We've just uploaded our Crash TV Christmas Special to iTunes and our video podcast page.

Head over there for a Criterion Christmas Greeting and your first glimse of the 88 Special in action!



This incredible car will be released early next year as part of our Legendary Cars Pack. 

Check back to the blog in the new year, when we'll bring you the first details of the other 3 secret cars in that pack - the Cavalry Bootlegger, Manhattan Spirit and GT Nighthawk!

Another win for Burnout!  Two, in fact.



This year, we were nominated for 4 awards in IGN PS3's Best of 2008 round-up.

Burnout Paradise was shortlisted for Best Use of Sound or Best Online Multiplayer Game and WINNER of Best Driving Game and Best Aftermarket Support.

Best Driving Game is a HUGE prize, but we've worked hard this year to bring you the greatest support for a game through our Year of Paradise, so it's great to receive some recognition for that.

If you haven't joined the fun yet, there's never been a better time.  We'll be back next year with a load more awesome Burnout Paradise content!

According to IGN, you can "check back with us again on January 16, 2009 when we reveal our overall winners in addition to your picks for "Readers' Choice."

We'll be keeping our fingers crossed for then and also for the Xbox 360 Awards to be announced soon.

Hot on the heels of our Spike Video Game Award for Best Driving Game of 2008, we're listed as #2 in the Wired Multiplatform Games of 2008.



Here's what they had to say about Burnout Paradise:

"Sorry, every other racing game ever made: The developers at Criterion have pwn3d you once again. The franchise's brilliant play mechanics that made crashing as much fun as driving have been transferred to a vast sandbox environment, losing nothing in the process. It's the best online multi-player racing experience by a country mile, and Criterion continues to add new features that are almost dangerous in their awesomeness, like a flying car."

Wow.

Seriously, it's great to see some official recognition for the effort we've put in this year.  Reinventing Burnout as an open world, online-focused social experience on brand new hardware was ambitious.  Delivering wholesale support through 2008 required huge commitment.

We'd like to thank everyone who's joined us in Paradise City in 2008.  We're looking forward to bringing you some great new Burnout action in '09.

It's official!  Burnout Paradise is the Best Driving Game of 2008.

We picked up the Best Driving Game of 2008 award at this year’s Spike TV Video Game Awards.

And with a killer year of downloadable content in store for 2009, perhaps Paradise will be up for another award at the next show?!!

We’ve got exciting news about the first ever Burnout game for the PC, and we’re talking about it on today’s Crash TV.

Here’s what you already know.

Burnout Paradise™ The Ultimate Box will be arriving on PC in Feb 2009.

Like both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions, this product combines the original Burnout Paradise with all the incredible support content we’ve developed so far!  That means our Cagney Pack update, the Bikes Pack and the forthcoming Party Pack are all included.

Here’s what you didn’t know - anyone will be able to trial the game for FREE.

 

When the full game’s released in Feb ’09, we want all our PC players to be sure it runs perfectly on their system, before they commit to buying it.  We also love the game and feel confident that if you try it, you’ll want to sign up for more!

But there’s a lot of game to show you!

In Burnout Paradise, you’re free to explore a massive city, loaded with fun things to do and places to go.  Pull up at any of the 120 junctions to start one of 5 event types  – Burning Route, Marked Man, Stunt Run, Race and Road Rage.  See if you can find the beach, quarry, dirt track and airfield playgrounds spread through our five boroughs.  The city also morphs seamlessly into an online world anytime you want to hook up with your friends and cruise around beating challenges.

So rather than restricting what you can do, we're letting you play through the start of the full game for a limited period.

That’s right, you can go anywhere in Paradise City and check out everything on offer in the opening stages of the game.



Start in the Hunter Cavalry – a great all round car and unlock 2 more (the Hunter Mesquite and the Nakamura SI-7), as you progress through the events.



Choose from any event – just pull up at any of the 120 sets of lights and spin your wheels to trigger an event.



And it wouldn’t be Burnout Paradise without your friends enjoying the game right there with you, so the demo includes our freeform, seamless online play – Freeburn.  Join up with friends and work together to beat challenges for up to 8-players.

Obviously, there’s a limit to just how much you can do and for how long, but we hope you’ll agree that there’s plenty there to give you glimpse of what the full game has to offer.

In Feb '09, the trial will be available from www.criteriongames.com and www.ea.com, but we’ll also be distributing millions of disks.  Once you’ve installed it, you don’t need the disk to play, so you’re free to share it with your friends - always the best way to play.  We’ll bring you more info on where to obtain your FREE trial in the run up to the release in February.

And to make it nice and easy to upgrade to the full game, we’ve included a trial store within the game.  There’s a lot more to our brand new store than this show shows.  We’ll unveil our in-game store in a forthcoming episode of Crash TV Just hit the buy options to unleash the year’s greatest driving game and join the fun!



 

We haven’t released anything new on this awesome, premium downloadable content since way back in May, so it’s high time we gave you a little update.

For all the latest info, we’d recommend you check out the very latest Crash TV.  It’s your chance to hear all the latest news on the island direct from its creators.

 
This first shot shows your arrival point on the island.  From here, you can make out the awesome cylindrical tower referred to in this Crash TV Episode 15.  With the right car, it’s possible to drift all the way to the top of this tower and back again.  But you’re unlikely to drive down, because this location is all about massive jumps.  For a while, we considered naming it Big Air Island!

