35 replies to this topic

[onlysublime]

if you're going to pickup up a Burnout title, Burnout Revenge is superior to Burnout Paradise. I didn't have the time to memorize the entire city/island in Burnout Paradise. Sure, the idea of an open world racing game sounds great if you have the time to memorize the city. Plus, the crashing in BP has been way toned down and the game doesn't feel much like Burnout.

[Video]

Well, my card expired so same difference bassically

[Zeptari1]

onlysublime, on Sat Dec 3, 2011 12:39 PM, said:

if you're going to pickup up a Burnout title, Burnout Paradise is superior to Burnout Revenge.

Fixed

[moycon]

I have to agree, at first glance Burnout Paradise seems like it is too far removed from the franchise and might be passed up but a person would be making a big mistake. Not unlike a sandbox game, there is just so much to do and places to explore in Paradise City you can literaly just drive around for hours without even taking up any challenges. Busting up billboards, performing super jumps, setting high speed records on individual roads that everyone on your friends list can see if they also play this game is just a blast. I did like the Burnout Revenge soundtrack better though. Thank the maker for custom soundtracks this gen!!

[onlysublime]

moycon, on Mon Dec 5, 2011 7:11 PM, said:

I have to agree, at first glance Burnout Paradise seems like it is too far removed from the franchise and might be passed up but a person would be making a big mistake. Not unlike a sandbox game, there is just so much to do and places to explore in Paradise City you can literaly just drive around for hours without even taking up any challenges. Busting up billboards, performing super jumps, setting high speed records on individual roads that everyone on your friends list can see if they also play this game is just a blast. I did like the Burnout Revenge soundtrack better though. Thank the maker for custom soundtracks this gen!!

having to memorize a city made the racing feel dumb. Burnout racing should be about how a person handles a power slide better than his competitors. when to apply gas. when to brake. when to use nitro. how to crash opponents. how to approach a turn. not about what street to take. you shouldn't win because you know the streets better than someone else. that's cheap. Burnout is not a sandbox game. it's about drifting, crashing, and speed. You want to just drive around and enjoy the scenery? play Test Drive Unlimited. play Grand Theft Auto. play Crackdown. play Saints Row.

when they design a game, there are two types of players. players who have the agility/dexterity and players who are prepared. usually there's a good balance where people can make up for lack of dexterity by increasing their preparedness (knowledge of maps, weapons, weak points, etc.). In the end, the players that are well-prepared and with great dexterity win out which is the way it should be. so I take my brother who is an awesome gamer and he can know nothing about a game and you drop a game in front of him and he begins to dominate within a couple of hours. sure, there are campers at various points in a game like MW3 or BF3 who know the maps and are thus well prepared, but he can deal with them. but with BP, the balance shifts far too much toward the prepared player and not the people who handle the cars the best. he'd be racing like 10 seconds ahead of me but he makes a wrong turn and I can end up winning because I know the streets better? that just seems cheap.

there's something to be said for making the game so that it rewards the people who play BP to death. I can see how appealing that is to people who like to master a single game. master of 1 game is better than jack of all trades, right? sure, you can have your little niche title that you can dominate against your niche population that doesn't have the time to memorize the city like you did. but if you were truly a great racer, you'd want to be able to race against everyone who hasn't memorized the city. with Burnout Revenge, you know you won because you handled the car better and you crashed them better.

You take any other racer like Forza Motorsport, Gran Turismo, Dirt, Blur, Need for Speed, Outrun, Ridge Racer, etc. and you know that if some guy beat you, he just handled the car and the course better than you. You take a single turn at the wrong angle and speed and you've lost the race there. But with BP, you can lose because you took the wrong pathway.

[Zeptari1]

I never had to memorize the game... i just played it.
There's alot of co-op challenges to be had in the game also. 500 of them!
This game is more fun to play online with people you know.

Note to moycon: if you like burnout:paradise you might like driver:san fran.
great arcade type open world racer. funny story. and proper cop chases.
no power-up features like need for speed. just fun e-braking, power sliding
escapes. freaking fun! ohhh and the onlines pretty good.

-rick

Edited by Zeptari1, Mon Dec 5, 2011 8:50 PM.

[Cafeman]

I never gave much attention to our copy of Burnout Paradise, but Caf Jr played all of it and liked it a lot. But I was playing on a 27" SD tv, and now I have a flat-screen hooked up (42") and I'm finding that now that I can SEE stuff so well in 1080P, its like playing the Xbox360 games for the first time. So I will be playing BP all thru this month.

A quick side-question that others might be interested in too - I used to use the Component cable which has optical cable port built into it. Now I find that using HDMI, there physically is not enough room to also plug in the Component/optical cable to the X360. I run the sound HDMI to my HDTV , then optical out to the sound system - but the HDTV must be sending a stereo signal because I only get the Dolby PLII options now, which isn't quite as nice as true optical Dolby D. Is there solution so I can have the best of both worlds?

