Blaze Consumption: Utopia
One of the first titles of 2008 that I'm looking forward to, and not just because it comes out this week, is Burnout Paradise. First off, it's got gorgeously clean box art, which is the first in seven Burnout titles to not feature a crash or wrecked automobile on the cover, even though the initial one did. Now, if you want a taste of what to expect, there's a demo up on Xbox Live Marketplace, or even the Playstation Network, if you sway that way. Personally, I'm a big Burnout fan, and the only ones I haven't played are Legends (PSP/DS) and Dominator (PS2/PSP). The rest I completed 100%, and even got some top lap times on Burnout Revenge for the Original Xbox. I'm really looking forward to see how the open world concept meshes with the franchise.
Burnout Revenge for the 360 had a pretty good list, featuring a total of 36 Achievements to unlock, and as an added bonus each one was full of exclamation points! That being said, it was brought up (comment #60) as being a bad list in the comments of my first article. Sure, there was a dreaded "leaderboard" Achievement, but that was reset weekly, so getting top 20 wasn't too difficult if you're timing was right and your friends voted on your totally awesome crash on White Mountain North. Let's take a look at Paradise's list of 50 Achievements and see what you're getting yourself into, outside of listening to Atomika on Crash FM.
If I were to compare this to anything, I'd say this list is a cross between Crackdown, and Need for Speed Carbon. It's got some of the open world and unique playstyle Achievements of Crackdown, but is still...plagued...by some staple EA Achievements that weren't a problem with Revenge. There's your standard introductory Achievements: Win your first race, fix your first wreck, get your D Driver's License, with most of them worth 10 Gamescore a piece.
Like Crackdown there are two sets of collectibles you can find about Paradise City: Burnout Billboards and shortcut-hiding Smashes, which are like Agility Orbs and Hidden Orbs, respectively. Burnout Billboards are well, billboards, with the, uh, Burnout logo on them that you need to fly through during a jump. Like the Agility Orbs from Crackdown, the early ones are rather easy low hanging fruit for you to hit, but as you progress you'll find that they require a little more creativity to leave a car-shaped silhouette smack dab in the middle of them. Also, the billboards you have broken through remain in that state, you you always know which ones require a facelift. The Smashes are yellow fences that lead into shortcuts, so they have a double purpose of helping you learn the best route, while rewarding you for exploring. There are also progression Achievements for completing milestones in some of the long term goals, like increasing you Drivers License level, which are progressively worth more Gamerscore, capping off at 70G for "Elite."
The online Achievements are where things get a little shaky. It starts off alright, win ten races, get 500 takedowns cumulatively online or offline, make 50 rivals. All good stuff, but then it breaks down from there, and you start seeing the EA style Achievements that look strangely familar. There's a viral Achievement which is alright, but kind of seems like EA is throwing them in as an afterthought as of late. Then there is the ever elusive "Paid and Displayed" where you must go to the official website "to find out more."
Following that are Achievements for sending snapshots to your rivals. Whenever you get taken down, if you have an Xbox Live Vision camera, it will immediately take a picture of your genitalia reaction and sends it to the bastard the T-boned you. I admit that it's a cool feature, photography of phalli notwithstanding. The problem is what happens if you don't have the proprietary webcam? Do still get the Achievements for getting taken down? Are they seriously making it so you have to have a specific peripheral to unlock it? That's like having to win a certain amount of races while using the Wireless Racing Wheel. It's kind of the opposite of beating Guitar Hero III on Hard or Expert with a standard controller, but you get the idea. Next up is a few Achievements for completing up to 250 online Challenges. The Challenges were fun in the demo, and varied depending how many people you had with you in the Freeburn. "Block Party" suggests that there's a checklist of Challenges, as you unlock it after completing two whole sections of it. Here's the kicker though: "(excluding PDLC)". So, I guess that confirms that there will eventually be Paid (and displayed?) Downloadable Content with new Challenges, but it will probably come with it's own Achievements, if at all.
The list is topped off with a few completion Achievements, basically requiring to do, see, and explore everything, which is fine. There isn't much disparity with point distribution, as the vast majority of the Achievements are worth 20-25 Gamerscore, with a few worth less or more depending on their difficulty. Sprinkled throughout are a couple of extracurricular ones like, complete a few events without getting taken down or reach certain point values in a Stunt Run combo. There even is an exclamation point given for getting Takedown Rampage, but that doesn't compare to the 100 exclamation points in the Achievement list for Revenge. All and all it's a pretty good list, and should really add to the game, despite the missteps in the online space.
What do you think? Is this list better than Burnout Revenge? Will the Achievements make or break Burnout's foray into the sandbox racer subgenre? Or does it even matter so long things crash and look purdy?