I bought an Xbox360 5 weeks ago, primarily for playing Burnout Paradise (BP) …and that’s what I’ve done. It’s been a nice distraction (most of the time) but it’s coming to an end soon I think.

Why? “Because it’s not really all that good.”

BP was the killer app for me – the primary reason I plunked down £460 for the system and the game, and thank God I’ve found other interesting games on the system too, because BP has turned out to be a big disappointment.

Let me explain the problems I have with the game.

The game is played in big city, where you’re free to roam as you you please. There is a race at every intersection and to start a race or one of the other ‘missions’ you only have to pull up to an intersection and activate the race that’s there. If you win a race – great!…you’ll have driven to a different part of the map, but there’s usually another race nearby you can participate in.

…but if you loose the race, crash or decide to restart the race, the only way to start that same race again is to drive all the way back to the starting point. It’s okay in the beginning – you need to learn your way around the city anyway and there’s plenty of secondary objectives along the way, but as you complete all those and have learned your way around the city, it just sucks to be forced to drive all the way back. It’s not fun…it’s annoying and just a big fucking waste of time.
Give us the fucking possibility to start a race where we want!

Another thing – when you crash you get this slow-motion replay of your car crashing. Pretty neat…THE FIRST 10 TIMES – then it’s just BLOODY ANNOYING. It fucking disruptive to game-play. How can the developers play the game for as long as they have to, when they’re making the game, and NOT see how annoying this is? You’re sitting there all concentrated, trying to drive well and outsmart the other cars, and then you crash and are forced to watch a 5-8 seconds of some STUPID animation that you can’t skip. Why did it not occur to them that people might want to be able to skip it? Where do I sign up to JAM A FUCKING PAIR OF SCICCORS INTO THEIR CHESTS? Everywhere I’ve read about BP people say the same – “Let us skip that animation” and yet it’s not on the list of fixes in their first update. What the fuck are they thinking?

They’ve also done away with the brilliant ‘crash missions’. That was stupid! They’ve put something in called ‘showtime’ instead – that was a good idea though…on paper. It just doesn’t work and it’s the most boring thing in the world.

Generally speaking, there’s a lot of things in the game that are completely uninteresting (hello ‘road rules’). Lots of different race modes and side missions, but not much of it are actually fun. My personal favorite modes are Race, Burning Route and Marked Man. The rest can just fuck off.

Oh, and there’s no local multi-player mode. Why? Probably because they want us all to go online and play against strangers. The idea is great and they have really made it easy to go online. So, sure, you can play against other people…but it’s costs money. So why should they give os local multi-player action…it’s not like there’s any profit in it for them.

Well, they’re CUNTS for not letting me play against my friends…my real friends – the kind that are actually in the living room with me. Is it so damn hard to imagine that people might like this?

Criterion has sold out! Those cunts!

Let me explain how much I like the Burnout games.

Burnout 3: Takedown. I’ve played this one for 77 hours and completed 96%
Burnout 4: Revenge. I’ve played this one for 55 hours and completed 99%

I’ve played Burnout Paradise for 28 hours, completed 61% and I’ve been sick and tired of it for a long time already.

I was really surprised to learn that one of the bugs they’re fixing in their first patch, is the that the “total time driven” counter would stick at 145 hours. What the hell…are there actually anyone who’s been playing for that long or have they just been stress testing the game?

I won’t be playing this one much longer. Instead I’ll probably fire up B3 or B4 instead, to be able to play against my friends. Sure, it’ll be against one person at the time, but none of them has an Xbox360, so I wouldn’t be able to play against them online at all.

Burnout Paradise is not all bad, but it’s a far cry from what it could have been. It’s just a big disappointment! The next Burnout game will not be bought in blind faith – it’ll be rented, and then I’ll see if it’s worth my money.

…and speaking of money – this was just my 2 cents on Burnout Paradise.