Some continued Burnout Paradise discussion

About 80 minutes into the podcast this week the guys get into some Burnout Paradise discussion.  Ryan says that the game did not sell particularly well for the amount of effort put into it.  Jeff (who gave the game a 5 star review) agrees by saying it got great reviews and everyone that comes in contact with it loves it.  He continues to theorize that perhaps having real cars in the game would help grab a larger audience.

As someone who has recently played the game, I could care less that the cars do not have the official car brands and logos.  The game has some other issues that I would like to see addressed before I would purchase it.  Here are a few of those issues along with a little explanation:

1. Stopping my race every 10 seconds to see if I'm going the right way.  I loved the frenetic pace, I loved the takedowns, I even loved the idea of an open world race where you can choose which path to take.  But I could never quite figure out how far off my next turn was  (probably because I was having too much fun getting a grinding takedown on the other cars.)  There has to be a better way to integrate the open world into racing.  Having three street signs on my Hud with one of them blinking did not seem to help me much.
2. Repetitiveness.  So to get my next license, I do the exact same thing as I did to get my last license?  I got to the class A license before I finally said fuck it, why do I need another fake license in this game?  Passing the other car by going off the jump out of the tunnel in that mano-a-mano race was awesome the first time, less awesome for my class C, even less awesome for B, and boring by A.
3. No retry button.  So I have to drive all the way back to the starting line with DJ dbag yelling at me after I took another wrong turn in the race?
4. The collectables.  Figuring out how this jump works to smash through the billboard is awesome, driving around trying to find a billboard isn't.  Especially when you're down to your last remaining few.  I propose that if you make a video game where you have more than 100 collectable items, you must give the player some kind of clue as to where the remaining 10 or so are because I'm not going to waste my time printing out a map and checking every location over again to see if I got this billboard yet or not.

As for the collectibles - Criterion have a program on their website, where you upload your savegame onto the webpage, and an interactive map appears listing everything you have not yet found (ps3 only)

I do agree but then I kinda disagree. The thing with the racers are that Criterion kinda expected you to figure out your own routes to the destination. Which is doable but you have to have spent a LOT of time with the game (like I played for 22 hours now and I still don't know many). I think what Burnout could have done with is an arrow coming up on the road, showing you the turn from the distance and flashing. You can choose to follow the "standard route" or more experienced players can pick their own. I totally think that would work.

A retry/restart button would be nice I suppose and I do hear you on the repetition side.

Apart from that though I think this is literally one of the best racing games I've ever played. They'll nail the formula next time around.

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For collectibles, I have found them to be enjoyable. Even more so than collectibles in any other game. This is because when you collect them you are also discovering new routes to take to shorten your times in races. They were kind enough to break down the collectibles in the menu by area, that is very helpful. It makes collecting everything a challenge, not a chore.

I agree with the repetitiveness aspect of the game, more variety in the events would be nice. It is difficult to think of a new event they could have made though.

The no retry button is a double-edged sword. While it keeps the game seamless, it also is very annoying when trying to finish a specific event  (Burning Routes for example)

Midnight Club 2: DUB Edition implemented open world racing far better.  It had those colored smoke signals at check points and the finish which gave you a FAR better idea of the general area you needed to be heading towards.  BP's problem is that you go so goddamn fast, that by the time one of the street signs start blinking, you blaze right past the turn, and the race is pretty much over already, at that point.  It makes the straight races a pain in the ass, and easily the worst aspect of the game.  Nothing kills a fast paced exciting race more than needing to pause and check your map several times in the middle of it.  That and the design of the game world lends itself to you being on the right path, seeing a shortcut like area, taking it, and finding out the hardway it takes you way the hell away from where you needed to go.

"As for the collectibles - Criterion have a program on their website, where you upload your savegame onto the webpage, and an interactive map appears listing everything you have not yet found (ps3 only)

As for no retry button - thats the point of it being an open sandbox world, you cant get the feel of being in a 'real' city if you are continually navigating menu options and warping around the city, they specifically designed it so you spent as little time in menus as possible.

Repetitiveness - In most games in order to progress, you do exactly the same thing as before - in shooters to get to the next level., you shoot even more people - in racers you drive around the same circuits in different leagues - in burnout these leagues are called licenses - and there are currently 120 different 'events' lying round -at no point are oyu required to dfo them all - just drive and find a race you havent tried yet.

stopping to see where oyu are going - it pretty much comes with gameplay - i had the same issue initially, after my first week or so i could pretty much complete a race without using the map or the indicators, its just a case of practice.

to be fair the issues you state can put people off, but they are the exact reasons that burnout paradise was different to revenge or takedown - you reolve every one of the issues you talking bout? we have a menu heavy - one race on each track but total of 12 track setlist  - on the rails follow this one road racer (a la the other burnouts)

So theres the choice, this brave new world - or burnout takedown with a lick of hd paint

"

• That interactive map sounds awesome and is something I would like implemented in more games.  I unfortunately played the 360 version though
• I think the no retry button does make the game more authentic, since if you were doing this in a real city, you would obviously have to drive back.  But this is a videogame meant for enjoyment and making me drive back across the entire map is not a joyful experience. It was definitely a major reason I stopped playing at the A license.  Also- if they designed the game to spend as little time in the menu screen as possible, then why am I stopping to check the f-ing map every 10 seconds to see where I'm going.
• Every game is a little repetitive, but Burnout Pardise takes it to a new level.  To continue your shooter analogy, it would be like completeling the first level, only to start back at the beginning again and slightly increasing the difficulty.  Now I can get through the first to the second level, but once I beat that I'm going back to level 1 to do the EXACT same level (or race) over again.
• This game is weird in that it has a lot of appeal to average players with the awesome crashes and takedowns, yet you are going to spend an inordinate amount of time planning or memorizing routes.  Or maybe you're just smarter than me :/

"I do agree but then I kinda disagree. The thing with the racers are that Criterion kinda expected you to figure out your own routes to the destination. Which is doable but you have to have spent a LOT of time with the game (like I played for 22 hours now and I still don't know many). I think what Burnout could have done with is an arrow coming up on the road, showing you the turn from the distance and flashing. You can choose to follow the "standard route" or more experienced players can pick their own. I totally think that would work.

A retry/restart button would be nice I suppose and I do hear you on the repetition side.

Apart from that though I think this is literally one of the best racing games I've ever played. They'll nail the formula next time around."

No game is perfect. They have their ups and their downs. Burnout Paradise is no different.