The Nerd's Soup

In recent days I’ve been exploring the expanse of track and artificial light known as Paradise City. It’s a curious town.  Vehicular manslaughter is rampant and uncontrolled (followed often by vehicular suicide).  Small ramps have been set off lazily to the side of the road as if in the hope that people won’t notice.  Flashing yelow gates and blue warning cones, devices intended to deter motorits, instead beckon like siren songs.  Overseeing the whole thing is a lone DJ, beseeching you to burn rubber so that you may join the ranks of skilled gamers you’ve never met.

I can’t really let myself go from Burnout Paradise like I can from the only other arcade racer I own, Need for Speed Carbon.  This fills me with satisfaction, but a little sadness too.  Burnout Paradise makes me happy when it dispenses with any kind of story; your only mission is to drive, and drive well.  It knows that the concept of cops in an arcade racer is just the littlest bit silly.  However, the city isn’t just unregulated, it’s your plaything.  It does away with any customization beyond your paint job; if your collection of cars isn’t good enough, there are means to get more.

I think he's going to make that target score.

See More Burnout Paradise Screenshot at IGN.com

Yet, I sometimes find myself asking why, which is never a safe thing to ask when it concerns a video game.  I’m never going to write a review on this game.  I have no hope of completing it.  Maybe I’ll keep upgrading my driver’s liscence to Elite status, a process which is clearly for its own sake and offers no more benefits than it did when I was down at Class D.  Aside from liscence-upgrading, there are several sets of collectibles to be… collected (gates and billboards to smash, jumps to make), but for what?  Achievement points?  Whoop-dee-do.  I think I’m one of the few Xbox 360 players who has become jaded with this Achievement scheme, this mindset of playing a game so that you can add to a score that no one really scrutinizes with any sort of malevolence.  Maybe I’ve been told that I suck at Halo 3 and Gears 2, maybe my gamertag elicits reactions of “gay,” but no one has treated me as subhuman because of my gamerscore (this is a relief; were I ever held in awe because of my gamerscore, I’d have honesty issues thanks to my oportunizing little brother.  Not all of my gamerscore is my own).  Smash through 400 yellow gates?  Maybe if they’re on my way.

And then, in its most infuriating move, I’m forced to download an update over a gig large so that I can play with Jon online.  For my trouble, I’m rewarded with incessant, uh, reminders that there is DLC availible.  There are crazy cool cars on my menu screen; I can’t use them.  “Big Surf Island” is featured on my map and in all the logos; I can’t go there.  It is the dangling of a carrot in front of my nose… except, the carrot is close enough to bite.  But when I bite it, it has the composition of metal, and I almost break my teeth.  I can pay the man behind me to dangle a real carrot, but now I’m too miffed to fall for his player-hating business model.

But I still play the game.  It’s fun.  It’s a game that focuses on fun… and speed, and big jumps, and crumpling cars like tin foil.  Criterion can win the little rounds.  But this is my game, not theirs.