Just wanted to say 'Merry Christmas' to all. It's great to see that so many people have downloaded the demo and are enjoying it. But there do seem to be a lot of misconceptions floating around so I thought I'd try and answer some of them.
We hear you, but...
The demo was made AFTER work on Paradise was completed, so no, we won't be using internet 'feedback' to tune the game.
It's only a demo
Everyone breathe, relax, and remember, it's only a demo - we think we made THE best demo released all year - you don't see many other games getting an online enabled demo up on both systems before launch.
Personally speaking, I don't believe it is possible to even capture the essence of this new Burnout experience (and I use the word 'experience' there deliberately because this new Burnout is an experience that YOU choose how to play rather than us forcing a game structure on you - when the rest of you get to play the full game I am confident you will agree) in a single demo. So we picked a couple of things and a small area in which to play.
This is not some other game
For everyone constantly comparing the game to other games rather than see the game for what it is - all I can say is that this game isn't those games.
It isn't TDU that's for sure, even though many of you seem to swear that it is (and you haven't played it either). TDU is one of my favourite games - (the 'Millionaire Challenge' was a real highpoint) but it isn't Burnout and Burnout isn't TDU.
City size
Paradise City was hand built for Burnout gameplay - racing, fighting, jumps, stunts, shortcuts and crashing. Other games feature huge spaces with tons of repetition - whilst technically nice we didn't feel that was right for our game - so we hand built the city. It may be smaller than other games but it runs at twice the framerate, has no loading, and features WAY more gameplay than ANY other open world game out there. We have always believed that GAMEPLAY comes first.
Which Burnout is best?
With any Criterion game we believe in moving forward and creating something new that has never been created before. For all the people we see arguing over which Burnout is best, then all we can do is smile. They are all different and we made them that way.
As we have said many many times already this year - each Burnout is a reflection of who we were AT THAT TIME. And times change and so do we. We don't see this with many other games - they often do one thing and then stick to it. Whereas Burnout has always and will always be about evolution. We're quite open about this, and we've said it many times and in many interviews so it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone really. Just because we do something in one game never means it may or will come back in another.
As to those who can proclaim from a taste of the demo that Burnout 2 was the best game (always nice to see all those Gamecube owners on the internet who haven't played the game since B2! ) or that B3 is the better game - again, I can only smile. Those of us who have made the games dearly love those games but we're confident that if you love those games too then you will love Paradise. All of the B2 stuff is in there (and all of the original music including the never before heard original B3 soundtrack) - it's a WAY WAY better game than B2 or B3. At least that's the way we feel about it.
Online customization
Well the game is all about freedom and the online stuff is DEEP, the custom route stuff is very well done and yes you can create any type of race you want. As for no online racing in the demo, well, there was a limit on how much of our work we wanted to give away FOR FREE. If you want to experience the rest of it then YOU HAVE TO BUY THE GAME.
Showtime
'OMG The Crash Mode suXXors'.... Hmm, again, none of you have played it yet. N'Gai Croal at Level Up seems to like it. It's not Crash Mode, it never was - it never could be. There was no way we would have created a linear and limited experience in a massively open game that is about freedom, expression and seamless play. Again, try it for yourself and make up your own mind. Don't let the internet do it for you. We feel that a crash experience where YOU choose when to start and stop it, YOU choose where to play it, and YOU experiment with is way better than anything we built before.
No retry!
Oh, what were they thinking.... Well, you can go anywhere and do anything in any order - despite talking about this on all of our podcasts (when not too distracted by all the bad spelling in all of the letters we receive) it seems that few people really understand this yet. And to be honest, why should they, when the game's not out yet!
But it will be next month!! The lack of retry really isn't an issue. You may disagree, but we don't feel it is and retry would have introduced loading into the game, which we didn't want to do. In fact, we hate loading with a passion now. Games like Burnout Paradise and Uncharted Drake's Fortune (and Haze I think and GTA) keep you IN THE GAME rather than watching what is usually a very dull screen. (At least we used to write special tips for our load screens when we did them, most people simply do nothing....)
So we hope that you all enjoy playing the demo over the next couple of weeks. We certainly had a very busy 2007 making the game, and we're really proud of the end result. I hope that this answered a few questions. If it didn't, then oh well, at least we tried.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from everyone here at Criterion Games.
Regards
Alex Ward and The Burnout Team