[onlysublime]

Cafeman, on Tue Dec 6, 2011 12:22 PM, said:

I never gave much attention to our copy of Burnout Paradise, but Caf Jr played all of it and liked it a lot. But I was playing on a 27" SD tv, and now I have a flat-screen hooked up (42") and I'm finding that now that I can SEE stuff so well in 1080P, its like playing the Xbox360 games for the first time. So I will be playing BP all thru this month.

A quick side-question that others might be interested in too - I used to use the Component cable which has optical cable port built into it. Now I find that using HDMI, there physically is not enough room to also plug in the Component/optical cable to the X360. I run the sound HDMI to my HDTV , then optical out to the sound system - but the HDTV must be sending a stereo signal because I only get the Dolby PLII options now, which isn't quite as nice as true optical Dolby D. Is there solution so I can have the best of both worlds?

if you want surround sound, you can't send the HDMI to the TV and then optical from the TV to the receiver. the only time an HDTV will output surround sound to a receiver via optical is with ATSC broadcasts (in other words, your OTA, cable, satellite, etc). otherwise, the optical cable will only send stereo from the TV when dealing with other devices.

a lot of this depends on the features of your TV and of your receiver. some TVs (but rarely) will send surround sound from third party devices via optical from a TV to a receiver.

if you want surround sound from your HDMI, you have to run your HDMI to your receiver first. and then run HDMI from the receiver to the TV. in fact, in the modern age, the receiver is the center of your entertainment system and the TV is merely an output.

if you want surround sound via optical, you have to hook the optical directly from the 360 to your receiver.

you have 3 options:
1) remove the casing of your component cable so you can plug both the component and HDMI cables together
2) buy an audio adapter at some place like monoprice


3) get a new 360S which has a built-in optical port

[FujiSkunk]

While I still think Burnout 3 was the best of the series, I liked Burnout Paradise a lot more than Burnout Revenge. I don't think the openness of the game took away from the series at all. It was still Burnout, but now with a little bit more strategy, as you got to decide which way was best while still ramming your opponents off the road.

By the way, the XBox version of Burnout 3 will work on the 360, so you can have the best of all worlds.

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit is also highly recommended. It was made by the makers of the Burnout series, and it's pretty much a remake of Burnout 3 with cops added. Those who don't like the openness of Burnout Paradise will be happy to know all the events follow a set path, while those who do like the openness of Burnout Paradise can go exploring Seacrest County when they don't feel like racing or facing off with the cops.

To the OP, do you like playing music at all? If so, look into Rock Band 3 and Rocksmith. Rock Band 3 took the ideas originally introduced in Guitar Hero and the first Rock Band and gave them a "pro" spin. Now you can play "real" drums, "real" keys and "real" guitar in the game, or you can stick to the original "5-lane" game-play if that's what you like more. I put "real" in quotes because there are some limitations to each instrument that prevents them from truly capturing the real thing (drumming requires only one pedal though there is support for two, keyboard is only two octaves and meant to be played with one hand, guitar doesn't require certain tricks like string bends or hammering), but the game can definitely put you on the path to learning a real instrument if you want it to. Or it can just be loads of fun to play along to your favorite songs. With a catalog of over 3,000 to choose from, you're bound to find at least one or two you love.

Where Rock Band 3 requires it's own branded guitar instruments to play, Rocksmith's hook is that you can play it with just about any guitar, or at least any guitar that can connect to an amp with a standard audio cable. Also, where RB3 has you imitating the part while playing the original audio, Rocksmith literally has you playing the part, taking the sound from your guitar, feeding it through effects similar to what the original artists used, and then playing it back through your TV along with the rest of the song. Rocksmith is less of a game than RB3 and not really much of a social experience, so it's not one for family game nights or parties, but apparently if you're serious about learning guitar but don't yet want to spring for music lessons, Rocksmith is definitely worth considering.

Edited by FujiSkunk, Tue Dec 6, 2011 5:42 PM.

[Shannon]

Viva Pinata is a fun game.. Make sure you get the most recent one. It is MUCH better than the original and addresses alot of issues I had with the first one.
Castle Crashers is a fun "live" game and absolutely top notch in every aspect. Oh and did I say it was funny?
Eternal Sonata (you could probably pick this up cheap!)
Lego series .. take your pick (star wars, harry potter, pirates, batman)
Plants vs Zombies - I have not played this myself but I watched my son playing and it looked like good fun.
Pacman Championship edition (totally addicting as the original)

[Tickled_Pink]

Looks like we have similar likes and dislikes. The COD franchise should die already but won't. However, I am looking forward to Rainbow Six Patriots, although there's apparently still a way to go until it's released. So long as they stick to the same engine (or similar) that they used in Vegas 2 .. Head and shoulders above the engine in COD.

Two games from xbla I'd recommend is Pac-Man CE and Outrun. Had a lot of fun with them, even though I suck at both. Personally, I don't like the latest Pac-Man game or the direct port of the original.