The Burnout Community in Paradise City - An Essay by ZombieTron

Can the Burnout community live in Paradise City?

I want to make it very clear that I think Burnout Paradise is a fantastic video game. The graphics are astounding, it is a beautifully realised open world. The sound as always is pure VROOM! The freedom given to play how you want, when you want, with non-linear progression makes the offline game a varied challenging experience of immense exploration.

But... I do have doubts that Paradise City has a home for the Burnout Community.

My doubts come with the online game.

I have not played online much, as I really want to finish the offline game first and get all the cars in my Junk Yard before I tackle ranked races, which I have to admit is harder than I thought it would be.

I have played online with friends and gone through quite a lot of the challenges, and I have played for both time and Showtime Road Rules whilst being in an online Freeburn. I have raced with friends, doing both set races and ones which my friends have created. And there is something different about online Paradise which doesn't sit well, let me explain;

The first Xbox Live game I got into was Burnout 3. Why? Because of the accessibility, 150 takedowns and you get a Super Assassin (in my opinion the only car you need). Getting online is a few short button presses away from putting the disc in the tray (not that the disc ever left the tray). Optimatch meant I could get a list of the games available and choose which room to join. If the races didn't start straight away it was very quick to jump to a different room or host your own. With a maximum of 6 players for races and road rages and with all the players doing the same thing at the same time the sense of community was real. Everybody was having the same experience, it was a real shared experience and this is what (so far at least) is lacking in Paradise.

The times when I have raced online in Paradise City the number of DNF's has always been greater than those to get to the finish line.

When competing in online challenges, the room often has to wait for one or two stragglers to complete the challenge (yeah, I know most of the time you have to wait for me!)

Freeburning online means we are scattered throughout the city, setting Todays Best or Road Rules, or looking for those last few Billboards, but it is not a shared experience.

I feel that Paradise causes a little bit too much frustration for it to be an excellent online game. If you don't finish the first couple of races in a 5 round set, you will probably quit out of the room. If you are struggling with a challenge and everyone is getting impatient, you will probably quit out of the room.  So, where is the opportunity for community and shared experiences?

I always felt Burnout games had the best learning curve, but with Paradise I think the bar has been set too high. The penalty for failure is too great. The 20 seconds til you DNF too quick!

Perhaps given enough time we will all reach an equivalent skill level and be able to dick around with the challenges without waiting for one player. Or to race together without half of us going the wrong way. But will enough of us be playing Paradise for that day of enlightenment to come?

Xandu was looking to go online and join some ranked race rooms the other day and there were only 2 games available, I know there are many more people playing in full rooms or set to invite or friends/recent only, but it seemed like an indication that Paradise Online isn't what Burnout 3 or Revenge were.

I miss the days of plentiful lobbies, talkative racers, shared experiences and instant action.

I hope Paradise Online does have more to offer, and once I do find My Car (I still have 20 to unlock and try out!) I will be exploring Paradise City online more for myself and I hope my doubts turn out to be unfounded.