At this moment in time im so frustrated with burnout paradise.Ok lets put this into context:
-Burnout is by far my favourite driving series ever since 2 and ive played every game.
-I have ps2 memory cards with burnout 2,burnout 3 and burnout revenge saves at 100%
-I got the highest score in OPM's burnout revenge challenge on the biggest clusterfuck of a track, chinatown winning a 12 month subscription to the magazine and a burnout branded memorycard.
Burnout is something ive been completely enamered in, i was a savant at it and became a complete nazi towards other arcade racers.In every burnout game theres a tipping point where it suddenly all comes to you and youre not crashing into pillars or crashing 3 times over in a matter of seconds and you can pretty much win most races thrown at you.

But in paradise the learning curve and tipping point is so much higher that any burnout, even the first, because of the lack of a restart.People who have defended the game and given it positive feedback defend the lack of a restart but that does nothing but make the game so much higher for anyone entering the game.You can no longer perfect a route and get into a groove because everything becomes alien to you and you dont know that theres a 180 degree turn coming up in a matter of seconds, you crash and the race is pretty much over because the crash reset is heading in the wrong direction.You do not feel like your progressing as a driver which is what skate did so well and what i think criterion were also heading for.Ok for soem conjecture ive only had teh game for a few days and im close to getting my paradise license but its just been a complete grind with events and i still dont feel like ive cracked this game and i have a real good chance at winning.

Thats not necessarily a bad thing because of the ai being so aggresive, in fact in marked man you are so likely to get taken down and its just making it there alive and i dont think that a mode like that is ever going to be easy or make you a better driver because you can just tell that the aggresiveness of the ai is ramping up, to the point where there keeping up with you at full boost and boxing you in.

Apart from the lack of restarts another problem i have with the game is how they change youre trajectory whe you take down a car.In revenge you couldnt hang back and tag youre opponents into a wall and come out of it without doing any work to avoid traffic whilst drifting but in paradise multiplayer this is rampant with people exploiting it.Ok heres an example, i was racing online in a mid level car in terms of speed and my opponents were all in F1 cars, super cars and some crazy unlockable hotrod.I head off and immediatly get left behind at the turbines  by all of them so i take the railroad shortcut ending up in 3rd all the way upto the sharp turn before the naval yard oblivious to the fact im being stalked by 3 other cars, i take a sharp turn and i immeditaly get side slammed by the cars and they speed ahead putting no effort into making that turn but taking me down and just being directed over the finishing line.It was controller throwing frustration that i was sorta "ganked" to use an MMO term by my rivals.It should be when you take someone down you continue in youre direction so if youre both heading into a brick wall and i grind you out just before we hit and i then get respawned onto the otherside of the road in a safe place when i would have otherwise wrecked.Its one of those things which beats on the frantic twitchy nature of the game.

I am waiting for that spark where i just completly gush over the game and it takes over my life for a few months and the addition of competant online might ruin my life but its worrying me that the burnout magic hasnt worked on me.So far its just an impenetrable brick wall,I do commend criterion for supporting the game with free content setting an industry standard but im so fucking frustrated at the game.

Oh and hopefully my next blog will be a love letter to the game