Black Sheep Paradise

Racing games, every gamer has played one at some point in their lives.
Be it because you are a car fanatic, you just like the speed and shiny cars, the game came with your console, or what reasons can you come up with.

Where racing games in the early days were all pretty similar, featuring a car, a road that moved from left to right, and usually obstacles and/or a batch of opponents, the racing games of today have definitely had a benefit from the graphical improvements that came with the seventh generation of consoles. But what’s more interesting is that while we are slowly nearing the limits of computer graphics, and not much has changed. In fact, all racing games are still very much alike, be it with more shiny graphics and online game modes. You still race over a track from A to B, or a number of laps on a circular track. Project Gotham Racing does this, Need for Speed does this, Gran Turismo as well, and even Colin Mcrae Rally.

Of course it’s not just the names that I just listed, but you should get the point that I am trying to make.
So, what’s next for the racing genre? This is something that the industry has been wondering itself recently. Where do we go from here? More realism? More Humor? We’ve seen car collections grow, tuning options on both in- and outside of cars, and over-the-top speeds. Seems like there isn’t much left.

Yes, that is a barbecue.

But then I bought Burnout Paradise as my first game for my shiny new PS3. I’ve known the Burnout games for some time now. I played the first game once at Power Unlimited Gameplay, then bought Burnout 2 on release day, and was hooked on the Paradise Demo that I downloaded off the playstation network.

So, what’s so different about Burnout? Well it’s not night and day. It’s still racing with shiny cars from a, to b. But the burnout series has always had something the other racing games didn’t have. Epic crashes that made you go WOW!. In Burnout Paradise, that same feeling is still there, even though the famous crash-mode is no longer with us today. And it does take a while before the burnout-feeling returns, but when it does!- that, is when the fun starts.

What Criterion Games did, when they started working on the concept of Paradise was look back at what they had, and say. “hmm, we should try, and do something new with this concept”. And boy, did they! Gone are the menus, gone are the game modes, the driving classes, and the arcade gameplay that made up, most of the series up until that point.

Out with the old, in with the new. And so the game now features a free roaming world that you can cruise as you see fit. Want a race? Pull up at a traffic light, hit the gas and brakes, and off you go. Feeling like taking down some other cars? Same thing, pull up at a traffic light with an event of your preference and get your game on. Don’t feel like doing anything useful? Fine! You can cruise around Paradise City and discover hidden areas, jumps, stunts and events, or take the game online and hang out with other players.

With just 2 taps to the right on your directional pad, you are online with other players, while driving around! Ready to have ranked or unranked races, do some challenges with or against the other players, or simply cruise around, maybe crash into some other people after a hard day at school. Paradise is like GTA3 when it first came out, it just made sense. Immense freedom at your fingertips. no more having to do what the games tell you to do in a set order. And racing from A to B, makes more sense as well, you drive to an event, race it, and take down that awesome car thats you’ve seen driving around recently, after which, you can take it for a spin online.

The game’s interface has also gone minimalist, yet grungy. Gone are the indications of your speed, who cares? as long as it’s fast! All that’s left is the world map, (which is strikingly similar to the one in GTA 3,) a boost bar, a bunch of signs so you know where you are on the map, and when playing online, the players.

Sure, so you can’t really tune your car apart from it’s paint-job, but who cares, Burnout Paradise isn’t trying to be a racing simulator, it’s just trying to be that racing game that you pick up every now and then, mess around, do some events, make some wowing crashes, and showoff your car collection to your friends. Complete freedom in a way that just makes sense, and made me wonder why nobody had done this sort of thing before. I mean, GTA 3 is what? 4 years old now?

This new found freedom makes other racing games feel small and limited if you ask me. But it’s not just the way you play the game, or the way it looks, or this new freedom that makes it fun to play. Criterion are a fun bunch, and if you look for it, you’ll find quite some humor tucked away in Paradise City. For instance; there is a van in the game that looks strikingly similar to the one used in the A-Team. And when you decide to pull over and get a drink, you’ll find the game camera hovering over the roads of paradise while enjoying a tune of really bad music. No, really! And resident DJ Atomika on Crash FM keeps making the best comments relating to what you are up to, while also being a great help in finding some entertainment in paradise.

Now, I know there are a lot of people out there that can’t seem to take all of this new next-gen-ness. They want a copy of Burnout 3, with better graphics, new tracks, and new cars. And maybe that’s what most people expected, but I for one, am really happy that Burnout didn’t go the way that Medal of Honor went, or Final Fantasy, or Pokemon. At least someone in this industry is thinking ahead instead of trying to cash a quick buck, and taking effort to put some creativity back in an industry that’s increasingly commercializing, and becoming less and less of a form of art and vision, and more of a mass production assembly line.

“But it’s just like Need for Speed!” is what I hear a lot. Well, sherlock, if you had tried any of the recent Need for Speed games then you would have known that, the Need for Speed you knew is no more. It’s dead, boring, and crying for someone to put it out of it’s misery. And if you don’t know what I am talking about then I would suggest downloading the Need for Speed ProStreet Demo. Burnout Paradise IS the new Need for Speed AND the new Burnout. And as far as I am concerned, Need for Speed can now shake hands with Medal of Honor, both fueling the Electronic Arts marketing machine by selling unsuspecting casual gamers, absolute trash for way too much money.

Which brings me to the reason I called this column “Black Sheep Paradise”. It’s because nobody seems to see the progress being made here for the racing genre in general, and only whine about it looking like Need for Speed and the sucky map. (which does, sort of suck, but the issue resolves itself once you get to know the streets of Paradise, and use the world map)