It took ages for me to really settle in to Burnout Paradise, the speed rush and information on the screen was way to much to deal with at first. Now I am in to it I rely on the signs at the top and have become quite good at glancing up when I hear the signal sign. Keep at it, because its an amazing game once you learn the city and some of the short cuts and the online play can be awesome!

Sorry you have problems with the game. I never really got into the game.

Keep playing, eventually you just get better at the game and a lot of the problems that are around will be gone. Seriously stuff like crashing every 30 seconds is just you and not the game's fault.

The thing that pissed me off about the game (other than the reality breaking product placement that's shoved up my ass) is that there are no drivers in the cars. That would have been so cool to see a rag doll get tossed around in a crash but EA took the drivers out completely just so they could get an E-10 rating instead of T. They knowingly gave you a less fun, less realistic experience because they thought they could make a few extra bucks selling the game to kids who's parents won't let them play T rated games.
Fuck EA!!

Hmm... I'd been considering purchasing this game, but your first point pretty much convinced me otherwise.  I have a hard enough time seeing without having a frustratingly small map to worry about.

"The thing that pissed me off about the game (other than the reality breaking product placement that's shoved up my ass) is that there are no drivers in the cars. That would have been so cool to see a rag doll get tossed around in a crash but EA took the drivers out completely just so they could get an E-10 rating instead of T. They knowingly gave you a less fun, less realistic experience because they thought they could make a few extra bucks selling the game to kids who's parents won't let them play T rated games.
Fuck EA!!
"

Doesn't sound like you know how to drift, you know. Hit the brakes much?

"The thing that pissed me off about the game (other than the reality breaking product placement that's shoved up my ass) is that there are no drivers in the cars. That would have been so cool to see a rag doll get tossed around in a crash but EA took the drivers out completely just so they could get an E-10 rating instead of T. They knowingly gave you a less fun, less realistic experience because they thought they could make a few extra bucks selling the game to kids who's parents won't let them play T rated games.
Fuck EA!!
"

I just bought it, and so far I think it's a stretch to call it "paradise", but I haven't really started to hate it or anything. It does bug me that there's no retry option in missions. Not only that, but from what I can tell, you can't even like "end a mission", and you actually have to finish it, even though the only way to pass it is to come in first. That's pretty retarded.

"I just bought it, and so far I think it's a stretch to call it "paradise", but I haven't really started to hate it or anything. It does bug me that there's no retry option in missions. Not only that, but from what I can tell, you can't even like "end a mission", and you actually have to finish it, even though the only way to pass it is to come in first. That's pretty retarded."

I remember there was once I was doing a class A race and was driving into oncoming traffic to get my boost up, and after missing one car the car right behind the one i just passed  swerved into me and i crashed.  Thats pretty much been the only time I was fustrated at the game instead of myself for not doing well enough. 

All totally valid points, but the game is still a pretty dang good one and the best racer this generation so far.

if you want to end a race/event, you just stop your car for a few seconds, then it'll just stop the event."

Burnout sucks

I loved the first Burnouts on the Xbox but I just can't get into this one, I've tried. Eventually I know I'll get into it.

I agree that burnout paradise is deeply frustrating. I traded this game in because I kept crashing and crashing and crashing. Yes, the crashes look awesome at first but they get old very fast. loading up the map then going back to driving whilst driving very fast is not fun, It just breaks flow.

I very much hated this game. I cannot how Jeff spent over 100 hours playing this game. Then again, I think he memorized the whole map. I dont have the time or patience to do that. I really dont like this game.

Sounds like you... well, suck at the game. Play it more and you'll get better.

there something special about this game, its a dinosaur. I mean that in regards to its difficulty, and how it forces you to even learn the rules of its world or get out! Not enough games do this any more. I do agree with you on a lot of the issues you bring up. Mainly having to always drive to a junk yard for a new ride is tedious!

I'd hate to see most of you try and play Motorstorm. Here's the thing about Burnout Paradise, it's all about learning the city. Spend some time exploring it, collecting the smash gates, getting billboards and taking super jumps. You'll get sweet cars along the way and then you'll have a decent working knowledge of where most things are. Once you know where you are going this game is FUCKINGEASY.

PROTIP: press start- go to options- settings- turn hints OFF.

"and the best racer this generation so far."

I can definitely see people having a problem with finding the right way in races, although for some reason I'm able to remember routes and locations so well that by the time I had less than half of the challenges needed to get license B I'd almost completely stopped using the map cause I knew where all roads led. Hell, I've helped 6 dudes on my friends list finish the billboard, gate and super jump challenges.

