thing. the guys at criterion have this "disease" and when they take someone down, that person gets infected and can start passing it on to the people they take down. so eventually this thing will spread to people playing online. if you get infected, you get the achievement.

not trying to start anything, but yesterday when i was playing the 360 version, i ran into 3 or 4 frame drops. none of them were very big, but they were noticeable. a couple of them happened when i used the e-brake to do a 180 degree turn, and the rest as i bumped into walls. has anyone else seen this happen?

[kazuyette]

...

not trying to start anything, but yesterday when i was playing the 360 version, i ran into 3 or 4 frame drops. none of them were very big, but they were noticeable. a couple of them happened when i used the e-brake to do a 180 degree turn, and the rest as i bumped into walls. has anyone else seen this happen?

Never noticed the stuff you're mentionning here. However I noticed some VERY rare stuttering in some parts of the game mainly due to the streaming of the textures and such. But nothing near that you mentionned.

[+BeLGaRaTh Subscriber¹]

i forget what that achievement is called, but i think it's a "disease" type thing. the guys at criterion have this "disease" and when they take someone down, that person gets infected and can start passing it on to the people they take down. so eventually this thing will spread to people playing online. if you get infected, you get the achievement.

They nicked that from PGR4 :shiftyninja: