By Steve Boxer
Anticipating that this year’s “downsized” E3 will be a complete washout attended almost exclusively by American journalists, the mighty Electronic Arts, characteristically, decided to take matters into its own hands and put on its own showcase of games due for 2007 release. Called EA3 (in previous years, the corresponding fixture has been known, dodgily, as Hot Summer Nights) and taking place at EA’s development building in Marina Del Rey, LA, rather than its HQ at Redwood Shores just up from San Francisco, it afforded a great chance to get a good look at EA’s big guns for the year.
Here's the first part of our top-picks..
Brilliant as the Burnout games have been over the years, they’ve now been around so long that they’ve started to embody EA’s endless-sequels approach. Happily, that’s not an accusation that you’ll be able to level at Burnout: Paradise, the first next-gen version of the game. It’s radically different from its predecessors.
Gone are the chevrons, which previously guided you around specific tracks. Instead, Burnout: Paradise is a free-roaming game in which races are point-to-point and, using your radar and knowledge of the layout of the huge city in which it is set (which has elements of both Tokyo and San Francisco), you must work out how to get to the finish line first. I tried such a race, got hopelessly lost and, despite being seriously fast all the way through, came in last… which was rather annoying.
To participate in races, eliminators and so on, you simply pull up at one of the many traffic lights in the city and press right and left bumpers simultaneously. At first, many of the traffic light challenges are locked but, as you progress, they become available. Burnout: Paradise also has a “drop-in” online mode, and you can set up games against your mates if you don’t feel ready to take on the rest of the world. One clever mode involves following a specific road: the game will time you against the best time among your designated mates for that road.
There seemed to be a bit of confusion regarding whether Burnout: Paradise will have traffic-checking; Criterion took that out, but reputedly is now thinking of putting it back in. And when you crash, your car will only respawn if you rip one of the wheels off, so you can crash heavily, yet still drive off in something that looks like it was salvaged from the crusher. You’ll be able to scan your face into the game, and rivals will be able to see it when they pull alongside, which is neat. And, as ever in Burnout, it’s crucial to find short-cuts – generally they are denoted by billboards and ‘No Entry’ signs.
Graphically, as you would expect from Criterion, the erstwhile purveyors of RenderWare, Burnout: Paradise looks pretty amazing, although it was clear that a lot of work will be needed on the game before it’s ready to ship – away from the centre of the city, and moving into hills, there were plenty of untextured areas in evidence. Criterion is adamant the game will be ready for Christmas, though.
Anticipating that this year’s “downsized” E3 will be a complete washout attended almost exclusively by American journalists, the mighty Electronic Arts, characteristically, decided to take matters into its own hands and put on its own showcase of games due for 2007 release. Called EA3 (in previous years, the corresponding fixture has been known, dodgily, as Hot Summer Nights) and taking place at EA’s development building in Marina Del Rey, LA, rather than its HQ at Redwood Shores just up from San Francisco, it afforded a great chance to get a good look at EA’s big guns for the year.
Here's the first part of our top-picks..
Brilliant as the Burnout games have been over the years, they’ve now been around so long that they’ve started to embody EA’s endless-sequels approach. Happily, that’s not an accusation that you’ll be able to level at Burnout: Paradise, the first next-gen version of the game. It’s radically different from its predecessors.
Gone are the chevrons, which previously guided you around specific tracks. Instead, Burnout: Paradise is a free-roaming game in which races are point-to-point and, using your radar and knowledge of the layout of the huge city in which it is set (which has elements of both Tokyo and San Francisco), you must work out how to get to the finish line first. I tried such a race, got hopelessly lost and, despite being seriously fast all the way through, came in last… which was rather annoying.
To participate in races, eliminators and so on, you simply pull up at one of the many traffic lights in the city and press right and left bumpers simultaneously. At first, many of the traffic light challenges are locked but, as you progress, they become available. Burnout: Paradise also has a “drop-in” online mode, and you can set up games against your mates if you don’t feel ready to take on the rest of the world. One clever mode involves following a specific road: the game will time you against the best time among your designated mates for that road.
There seemed to be a bit of confusion regarding whether Burnout: Paradise will have traffic-checking; Criterion took that out, but reputedly is now thinking of putting it back in. And when you crash, your car will only respawn if you rip one of the wheels off, so you can crash heavily, yet still drive off in something that looks like it was salvaged from the crusher. You’ll be able to scan your face into the game, and rivals will be able to see it when they pull alongside, which is neat. And, as ever in Burnout, it’s crucial to find short-cuts – generally they are denoted by billboards and ‘No Entry’ signs.
Graphically, as you would expect from Criterion, the erstwhile purveyors of RenderWare, Burnout: Paradise looks pretty amazing, although it was clear that a lot of work will be needed on the game before it’s ready to ship – away from the centre of the city, and moving into hills, there were plenty of untextured areas in evidence. Criterion is adamant the game will be ready for Christmas, though.
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