I recently decided to go back to playing Burnout Paradise in anticipation for Hot Pursuit. I've already done mostly everything in that game, but just the other day, I sat down with a map of the city on my laptop and finished up all the Billboards. I'm debating whether or not I should try to go for all the smashes, which I'm afraid might be a massive undertaking. I may just have to accept the fact that I will never get all of them.
 
Has anyone else gone back to Paradise or another Burnout game in preparation for Criterion's take on Need for Speed?

Nope. After nearly 250 hours, I have 102% on my Paradise license, and 100% on my Big Surf license. I have no reason to go back now.

Playing the original Hot Pursuit would be much better preparation than any Burnout game, by far. Also I never understood the whole idea of playing a supposedly similar game to prep for a game that's about to come out. That'll just burn you out faster on the new game, no pun intended.

No, but more relevantly I've been playing Need For Speed 3: Hot Pursuit. That shit got me into racing games to begin with. I loved that game to death, and it's still pretty fun! 

Actually went back into Paradise the other week, completely unrelated. 
Never got into it before that but, damn. That game's great. We had a laugh in the party mode too.

Yeah, I was playing Burnout Paradise City, but not for preparation, more to test my new graphics card. BPC was great, and card made it look better than ever before.

prepare? why? are you usually prepared for game? that's funny. just play damn game. if you play game a lot, you should be ready for it no matter what.