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Wednesday 5 March, 2008
GameLog Entry #1
SUMMARY
Burnout Paradise is a game where you drive around an imaginary city called Paradise City and compete in various competitions while unlocking new cars. The object of the game is to get the best drivers license, meaning that you need to beat every competition and unlock every car.
GAMEPLAY
During the first hour of my gameplay experience, I was trying to familiarize myself with Paradise City. I chose the cop car, Citizen, in a white finish, which ended up being a fairly indestructible vehicle, except for when it came to head on collisions or the occasional "wall that popped out of nowhere." I liked the fact that there were no pedestrians or drivers within the game, which took away from the realistic aspect of the game, but made for simpler gameplay.
As I continued to roam throughout the city, I started noticing hidden jumps on the sides of the streets and one's that propelled you onto the tops of bridges. You have to use your turbo boost when trying to get a long distance, which in my case usually ended with "WRECKED." I really enjoyed the realistic graphics and slow motion crash scenes, which adds to the appeal of the game.
GAMELOG ENTRY #2
GAMEPLAY
During the second hour of my gameplay, I realized that Burnout is a game based on how good you can drive badly. The more dangerously you drive by barreling into oncoming traffic, narrowly missing crashes, and riding on two wheels, the more rapidly your turbo bar goes up. When the turbo bar goes up, it makes it easier to crash which starts to get really frustrating and irritating after a while because it adds a 5 second penalty.
After I familiarized myself with the city, it became mundane to simply just drive around. A friend of mine showed me a mode that's called Showtime, which is when you rack up money by crashing into cars. But instead of actually driving, your car jumps and tumbles destroying every vehicle in its path. If you hit a bus, it multiplies your score by one, and accumulates there on forth. I really enjoyed this mode because it allows you to set high scores on certain streets, which is beneficial when you're playing X-BOX Live.
DESIGN
Burnout is particularly exciting because the races take place on regular streets and freeways with hundreds of ordinary cars minding their own business and obeying the traffic laws, adding a very fun dose of realism to the game. Burnout has realistic characteristics, but some of these characteristics go beyond game world rules. It’s a real world game, but goes above real world capabilities in the fact that you can knock down street signs and light-poles without it hindering your speed.
I think the design elements within this game are very good and realistic, but the only thing I would change would be to add more cities to explore and race in. I really liked the fact that the car is so easy to steer, unlike many other racing games. The controller was very sensitive to movement, which made it easier to speed through traffic and other obstacles in my way. I also really appreciated how fast my car could actually go. In most racing games my finger usually gets sore from pressing the gas button so hard, thinking the harder I push it, the faster i'll go. But in Burnout, all I had to do was push the gas and turbo at the same time and it would actually give me a feeling of vertigo.
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