No, I won’t be talking about the upcoming game based on Dante’s Inferno… not yet anyway. Instead, I’m talking about Burnout Paradise. I’ve had the game for quite some time. I finished the original game and all its online challenges, and even did some ranked racing (I think I got as high as 150 on the ranks at one point), and then I stopped playing. Not because the game was boring, but that other games were new. I kept coming back to Paradise City though.
Recently, the guys over at Criterion have been putting out new cars for the old game, and I have to say that I discovered that the right new cars can make the game feel like new again.
Sure, its still doing the same old races and the same old challenges, but I get quite a kick out of doing them all as Marty McFly, Michael Knight, a Ghostbuster or a law dodging resident of Hazzard county. And the newest vehicles, the toy cars and bikes, make me giggle.
Much like the ongoing DLC for games like Rock Band, simple additions for small prices can totally revitalize a game. With Burnout, Rock Band, Guitar Hero, and even new DLC adopters like Fable II and Fallout 3, it looks like more and more companies are trying to lengthen the life of their products without having to put a new box on the shelf down at Best Buy. And I, for one, think this is a great thing… well, as long as they don’t start putting out “half games” they plan to complete with pay DLC later.