BurnoutAholics at Criterion Games!

On Saturday the 6th of October 2007 Xandu and I went to Criterion Games in Guildford to play Burnout Paradise for the weekend.

We drove up to Guildford in the morning full of excited anticipation! It took ages to find a parking spot, and then even longer to find Criterions offices!! But, eventually we made it and Hamish Young let us in and showed us around.  The first thing we saw at the top of the escalators was a Full Size Revenge Racer which had crashed through the wall.

Everybody in the office was playing Paradise, and we were set up on a big screen right at the end of the office, given PS3 controllers and we were off!

At first we played through from the start of the game, with the Hunter Cavalry, just like the demo. But we soon completed events and unlocked other cars out into the city. To get to use the other cars you have to take them down and they are delivered to the junk yard for you to use. I love that unlocking cars is now part of the gameplay and not just win an event and get a car, it's a lot of fun seeing a car zoom by and thinking I want that car, I'm gonna go get it!!

Later on we were taken to another desk (Danish guy.. what was his name? damn my memory! and sorry dude!) to try some of the later cars in the game.. the real fast cars.. and the game really opened up. These cars felt FAST!!!  

We then moved on to trying out the online game with Matt Webster and Steve Watt amongst others.. (again names elude me, sorry!) So we got to see Mugshots in action, and got to try out the online challenges and around the city race.

We were then taken out to dinner before going back to our hotel. I dreamt about Paradise, we had seen so much during the day it was hard to take it all in!

On Sunday we went back for more! We played Paradise all morning trying out Stunt Runs and Showtime and in the afternoon we were invited to sit in on the Crash FM podcast.

We left about 7pm as we had a long drive home ahead of us, and back to work and reality on Monday morning.

Thanks again to Alex and the Burnout Team for making us feel so welcome and letting us play Paradise early. It was an experience I will never forget.