The building to the right is the hotel we named after one of our die-hard fans.  DBC9MX earned the right name the hotel after winning the Downtown Showtime Showdown competition and chose to name it after his son – Taylor J.  You check out the footage in Crash TV for a better look at Taylor J Towers.


This second shot is the first time we’ve shown you the view looking back down from the island towards the bridge and mainland Paradise City.  Our mantra is ‘if you can see it, you can drive it’ – which means that even the bridge to the city features multiple levels and massive jumps.

The construction yard in the foreground is loaded with gameplay and the scaffold at the top features in one of the island’s most memorable pieces of gameplay.  Everywhere on the island is like this.


This third image is the first look at the other side of the island, featuring the palm trees that give it a distinctly tropical flavour.  The unusual shape of the lighthouse, and the massive ramp in front of it are more tell-tale signs that the geometry is more than just scenery.


And finally, here’s our favourite shot.

This shows the kind of action the island is built for.  The scaffold towers in the construction yard can be climbed and all the hoops can be jumped.  If you want a taste of what the island is all about, head for the airfield, quarry or beach in Burnout Paradise right now and imagine an area the size of Downtown dedicated to that kind of gameplay.  The car featured here is the Dust Storm.  It will be made available at the same time as the island.

We’d mentioned in a previous podcast that this would be free content, but we can now confirm that it will be premium paid-for content.

Here’s why.  We never expected to create anything this ambitious for the island, but as it progressed we got more and more excited about what it could become.  (In fact, that’s the story of all our Downloadable Content.)

Big Surf is the culmination of everything we learned creating Paradise City, and we want it to bring you a truly spectacular new experience – the highlight of a year of incredible premium content.  Burnout already delivers incredible value for money – literally hundreds of hours of gameplay with your original disk or PSN purchase, plus more with the free Cagney Pack and free Burnout Paradise Bikes.

We want Burnout Paradise players to experience the greatest support ever seen in a console game.  We’re transforming not just Burnout Paradise, but the whole Burnout franchise through DLC, and we appreciate the support we know you guys will give us for our paid content.  We think it’s worth it.

Next week, we’ll bring you the first of our “Paradise City Boroughs” guides - Downtown Paradise.  We’ll cover the whole of Paradise City borough-by-borough in some detail, culminating in a big reveal of the island in the new year.
 

Today, we’re announcing the incredible new Carson Extreme Hotrod.



We’ll be back in the New Year with all the details on this powerhouse racer, but for now we’re keeping it under wraps.

We could tell you that it’s the fastest car in Paradise City – a stripped down, ultra low, overpowered straight line monster.

We could talk about its roots in American Rat Rod culture and it’s wildly exaggerated Hot Rod features, based on a ‘20s Roadster.

We could explain that we’ve rewired Burnout’s vehicle dynamics system, so it handles more intuitively and drifts more realistically than any other car.

We could reveal that it’s the first of a pack of 2 cars designed to re-imagine Burnout Boost. Which explains the blue exhaust flames.

We could do all that, but we don’t want to give away too much. For now, all you really need to know is that this car will give you the ride of your life and in early 2009 you will NEED to own it.



The Carson Extreme Hotrod. Light the touch paper and hang on for dear life.

We’ll be back with movies, screens, more info and interviews with the creators on this and the “other” boost car that will be available to buy as part of our Burnout™ Paradise Boost Specials Pack in 2009.

Just check back to www.criteriongames.com or Crash TV for all the latest.

Next week. Big Surf.

The Toys are Back in Town!

It's Week 3 of our 6 week Burnout Paradise 2009 blow-out!  If you missed out on our previous exciting announcements, you can see them all here, in our Coming Soon area.

This week, we're showing the Burnout cars as you've never imagined them - Toy cars are taking over Paradise City.  It's another amazing Downloadable Content Pack for Burnout Paradise that will be available in 2009.

Here's a screenshot to get you in the mood:




Regular Burnout fans will recognise 5 Paradise City classics – the Carson GT Concept P12, the Krieger Racing WTR, the Hunter Takedown 4x4 and the Hunter Manhattan, but there are 9 awesome vehicles in this range.

We promised we'd take you into uncharted territory!

In 2009, Burnout Paradise is taking a journey into the unknown.  If you want to join us, just pick up a copy of Burnout Paradise on PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360, take it online and take you pick from the year's downloadable packs.

We'll bring you more detail on these cars and how they handle over the coming weeks.

Our latest podcast is now available!

Subscribe on iTunes or watch it directly on the site here.

Today's big announcement, Sergeant Sullivan's Stunt Run Boot Camp and we take on the challenge of beating a Road Rule under the threat of gunge!

Today, we're really excited to bring you the first look at the cover art for Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box:



Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box will be released in February 2009 for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and, (for the first-time ever) the PC.

The Ultimate Box contains an enhanced version of Burnout Paradise as well all the updates so far:
•    Codename: Cagney Pack
•    Burnout Paradise Bikes Pack
•    PlayStation Trophies Pack (PlayStation 3 only)

PLUS

•    The brand-new Burnout Paradise: Party Pack


Don't forget to check by the site again on Friday for another announcement about awesome new content coming to the world of Burnout Paradise.