Big Surf Island is a brand new playground we built from the ground up enhancing and expanding on everything we know you already love about Burnout Paradise. We’ve included new challenges and events for you to play online with your friends, an exciting new World to discover, the biggest and wildest jumps yet, plus a set of nine new vehicles to experience it all in. Yep… nine!

When you play Big Surf Island you’ll get a brand new Big Surf Island license to complete. This means new races, stunt runs, marked man, road rage, and even a brand new type of event, the Island Tour!

Of course there are also roads to rule, smashes, billboards and brand new “Mega Jumps” (even bigger than “Super Jumps”, super just wasn’t a big enough word to describe them)!

The Island also really comes to life online. We’re including 10 new online freeburn challenges, bringing our total online challenge count to 500!

We’ve unveiled four of the nine included cars so far (check out our Island trailer). When you buy the Island pack you’ll be given the Carson Dust Storm, an awesome purpose-built buggy ideal for the massive air and stunts of the Island.

Beat the Dust Storms’ burning route and win the Dust Storm Superturbo, a faster, more agile version of the Dust Storm in a cool matt black finish.

Win enough events on the Island and get the Hunter Olympus Governor, boss of all cars. The strongest car in the game, now available offline and with stunt boost, our resident designer Sarge Sullivan’s favourite new car (just check the license plate for proof).

To reward your dedication, when you complete your Island license you’ll get the Carson Annihilator Street Rod, the car with by far the best livery in Burnout. Strictly for the pros, this beast has a speed boost, rears up when boosting and can reach speeds in excess of 200 mph!

We’ve included so much content in this new DLC that it’s hard to get your head round it all. Check out this brand new CRASH TV for an in-depth Island tour explaining the offline and online progression, the new license, and four of the nine new vehicles.

We started supporting Burnout Paradise in January 2008 with our “Year of Paradise”, a promise to support the game through DLC. Here we are a year and a half and nine download packs later and we’ve used this experience and community feedback to create the best possible Burnout experience.

The Island pack is incredible value for money and the cheapest and best vacation you’ll ever get!

If, for some reason, you haven’t bought Burnout Paradise yet, you’ll need it to play Big Surf Island. Burnout Paradise is available to download right now for $19.99 from the PlayStation Network.

See you on the Island!

Island Pete
Big Surf Island Producer
Twitter: @IslandPete
@CriterionGames

We’re in the middle of week five of the PlayStation Network’s “Spring Fever” celebration, so pack your bags because we’re going island hopping with Qore.

Burnout Paradise
One of our favorite racing games will soon receive an expansion pack known as Big Surf Island. Our UK correspondent, Katers, takes a ride with Criterion Games to the new area especially designed to let players to catch big air. She also takes us on a behind-the-scenes tour of their expansive studio.

The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena
Five years ago, Starbreeze Studios created a great game from the Vin Diesel film. The Qore team travels to Sweden to report on the sequel’s development and find out if Starbreeze will strike gold once again.

Alpha Protocol
Is it an action/espionage adventure? Is it an RPG? It’s both! This ambitious title from Obsidian puts players into the role of an inexperienced but resourceful agent. We visit the development team for an early look at SEGA’s upcoming game.

LittleBigGenius
Have you ever wondered how some of your favorite LittleBigPlanet levels are created? Qore tracked down the man behind one of the most “hearted” levels – The Azure Palace – to learn how it was done. Plus a look at some of our other favorite user-created levels.

This month, new and existing Qore subscribers will also receive a voucher for High Velocity Bowling as our way of saying thanks for your support. The voucher will be sent to the email address associated with your PSN account starting within 7 days of Qore’s release. Finally, we’ve got an exclusive Resistance: Retribution theme for the PS3.

Look for Qore Episode 10 to arrive Today.

We released our first premium content for Burnout Paradise – the Party Pack !

Our Freeburn online play is a cool way to hang out with your online friends, but we wanted to give you a way to play PlayStation, when your friends comes to visit.  The game supports up to 8-players for pass-the-pad single-screen action.

You can find out more on the Criterion Games Network.  We’re now making use of PlayStation’s in-game browser to bring you all the latest news direct from the Burnout team.

Party is our first premium-quality content for Burnout Paradise.  It’s available now from the PlayStation Store for $9.99.  And if you can’t bear to stop playing Burnout, you can also pick it up from our own Burnout Store within the game.

If you’re new to Burnout, you can now get the whole game bundled with all our 2008 updates and the Party Pack on the PlayStation Store for $29.99.

You can hit this link to see the team playing a session in our latest video podcast – Crash TV.

And finally, we used the Criterion Network to bring Burnout players exclusive news of a new pack for 2009.

Slotting in soon after the Party pack, Legendary Cars, Toy Cars and Boost Specials, comes another premium pack – Cops and Robbers.  This one’s dedicated to bringing you the thrills and spills of cops and robbers car chases in Paradise City.

We’re keeping the gameplay under wraps for the moment, but in the meantime here are the first images in all their glory.

But, the 88 Special is just a one quarter of our forthcoming Legendary Cars pack. Now it’s time to show you the 3 remaining cars.