Seeing how everyone at Criterion is out of their goddamn minds they could/should put in a option that let's you choose whether or not to lock up the track, NFS style. So those of you that aren't crazy good at remembering the layout of the entire damn game can just race, although that might come at a cost for you since you're limited to a small track.

Allowing you to free roam was a huge leap for Criterion. I've enjoyed the game a lot, but I'm not entirely sure I like the change.

I swear to god you people must be taking crazy pills.  Burnout Paradise is without a doubt the most accessible and least frustrating arcade racer I've ever played. 

If you crash too often while staring at the map, then stop spending so much time staring at the map!  You only need to make sure you're still going in the right general direction.  I really don't understand all these complaints about not knowing yourself around enough to not win events.  The streets are pretty obvious, as are the potential shortcuts.  I've tried using the restart option, but it ruins the flow.  The whole point is that you are near another event you can do so you're not stuck re-doing the same race over and over again.

After only goofing around and driving, and certainly not knowing every secret, I had no issues winning most races as long as I kept concentrating on the road and my surroundings.  Furthermore, I've found the game very lenient.  I've crashed and/or took a poor path yet still managed to come out first.  In about three hours of playtime I was already up to a "B" license.  And this isn't a "you aren't hardcorez" enough claim, I am definetely average when it comes to action games in general, and tend to suck in racing games.

Contrast this with most other arcade racers, which actually are the unfair, obsessive, memorization tasks people accuse Paradise of being.  After the first three or four races, you're stuck hammering that "restart race" button, because games like DIRT, Forza, PGR4, etc. make you have to play the same damn race over and over until you have memorized the track, know all the potential tricks, and combine that with rubber banding A.I. so you pretty much always have to complete them flawlessly in order to win.  I think people claiming Paradise is "frustrating" because they crash a lot isn't taking into account that you still have a great chance of winning the race, whereas in most other racers you're pretty much guaranteed to lose the race if you make one tiny mistake.

Meh.  I find when I get this frustrated with a game, I'm just playing it too often.  It's sort of like spending too much time with a girlfriend--their faults start to nag at you because you're encountering them more often than normal.  Just take a break from the game and then come back to it with a positive attitude.   

As regards Burnout Paradise, I had a twenty-dollar gift card to use at amazon.com, so I basically got this for free.  It arrives on the 21st.  I loved the past Burnouts, so I hope I like this one. 

You'll get used to it.

As for the DJ, I just put the custom music louder the rest of the stuff.

I bought his 3 days ago and I am only up to the point of the B license but I havnt found the game frustrating at all...Its strange your complaining about crashing...I rarely crash even when i feel like i should. I cant count the times I have bounced off the wall feeling i cheated death.

Also I am sure someone said it above but you can shut off the day/night cycle....I do.

As it stands I am COMPLETELY addicted to the game...and I am thrilled that I doing so well in a genre that I have always thought I was terrible at.

"I bought his 3 days ago and I am only up to the point of the B license but I havnt found the game frustrating at all...Its strange your complaining about crashing...I rarely crash even when i feel like i should. I cant count the times I have bounced off the wall feeling i cheated death.

Also I am sure someone said it above but you can shut off the day/night cycle....I do.

As it stands I am COMPLETELY addicted to the game...and I am thrilled that I doing so well in a genre that I have always thought I was terrible at."

Just keep playing. Eventually you'll learn the city and be able to react to the on-screen prompts more skillfully.

Okay, so, third update for me. 

The game is still pretty fucking good, but some of the challenges jumped from "easily doable" to "annoying" over the course of the A License. 

The biggest thing for me is the day/night cycle.  Night seems to be twice as long as day, and the game fogs the streets heavily at night, so Marked Man challenges are very, very tedious.  I was using the Takedown 4x4 and was still having my ass handed to me on a regular basis. 

Also, the upper level cars are really easy to turn around and, in a lot of cases, like to magnetize their front end toward a wall, forcing you to use reverse, which is not only tedious, but half the time you just spin out headlong into the wall again.  If you come to a stop like this during a Marked Man challenge, you had better expect getting taken down. 

Not to keep going, but with the free-roaming thing, sometimes there is just too much to be aware of at once.  I haven't memorized the city or anything like that, so I rely somewhat heavily on the map and the street sign system.  The map isn't always convenient to look at when you're using a Burnout in the oncoming lane of a five-lane highway.  Moreover, the beeping street sign system is really shoddy, and if I've had it both tell me to go the wrong way once and, even more often, the sign won't beep at all, so I have very little idea when to make a turn.  Extremely frustrating during Marked Man competitions.

Last thing: DJ Automica needs to die.  I've dumped maybe twenty hours into the game, I don't need to know how a Road Rage works.  Or what kind of car I need to win it.  Shut the fuck up.