Feel free to skip the intro, it's kind of irrelevant:
Date: Some day... in some summer month... now that I think about it doesn't really matter, all you need to know is that this story is back to 2006.
I woke up "that" day (lol) and noticed that Fifa 2005 (yeh I played it for nearly 2 years) and DBZ: Budokai 3 could no longer satisfy my gaming needs. I was a casual gamer, didn't care if reviewers gave a low score to game that I liked (yeh Edge I'm talking about you), or console wars ( why should I care if Xbox had a better hardware than the PS2?), or anything like that. All I cared on reviews was the gameplay/pictures, and sometimes the score just so I'd know I wouldn't buy a flop. Didn't have much money at that time, I was saving it for the PSP (god knows how much I regret of buying it dayone) so I had to get a cheap game. Just wanted something to kill the time for a few weeks. I was thinking in Fifa 06, depending on the price, or MGS3 (should have bought it last gen D:). When I arrived to the store, MGS3 was sold out and Subsistance was way to expensive, but next to it, a game got my attention - Burnout 3: Takedown. The cover looked really cool, so I just grabbed it and checked how the graphs looked like... it was the "awesomeness", and keep in mind that it was a PS2 game.. in 2006 (although it was released a year or two before). And the best thing was that it only costed 20€. So instead of buying another Fifa game (safe bet), I decided to pay 20€ for a random game - even if it was bad, I wouldn't lose much money...
To the ones who skipped the intro, read now. For the ones who didn't, carry on :p
When I played it for the first, it blew me away. The Graphs were beautiful, the Sound, oh lord, the Punk Rock and ocasionally Metal music that got you fired up to pwn eveything and everyone around you totally fitted on the game, the modes, hurray for the diversity! Race, Crash, Road Rage, Time Attack... the OFFLINE MULTYPLAYER, THE FUN!! ARGHH THE EPICNESS!! (Brb gotta go take my pillz...)
... Ok, as I was saying, I think it's pretty obvious that I fell in love for Burnout. To be honest, all other racing games I played before B3:Takedown were MSR, Mario Kart, Colin Mcrae 4 and.. some random PSone game, forgot the name but it was ocasionally fun. I was kind of unaware of the existance of Gran Turismo.. No idea how, perhaps Sony did a bad job advertising it on Portugal... nahh, it was just my fault lol NFS: Most Wanted for the PSP was pretty good as well.
But anyway, have you ever heard the expression: "You'll compare your first gf to all others"? Might seem a bit dumb, but it fits perfectly on what I'm trying to say. (Unfortunatelly) I compare Burnout 3 to pretty much all Racing Games. Yeh I know I shouldn't do it, but in my mind, the perfect racing game must: be fun to play, not be too casual or too hardcore (I want a challenge... but a challenge I can beat =P), have an OFFLINE multyplayer, many tracks/cars, good IA, great soundtrack (on the PS3 you can't hear your own music while you play), be Arcade (I'll explain this better), last for months and months.
This thread is getting a bit long, so I'll just say Revenge was awesome, didn't disappoint me at all. Burnout Legends for the PSP was very fun as well so I was pretty excited about Burnout Paradise. Couldn't wait for it, it's one of those games you know it simply can't flop (like God of War or Gears). Well, that didn't come out how it should... you THINK you know it simply can't flop, and then you get pissed off. Oh ok that's better.
Burnout Paradise made me cry. Not tears of happiness/epicness (a.k.a. MGS tears), but tears of rage and disappointment. Yeh, that kind of tears. The same tears I got when I read S. Darko's review, I'll never watch that film, I like D. Darko too much lol (I've seen enough of it to know it's awful)
Open world - sure it's good for RPGs and stuff like that, but for me, it simply doesn't work for racing games- the demo was awful, I tried to like the game but I simply couldn't, only being able to race with the car you're using, the new crash mode is ridiculous, and I'm not against DLC's, but Sony and MS probably had to upgrade the PSN/Live storage just because of Burnout Paradise. And the main reason why I didn't buy it: No Offline Multyplayer. I could forgive all the other flaws if I was able to play it with other people, but nop, not even that. So basicly, they toke everything I loved on Burnout's games.
So in conclusion, I miss Burnout Takedown/Burnout Revenge! The game that you unlocked new tracks/cars by achieving a certain number of medals or winning certain events, the game it was fun to play with friends OFFLINE, the game which you never removed your finger of the R1 button (ruined two controllers cause of that lol), the game with a huge diversity of tracks and modes... Damn it, Burnout was brilliant. Am I the only one missing a game like that and hopping for Blur to replace that hole in my heart? Or is everyone happy with Criterion's Burnout Paradise? Or do you simply don't care and all you play is PGR/Forza/GT5:P/Dirt?
Sorry for the long thread/not being about PS3's Move lol
