First Impressions: Big Surf Island

So long awaited Big Surf Island was released this morning for Burnout Paradise. I grabbed it when I woke up this morning and managed to get some time in today to play quite a bit.

• The price seems a little much, however, when you realise how much is added and how much free stuff you have been given, it seems just right.
• I wish there were more achievements to the 360 version. However, since other games are hitting 1750 in the number of points in one game, this leads me to believe that even more updates are coming.
• I really enjoy the way the island looks. I keeps the city like feel while adding enough aesthetically different aspects to make it feel brand new and its own.
• I enjoy the new car you are given, feels very well rounded.
• I'm very glad that they added stuff for the bikes as well.
• Not enough new online freeburn challenges. They only added 10, considering how much is going on with this island, it would not have been hard to add more.
• I love how there are so many jumps. What makes it even better is the jumps are now more involved in the tracks. Now you get the incredible speed with a regular dose of huge air while racing.
• The idea to make the check points giant yellow pillars was a great idea, it means I can now see which direction I should be going and this helps me choose short cuts to take.
• The super jumps are even bigger than anything from the first game, this is great.
• There's no area to just play around in and do tricks as much as the first area. It does have the construction zone, but with the big bowl in it, it makes it harder to drive around in. I preferred the airfield and the quarry in the first region because it had more level space to the ground.
• Though the land mass is small, it feels more dense and packed in. It also it a lot taller I feel, you can drive up more buildings and there are many more ramps.
• The Island Tours are the best runs (and the new event) because they take you all around the island and make you drive through specific shortcuts and go off certain jumps. This helps you become more used to the island and know where these short cuts are for later. It's a great way to really make the player experience what they should.
• The size restraints no longer allows for the "here is your destination, go" kind of race; everything has check points now. This makes me sad since BP was known for it's open world racing. However, you can still take any route you wish to each checkpoint.
  

Overall I am quite enjoying it but I feel that there should have been more added to it. Even if it was just more freeburn challenges or more races and events that moved from the island to the main area would have been good. Playing it for a couple hours and only missing one achievements makes me think it isn't worth the 1000 MS points after all. Maybe I just need to 100% it then I will know for sure.

So excited

This is from Kotaku, here to be exact. Finally I can spend another 100 hours on this game.

Still can't decide!

This is definitely worth a check out. Especially if you can't decide which car(s) you should be buying. I still think the Delorean looks the best even with the increased price point. Not I only wish it was a stunt car.

I included the 88 Special's video in this just because we have NOT seen enough of it.



Update: Went with the 88 Special alone.

There are no roads where we're going

So Criterion announced their prices for the Legendary Cars for Burnout Paradise. These will be the second installment of paid DLC (after the Party Pack). The cars included in this pack are K.I.T.T. from Knight Rider, The Dukes of Hazzard's General Lee, the Ecto-1 from Ghostbusters and the Delorean from Back to the Future. Pretty good. The prices however are a bit much in my mind.

Three of them will be available for 160 MS points while the Delorean will run for 320. That's around $2 for the cheap and $4 for the last. I think this is a bit much for one car, granted the Delorean can hover. If you wish to buy them all as a pack, it will run you 600 points (~$8) which is a saving of about $2.

I am however, ok with them charging this but only because it's Burnout Paradise. Normally I would think these are too much but with all the free content coming out for this game, they need to start charging and soon. It was mind blowing how this game only run for $20 retail, they release several free updates -- significant updates -- and it's published by EA. Crazy!

I'm not sure yet if I will be downloading any of these, I think I might grab the Delorean due to my love for Back to the Future. Speaking of which, I need to find a copy of all those on DVD.

This also brings up this week's poll: Which of the BP (Burnout Paradise) legendary cars are you getting?

Should've gone to Wal-mart or something

So the clock tells me it is 3:42 - in the afternoon I should add - and I have been running a download on my 360 for over 6 hours now.

Let me back up though.

Block Busters is currently having this deal where all games have a minimum trade in value of $10. This is good. This is especially good if you look at my collection of 360 games. Since I tend to stop by an EB or BBV when I'm in the area, I can usually find some crap-ass game for $5. These are games I never play again, so it's safe to say I have a pretty varied assortment of games I could bring in. My first run doing this got me $60. I have another 4 or 5 games I'd still like to bring in. I really don't want to own Bulletwitch anymore. With some of the credit I got, I picked up Burnout Paradise.

With my new game, I had set aside quite a bit of time and the majority of my night to be playing this online. I stopped playing it before when I borrow it off a friend and returned it long before the now-released DLC was even heard about. So there are definitely new experiences to be had.

Starting up my game I was alerted that I couldn't play online with the new download. So I began the download last night. I haven't played much of the game since as I only really want to play online or try out the new bikes and other add-ons. I had it going for a few hours last night and started it back up around noon today. 6 hours later, we stand at 49% completed. Great.

Assuming the download moves along as it has been for the past few hours, I should be done around 10 o'clock tonight. I will be playing quite a bit afterwards. If anyone is looking to do some of the online challenges, let me know for I will be doing a lot.

5:17 - 64%
5:48 - 68%