Criterion responds to Burnout Paradise demo criticism

The latest update at Criterion Games‘ website wishes everyone a merry Christmas, and addresses the flak Burnout Paradise (Microsoft Xbox 360, Sony PlayStation 3) has been receiving since its demo went live. Find out what Alex Ward and the Burnout team wants to tell naysayers by checking out the full article.

Electronic Arts‘ Burnout Paradise (Microsoft Xbox 360, Sony PlayStation 3) demo is out, and so are the rants of fans of the popular car crashing series’ latest installment who didn’t enjoy what they briefly experienced. What does developer Criterion Games have to say to those complaining? Stop sending letters with bad spelling, because you haven’t played the actual game.

Creative Director Alex Ward and the Burnout Team replied to all naysayers who expressed their discontent with Burnout Paradise, saying “we think we made THE best demo released all year – you don’t see many other games getting an online enabled demo up on both systems before launch.”

The development team also pointed out some misconceptions, such as feedback actually helping in making the game better. “The demo was made AFTER work on Paradise was completed, so no, we won’t be using internet ‘feedback’ to tune the game,” Ward clarified.

Ward also said it makes him smile when people argue about which Burnout title is the best, because Criterion is working hard to ensure that the latest is better and an evolution from what came before it. After dubbing Burnout Paradise as “a WAY WAY better” game than Burnout 2 and 3, he commented:

As to those who can proclaim from a taste of the demo that Burnout 2 was the best game (always nice to see all those Gamecube owners on the internet who haven’t played the game since B2! ) or that B3 is the better game – again, I can only smile.

Criterion stressed out that the retry feature is simply not necessary in Paradise. Gamers get annoyed since there’s no way to restart a race after messing up other than manually driving to the starting line, but Ward explained how all is good because loading times were eliminated in return.

Here’s another interesting tidbit that other video game developers should take note of:

In fact, we hate loading with a passion now. Games like Burnout Paradise and Uncharted Drake’s Fortune (and Haze I think and GTA) keep you IN THE GAME rather than watching what is usually a very dull screen. (At least we used to write special tips for our load screens when we did them, most people simply do nothing….)

For the full post, head over to Criterion Games’ official website via link below.

Buy: [ Burnout Paradise (PS3) ]
Buy: [ Burnout Paradise (Xbox 360) ]