Burnout Paradise Media Day Recap
Posted by Caleb Newby on 02.19.2008
Recently, EA was gracious enough to extend an invitation to 411mania to visit their headquarters in Redwood City, California to play the newest entry to the Burnout series, Burnout Paradise. This journalistic opportunity also carried the chance to win prizes for above average play. That is the good news. The bad news is I am 411’s representative. Here is my story…
PRELUDE
For those of you that are unaware, I am co-editor of our Games Zone along with the respected (HA!) Ramon Aranda. Last Monday, 411 Games writer Tommy Coloma received the word of a trip to EA studios and passed the word on to Ramon. Ramon put out the call to see who could make this last minute trip on Thursday, Feb 14th to California. After rampant complaining of the short notice by some, and the “I can’t leave my girlfriend on Valentines Day!” cries by others, two candidates emerged: Myself and one Greg Bruno. Needless to say, Bruno quickly fell to the “can’t leave my girlfriend” bug after looking for creative ways around it. Good for me, bad for 411… because as we learned, I am highly inferior at Burnout than Greg. At least I get to leave the Minnesota cold.
In the days leading up to departure, I’ve tried honing my racing skills with the Burnout Paradise demo on Xbox Live. I’d played the previous Burnout titles some, but hadn’t had a chance to check out the newly released demo (until now) or retail copy. Two things have become quickly apparent to me. The graphics are gorgeous, particularly the slow motion crashes… and I am unable to do much else right other than crash repeatedly. I can already feel the sting of the mocking laughs as other game journalists, EA PR reps, and Burnout developers chide me while poking at my body with sticks.
THE DAY or “EA Sure Knows How To Host An Event”
The Burnout Paradise Media day started off in the hotel lobby were all of us silly game journalists were put up. Fancy place with everyone dressed up in suits for what I imagined were important business meetings. Fortunately it wasn’t difficult to find the other gamers amongst the crowd of suits… we were the tools in jeans and t-shirts sticking out like a goomba in Raccoon City. Allow me to illustrate:
This is what your typical hotel patron looked like
This is how we were dressed, minus Sweet Dee. There definitely was NO women among us. Games journalists are classy.
EA had brought in about twelve of us total for the Burnout media day. Now while the majority were cool cats, I might as well just get this out up front and say that a small handful of these guys take themselves far too seriously. I won’t name names (mostly because I can’t remember them) but a few of 'em needed lessons on social etiquette or a tight armbar cranked on… something like that. Fortunately the majority of were cool, including our host from EA, Mr. Andrew Green.
After rounding us all together we headed back to the hotel’s restaurant for breakfast with EA’s Burnout PR team and Burnout Paradise’s lead producer Craig Sullivan. Craig develops with Criterion Games in the UK and was definitely 100% English. For proof, he was the only man at the table to order tea for breakfast, happily fulfilling a cultural stereotype. With EA treating us to our meal I decided I had to try my first (and probably last ever) twenty dollar waffle. With breakfast out of the way, we were off to EA headquarters to experience some mad Burnout action and have the full on EA tour.
EA’s headquarters more resemble a college campus than a business complex. Beyond your offices and meeting rooms you’ll find a Starbucks, cafeteria, indoor and outdoor basketball courts, tennis courts, sand volleyball, and a maze to promote creativity (“We hope you enjoy the EA Labyrinth. There are no rules for using it – Like everything else, the walls are in your mind.” – EA Labyrinth Plaque) Inside you’ll find the box art of every game made under the EA banner on the walls and other gaming memorabilia strewn about on display in the halls. There seemed to be some sort of daycare going on as well outside with kids playing outside or EA has started their recruitment process targeting the really, really young. And honestly, who’s to say?
During our tour, we were surprised with a chance to play the much anticipated Army of Two developed by EA Montreal. For about thirty minutes we had a chance to get a sneak peak at what is looking to be a surefire hit with gamers everywhere, best news being that shipping is still scheduled for March 4th and will hit store shelves March 7th. (I’ll get more into Army of Two elsewhere on 411)
After a relaxing session of killing one another, we were ready to play Burnout Paradise. Set up for us were large widescreen, hi-def, flat screen televisions, Xbox 360s with headsets and cameras hooked up and Burnout ready to rock. Now let’s get this stated straight away. I was every bit as bad as I feared. I crashed. A lot. And nothing is worse than when you suck at a game when the lead producer is sitting in there watching along with the game’s PR team. If there was a silver lining, it was by the time we were through I had improved tenfold if not more effectively proving the problem was me and not the game.
We were told to prepare for the Burnout Millionaire’s Club challenge. The goal is to do a stunt run and pull off a score of one million points or more. Craig had special shirts made for those of us able to pull off the challenge. As if we needed more incentive, Craig was sure to emphasize repeatedly how there were no more than 20 or so of these shirts made and members to their club. Suffice it to say I failed. And other than one run of 500,000 I failed miserably.
Things were no better when we had our team challenges and I was forced to pull my own weight for the good of the group. Burnout’s multiplayer challenge mode is really fantastic giving a variety of goals across the map that each member must accomplish or contribute to before moving on. We had to all race across the map to a meeting point, each perform a barrel roll, drive into oncoming traffic for a set number of feet each, and crash into each other in a baseball field, just to name a few. It’s also worth noting how slick the multiplayer mode was. No lobby to navigate, just use the D-pad from in the game to hop between online/offline mode and invite friends. As for the competition, our team was thoroughly trounced with me being a definite handicap. Not quite as bad as I feared since by this point I had improved a fair bit. Several hours of Burnout had passed and we were sent back to the hotel to take a breather before dinner.
As I was relaxing before our meal to end the day, I realized that I legitimately was enjoying Burnout Paradise. As I said in my Need For Speed: Carbon review, I don’t consider myself a racing fan but I had enjoyed Carbon immensely. Ditto that for Burnout Paradise. I may have to modify my statement to “I only enjoy excellent racing titles.” The media event was a blast and I was able to play an absolutely fantastic "driving game" (as Craig prefers to call this edition of the Burnout franchise) that I may have otherwise let slide by due to a predisposition against the genre. Driving game/racing game fans have likely already purchased their copy, but if you typically don't explore the genre this would be a great place to start.