We’re keeping things pretty much under wraps on these vehicles for the moment. After all, we’ve got a ton of exciting content arriving at the beginning of Feb to tell you about first. But before we get into that, we couldn’t resist bringing you the first images of these spectacular vehicles.

Boostin’ makes me feel good!
First up the Manhattan Spirit. Not the fastest car in Paradise City, but this reimagining of Burnout Paradise’s Hunter Manhattan should keep the spirits at bay.

Fans of the original will know that this underused beauty is great for stunts. This customized special version is even better, but like all the Legendary Cars, this has a trick up its sleeve – hit L3 and boost to find out what it does.

This car does not exist
This is the Carson Nighthawk. Denied by the government and disowned by Carson, this ultra rare version of the Carson GT is the ultimate super pursuit vehicle!

The custom lighting array triggered by boost makes this the most distinctive-looking vehicle for night time events in the dangerous world of Paradise City.

One for the good ole boys
And finally, the Cavalry Bootlegger. Branded with the Mexican flag and tagged as a tribute to The Chicanator, one of our big-time Mexican Burnout fans, this is a classic modified Hunter Cavalry.

Hit a massive jump and press L3 to sound the incredible horn – it’s one of the defining moments in Paradise City.

Also available in orange.

2008’s been an awesome year. We shipped the award-winning Burnout Paradise – Spike TV and IGN PS3’s Driving Game of the Year. We dragged Burnout kicking and screaming onto the next generation and a new era of open world freedom, social play and MASSIVE scale support.

That support started with 3 new online game modes, new cars and designs, 70 new challenges, a live news page, custom soundtracks and stacks more – this was our FREE “Cagney” Pack.

We followed it with the biggest change to Burnout since Takedowns – motorcycles!

The FREE Bike Pack blazed onto the scene in September along with day-night gameplay, 70 more challenges and dynamic weather.

We delivered trophy support and became one of the first full games to appear on the PlayStation Store – you can head there now and buy it, if you haven’t already!

Next year, we’ll be back on PlayStation 3 with a truck-load of premium paid content. We hope you’ll join in the fun with the Legendary Cars, the Party Pack, our Boost Special Cars, Big Surf Island and of course the cute and cuddly Toy Cars!

It feels like the Paradise City Party’s in full swing now, and with the launch of The Ultimate Box, there’s never been a better time to get in on the action.

But above all else, this year’s been about you guys – Burnout and PlayStation fans all over the world! Our goal was to get to know you through 2008. We’ve built a blog, an awesome website and Crash TV – our video podcast. We’ve been Freeburning with you and reading your comments here on the PlayStation blog.

Thanks for joining us, thanks for all the incredible feedback and thanks for playing – it’s been a blast! See you in 2009.

BTW – we just uploaded our Christmas Show with a glimpse of the 88 Special – the first footage seen outside the studio. Hope you like it!

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

If you caught our recent announcements, you’ll know we’re bringing more content to Burnout Paradise through 2009. We’ve talked Party, Ultimate, Legendary Cars and Toys in recent weeks. Now we’re mixing things up with a little boost-based gameplay innovation with the 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 here on the blog, www.criteriongames.com or Crash TV for all the latest.

Next week. Big Surf. See you then.

As regular readers of the blog should know – we’re really committed to keep supporting Burnout Paradise through 2009, so this week we’re so pleased to tell you about ANOTHER DLC pack that’s coming.

Two weeks ago we told you about our Burnout Paradise Party Pack – giving you great pass-the-pad party play on your sofa…

Last week we gave you the first sneak-peek of what’s coming in our Burnout Paradise Legendary Cars Pack, with the amazing, hovering 88 Special…

This week, well, we think the screenshot speaks for itself – the Burnout Paradise Toy Cars Pack:

We hope you agree that we’re keeping up our promise to take Burnout Paradise into places you’d never imagined.

These Special Edition Burnout Collectibles will be coming in 2009.

Next Friday, we’ll be back to tell you about even more DLC that’s coming next year.

(And regular readers and fans – we know what DLC we’ve not talked about in a while – be patient with us, it’ll come – it’s just we’ve still got MORE to tell you that you’ve not even heard about.)

See you in 7 days!

*And, another episode of our video podcast – Crash TV (that’s now streaming on our site, as well as being on iTunes)

We’re continuing to support Burnout Paradise through 2009. The fun starts with our Burnout Paradise Party Pack in Feb and will be followed by our awesome Burnout Paradise Legendary Cars Pack.

This year, we’ve introduced some of the most incredible vehicles yet seen in a Burnout game. Our FREE Cagney pack brought you the crazy Steel Oval Racer and the Hippie Wagon, and the FREE Bikes Pack introduced motorcycles to Paradise City for the first time ever.

In 2009, we’re taking Burnout vehicles to the next level with some truly unbelievable new vehicles. First up – The Jansen 88 Special.

This classic 1980’s styled silver sports car is based on the fan-favourite Jansen P12, but we’ve made a few interesting modifications.

