Piggus
12-10-2007, 10:55 PM
December 5, 2007 - The most high-octane racing series this side of the Mississippi (and the other side as well) is just about set to hit the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in January with the release of Burnout Paradise. While you will have to wait until next month in order to play the full game, you're only days away from getting a taste of it as a downloadable demo is set to hit on December 13th on both the PS3 and 360.
The demo starts you off in a Hunter Cavalry, a slow but reasonably strong ride. Right out of the junkyard, which will serve as your main vehicle hub throughout the full game, it starts off all banged up, but driving through a nearby auto repair shop will fix it up right away. You needn't actually stop in the shop to get it repaired, which allows you to get repairs while in the middle of events to help fix any damage you've taken.
You'll be able to take the Hunter through what looks like maybe 1/10th of the entire map, which is gigantic, so the playable demo area is actually quite large. You're confined to a piece of the downtown district for the demo, so there's plenty of traffic and tight turns to take. You'll have to wait for the full game to get out into the country side and really test your drifting abilities, but the demo area gives you plenty of jumps to take to the air with.
You'll have to wait for the full game to get behind the wheels of these cars.
These jumps play perfectly into one of the three events that you'll find in the demo, a Stunt challenge. When you start the challenge, you're given two minutes to rack up at least 50,000 stunt points, which you earn by hitting jumps, drifting, crashing through objects and generally driving chaotically. Stunts are strung together so long as you keep racking up the points, and boosting helps with this as you constantly earn points while you boost. Multipliers are earned by way of jumps, billboards, flat spins off of jumps and barrel rolls. You'll find a series of little barrel roll jumps scattered throughout the city where one edge of the ramp is raised a bit, allowing your car to twist through the air. Completing a rotation is tricky, but nailing a jump will earn you a 2X multiplier while everything else is a 1X. The Stunt challenge is the thing we've had the most fun with as you don't need to worry about where you're headed, and you've got to keep thinking on your toes (or wheels as the case may be).
The other two events you'll find are a race, which takes you through the bulk of the playable area, and a Burning Route, which is a timed run from one spot to another. The other main point of interest you'll find here is a paint shop, which at least in terms of the demo will give you a new, random paint scheme when you drive through it.
As for other stuff to do, Burnout Paradise tracks a number of extra goodies that you can "collect". There are Burnout billboards scattered throughout the demo that you can smash through, upon which a counter will pop up to tell you how many you've found. Likewise, you can crash through construction barriers and are shown a similar counter for your efforts.
There's plenty of road to burn in the demo.
The demo will be playable online, though we aren't able to hop on just yet as the game tells us that the servers aren't up. Still, you'll be able to join in with your friends and start a Freeburn Online session. Freeburn sessions are where you'll be able to partake in specially designed stunt sessions and the like, but as we can't hop online yet we haven't been able to test them out.
While the demo for Burnout Paradise really only contains three events, there's enough space to drive through and ramps and such to find that it'll entertain you for a good while. And of course, the online possibilities sound like they'll extend its play length even further. Look for the demo to hit the PS3 and 360 online networks on December 13th.
Saurce (http://ps3.ign.com/articles/839/839894p1.html)
w00t! I can't wait. We'll have to get some online games going when the demo hits. And the cool think about the PS3 version is to get online you just pull over, make three button presses, and you're online with other people. Apparently there's no need to even pause the game.
The demo starts you off in a Hunter Cavalry, a slow but reasonably strong ride. Right out of the junkyard, which will serve as your main vehicle hub throughout the full game, it starts off all banged up, but driving through a nearby auto repair shop will fix it up right away. You needn't actually stop in the shop to get it repaired, which allows you to get repairs while in the middle of events to help fix any damage you've taken.
You'll be able to take the Hunter through what looks like maybe 1/10th of the entire map, which is gigantic, so the playable demo area is actually quite large. You're confined to a piece of the downtown district for the demo, so there's plenty of traffic and tight turns to take. You'll have to wait for the full game to get out into the country side and really test your drifting abilities, but the demo area gives you plenty of jumps to take to the air with.
You'll have to wait for the full game to get behind the wheels of these cars.
These jumps play perfectly into one of the three events that you'll find in the demo, a Stunt challenge. When you start the challenge, you're given two minutes to rack up at least 50,000 stunt points, which you earn by hitting jumps, drifting, crashing through objects and generally driving chaotically. Stunts are strung together so long as you keep racking up the points, and boosting helps with this as you constantly earn points while you boost. Multipliers are earned by way of jumps, billboards, flat spins off of jumps and barrel rolls. You'll find a series of little barrel roll jumps scattered throughout the city where one edge of the ramp is raised a bit, allowing your car to twist through the air. Completing a rotation is tricky, but nailing a jump will earn you a 2X multiplier while everything else is a 1X. The Stunt challenge is the thing we've had the most fun with as you don't need to worry about where you're headed, and you've got to keep thinking on your toes (or wheels as the case may be).
The other two events you'll find are a race, which takes you through the bulk of the playable area, and a Burning Route, which is a timed run from one spot to another. The other main point of interest you'll find here is a paint shop, which at least in terms of the demo will give you a new, random paint scheme when you drive through it.
As for other stuff to do, Burnout Paradise tracks a number of extra goodies that you can "collect". There are Burnout billboards scattered throughout the demo that you can smash through, upon which a counter will pop up to tell you how many you've found. Likewise, you can crash through construction barriers and are shown a similar counter for your efforts.
There's plenty of road to burn in the demo.
The demo will be playable online, though we aren't able to hop on just yet as the game tells us that the servers aren't up. Still, you'll be able to join in with your friends and start a Freeburn Online session. Freeburn sessions are where you'll be able to partake in specially designed stunt sessions and the like, but as we can't hop online yet we haven't been able to test them out.
While the demo for Burnout Paradise really only contains three events, there's enough space to drive through and ramps and such to find that it'll entertain you for a good while. And of course, the online possibilities sound like they'll extend its play length even further. Look for the demo to hit the PS3 and 360 online networks on December 13th.
Saurce (http://ps3.ign.com/articles/839/839894p1.html)
w00t! I can't wait. We'll have to get some online games going when the demo hits. And the cool think about the PS3 version is to get online you just pull over, make three button presses, and you're online with other people. Apparently there's no need to even pause the game.