[darkpuppet]

tippmann,Dec 14 2007, 09:28 PM Wrote:can you play online with the demo??
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yes, you can play online with the demo.

I have to be honest... I actually enjoy playing Burnout 3:Takedown more...

How EA Ruined Burnout: Paradise City
1 ) they made it a sandbox game. They replaced 5 button clicks and 15 seconds to enter a race with 3 minutes of driving and careful placement inside an intersection with your gas and brake held to start a race. The 'retry race' has been replaced with another 3 minutes of driving back to the starting line. Burnout fans just want to race, why can't we just race?

2 ) Added 'realism'-- EA missed the point of burnout here. They made the colour scheme drab, making turns hard to pinpoint, and replaced the easy visual cues with an open map, and street signs that beep at you. To successfully win a race, you need a co-driver to tell you where to turn.... or a hell of a lot of time to just drive the course until you've memorized all the turns.

They took highspeed arcade action and made it an exercise in direction taking and tedious repetition.

3 ) They added 'even more realism' -- Missing the point further, they beefed up their physics engine. No more sliding between cars parked at a light, or lightly deflecting off a concrete barrier -- now, if there's not the perfect amount of space for your car, you will hit them, stick to them and likely crash. Where's the fun of taking chances if the physics are going to be so strict? at the speeds you're driving at, nobody can drive that perfectly, so it once again becomes an exercise in frustration and tedium.

EA has followed the trend to make games more realistic, more open, and more 'next gen' at the expense of making it fun. Something's terribly wrong when I have more fun in 5 minutes with the old PS2 Burnout than I did in 45 minutes of wrangling of the demo.

I'm so dejected right now! I loved the burnout series since it's inception, and now I'm losing it to hardcore gaming... this blows!