Fill the gauge and hit boost to trigger burning flame trails from your back wheels. The 88 Special’s fast, manoeuvrable and great in the air.

In fact, if you want to take off, this is just the car for you. Hit L3 to switch to hover mode – the wheels retract and the car takes off and hovers through Paradise City at head height.

Seriously. It hovers.

This is the first of 4 cars that we’re making available as part of a wealth of new downloadable content for Burnout Paradise. They’re available to buy individually or discounted, if you pick up the whole set. In addition to the Jansen 88 Special, look out for the Cavalry Bootlegger, Manhattan Spirit and the GT Nighthawk!

We’ll bring you details and footage of these in a future post or on Crash TV (our video podcast), and we’ll be back next week with another killer announcement for next year’s awesome Burnout Paradise content.

And as always, we’re on hand for a while to answer your questions below!

So first up, we’re talking about the in-game browser for the PLAYSTATION 3. We always like to embrace the great hardware innovations for PlayStation. We’re using the browser to bring you closer to your friends and also to get you the latest news on what we’re working on – it’s like having criteriongames.com inside the game.

We’ll bring you all the latest on this PlayStation-exclusive feature over the coming weeks, but for now all you need to know is it’s called Burnout Paradise Network and it’ll be ready in Feb ‘09.

Next up let’s talk Burnout Paradise Party Pack.

Burnout’s an awesome social game, but the action’s all online. With Party, we wanted to create something for when all the players are in one place – gathered around a single screen.
Fans of the classic Crash Mode from Burnout 2: Point of Impact will know that this is not the first time we’ve done something like this. And we hope the response to Party is as warm as it was for Crash mode.

So, if you like to get together and play games, it’s time to break out the drinks, party hats and balloons!

Now you can enjoy Burnout Paradise in a completely new way.

1. Get together with up to 7 friends and gather round your PLAYSTATION 3. Here you can see some of the Burnout team lining up for a little Halloween-themed fun. You can see the full session in our latest Crash TV video podcast – it’s The Halloween Special!

2. Start Burnout Paradise and get the Party Pack update from the Store

3. Pause to admire the excellent new Party Edition visuals and atmosphere! We’ve overhauled not just the presentation screens but also the in-game visuals, which are now brighter and more colourful in recognition of Burnout’s new party theme.

4. Select 8-player party and get ready for the action. If you’ve got the PlayStation Eye add your picture now.

5. It’s pass-the-pad, so you’ll only need one controller to play, no matter how many players are involved!

6. The game selects a player at random and drops them into Paradise with a simple, fun challenge to complete.

Land a barrel roll!

Survive racing oncoming traffic!

Race a circuit of the dirt track in the best possible time!

There are 3 types of challenge to take on – Stunt, Speed and Skill. Stunt involves jumps and tricks. Speed features quick time trials and timed challenges. Skill includes racing through oncoming traffic and drifting your car.

7. Pick up the winner and run around cheering / commiserate the loser

8. Give it another go! Don’t forget, there are extra trophies and achievements available within this pack, as well as a stack of other enhancements.

You’ll be able to purchase this awesome premium Burnout Paradise content from February 2009, but if you haven’t got Burnout Paradise already, there’s never been a better time to buy.

We announced today that we’re bringing all the 2008 innovations as well as Party to something we’re calling Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box. It’s a new packaged game that’ll be available in Feb 2009!

Look out for more soon – either here on the awesome PlayStation Blog, back home on the Criterion Games Web site and in our video podcast – Crash TV.

We’re finally able to announce that our latest free downloadable Burnout pack bikes will be out 18th September!!!

It’s tough to give specific dates on downloadable content, because we don’t know for certain until the last minute. But hey, we’re really excited about bringing bikes to Burnout, so we’re going to take a chance and tell you that we’re aiming for September 18 – that’s this coming Thursday!

If you missed our earlier posts, here’s what’s coming:

• Pick from 2 motorcycles featuring male or female characters and start on a whole new progression to earn your Bike License.
• 38 new against-the-clock race events – Burning Ride and Midnight Ride.
• A brand new in-game 24 hr day / night cycle that impacts traffic density and available events. (It’s fully customisable – you can make it day/night/change the clock speed – it’s up to you.)
• Dynamic weather brings an all-new look to Paradise City.
• And if that’s not enough, we’ve got 70 more Freeburn Challenges too.

Freeburn is Burnout’s uninterrupted drop-in / drop-out online play. It’s a cool collaborative experience, so it’s all about hanging out with your friends, messing around in vehicles while racing, pulling tricks and crashing in a massive open world city.

If 350 fun, co-operative challenges aren’t enough to keep you and your friends occupied, the Bike Pack throws a further 70 to the mix. These bike-exclusive challenges are split 50:50 between regular challenges and timed, against-the-clock challenges for those that enjoy a little more intensity.

We’ve got all the details on bikes at www.criteriongames.com and in our latest video podcast – Crash TV. You can see it now on iTunes.

Burnout Paradise is currently available for the Greatest Hits price of $29.99 on PLAYSTATION 3.

Next week, we’re back to talk trophies.