With the future arrival of Burnout Paradise on the Nintendo Switch, we review its keys and the inheritance it left in the following Criterion Games projects.
Guns N 'Roses already said it: "Take me down to the paradise city." At the height of its popularity, Criterion Games gave its star saga a 180-degree turn in 2008. From takedowns to the edge of the fearbreaker we move to embrace the open world. Paradise City was the playground to connect with our friends and enjoy the same street races as always.
Seems like yesterday. With 12 years behind him and a remastering in between, the sky of this motor festival has one last corner to skid. The port for Nintendo Switch seems to point to the month of June, so at FreeGameTips we bring you the keys to Criterion Games' flagship work and what the studio has in store for it.
"Evolve or die"
That was the team's maxim. As they describe on their own website, with Paradise they knew that "we had to change everything." Burnout 3: Takedown and Burnout: Revenge were far away. The formula was still working, but not so much the style of play. Therefore, their first development based on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 took into account the opportunities offered by the new hardware.
"The closed tracks gave way to an extensive free city, and we synchronized you in real time with your friends to lose yourself in a circle of challenges that rewarded you for driving like a lunatic," they explain. With Xbox Live and PlayStation Network already established, Burnout Paradise online features were the main tune of their community. Do you remember the meeting of eight players on the baseball field? It is already part of the collective memory.
The ways of interacting with an open world from the perspective of a driving game were concise. Unlocking and completing tests at each traffic light improved our driving license, the high point of which came when we presented our next nemesis. As almost a reinterpretation of Most Wanted 2005, as we progressed we had to take down the next relevant driver on the streets of Paradise City. Being unique, their vehicles were 'a source of income' which provided us with the testing below.
If the cars weren't enough, the team took the step to introduce four motorcycles. The two wheels were a more limited version of the base experience, albeit just as wild at the controls. Criterion Games has always been committed to risk from the beginning, to try new horizons. They did it in the shooter with Black. Nothing stopped them so that the string of post-launch content expanded their possibilities. Toy cars, a new map full of pranks called Big Surf Island, police against thieves with alternative versions of 33 different car models … Burnout Paradise became a total experience package.
The remastered versions, including the Nintendo Switch, feature the full spectrum of downloadable content. The technical improvement allows to enjoy it in console at 60 images per second.
I go through Need for Speed and the Burnout label
Despite the success of the public with him, Criterion Games would focus its efforts on the Need for Speed franchise. Before Ghost Games took over, the saga passed through his hands during two installments as different as they were recognizable.
Because in the absence of Burnout, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit smelled of burnt tire as it passed the tight curves of classic installments. Whether as a police officer or a street driver, the chases were perfectly measured. The soul of always with a new layer of depth by using the advantages. It would not work as much in Rivals, but in the middle of 2010 their confrontations were the best of the saga in the past decade.
His last great solo work would be focused on a soft reboot of the Most Wanted brand. Perhaps one of the most famous Need for Speed of the PlayStation 2 stage (along with Underground 2), would return in 2012 for all platforms, including an excellent port for Vita.
Most Wanted would take an open world model similar to that seen in Paradise. Perhaps in this sense the exploration was on a secondary plane, as a way to access only the rest of the races and the secret cars. Here the important thing was to paint the Speedwall in purple, beat your friends and climb positions on the most wanted scoreboard.
Why were your games so successful? Mainly because they offered a slick arcade ride to the extreme. They were in the perfect balance between shifting the weight of the vehicle with the precision of quick movements. In this particular genre, the gameplay is everything, and that's something that Ghost Games did not manage to find.
The future: back to the arena
After having served as a support studio for other Electronic Arts projects, such as the recent Star Wars: Battlefront 2, the American giant confirmed that the license would return to him. "With a long history and passion for racing games as well as the vision we want to create, Criterion will take Need for Speed to the next generation," it published in an official statement.
Therefore, the generation about to start will see the return of a mythical genre after more than eight years of drought. Ghost Games, on the other hand, will become EA Gothenburg to refocus as a support studio. The future of the saga is yet to come.
