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 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.

We’re working flat out to bring you yet another free content pack for Burnout Paradise – and this one’s the Bike Pack!

If you missed our recent posts, we’re trying something new with downloadable content this year. We want to completely change the game we brought you back in January with regular game changing updates. That means more than just a couple of cars and a new level.

For the first time in a Burnout game, we’re bringing you motorcycles. We’ve already talked about the 2 bikes available from Day 1 and some of the bike-specific gameplay that’s on the way, but there’s more to this pack than that. We’re introducing night time to the streets of Paradise City and with it, some unique gameplay.

When the pack arrives, just head for the nearest Junkyard and pick one of the bikes – either the Nakamura Firehawk V4 or the Nakamura FV1100.

Here’s a map showing Paradise City and all the different events you can try – Race, Road Rage, Marked Man, Burning Route and Stunt Run. For the full run-down on how these work, check out the video on our website.

Selecting one of the bikes triggers a whole load of new gameplay – 70 new challenges, 38 new against-the-clock races (Burning Rides) and new “Road Rules” record times for 64 streets – it’s like a whole new game to play through!

And if that’s not enough, once the sun sets at 8pm, the game changes.

The lights on the bike switch on, the traffic thins out creating an all new environment for high speed racing and we trigger some night-specific gameplay – half of the new Burning Rides take place at night and are called Midnight Rides.

Here’s how the clock works:

From 8pm to 8am it’s night. We figured you’d want to decide how fast this comes around, so we made the clock customizable. You can easily switch between day and night and try out the different gameplay whenever you like. You can also control the speed of change – anything from 24 minutes to real-time (24hrs), if you’re up for an epic session!

If you play an online game, we automatically switch all players to the host time, fast forwarding through day or night as necessary. I swear you never get tired of seeing it!

We’ll be back with more next week – our final post before Bikes go live!

And as always, if you want more details, head to our own website – www.criteriongames.com

If you like what we’ve got to say, head over to our website – www.criteriongames.com or check out our video podcast – Crash TV.

This week, we started to ramp up towards the release of our great FREE Bikes Pack. This one’s pretty much complete now and in the final phase of testing. Here at the studio, most of the Burnout team have moved on to the next pack, which is trophies. But more on that soon, because today we want to spill a few details about bike gameplay.

The Bike Pack adds another 9-10 hours of gameplay to our already MASSIVE game, but it’s important that we give you new things to do…not more of the same.

We’ve built another 70 Challenges. If you’re not familiar with Burnout, Freeburn Challenges are basically “online for the rest of us”. No intense competition, no getting schooled, no racing, no headshots! Just kick back, relax and tool around in Paradise City with your friends playing simple challenges that take you on a tour of the city’s most fun locations.

Half of the 70 new challenges are regular Freeburn Challenges – just hang out with friends and collaborate to get these done in your own time. The other half are timed, multipart challenges that inject a little excitement and allow you to replay to improve your best times. They include popping wheelies and staying on the back wheel to make the most of the fact you’re on bikes for the first time.

With bikes, you also get a fresh new map of the city, filled with the bike equivalent of Burning Routes (against-the-clock races). These are called Burnout Rides and bring a new dimension through 2-part checkpoint races. They’ll reward players that have spent a little time getting to know the city. There are 38 in total, and the traffic system’s been rebalanced to introduce you gently to an all new kind of Burnout racing.

And if that’s not enough, you can whip through the city breaking new bike-specific fast times set for all 64 streets.

The Bikes Pack is a massive deal for us at Criterion. Here’s why.

Firstly, we’ve never done bikes before in a Burnout game before. The way our cars handle has always taken a lot of work and getting the cars to feel just right has taken a lot of time and energy over the years. Bikes are all new, but we wanted to get them right first time. We’re pretty happy with the way they feel, and we hope you guys will be too. You can wheelie around the city and stop to pull doughnuts or combine the two!

Secondly, every new pack we build for Burnout Paradise is grander than the last. We want to change Burnout this year. Big time. And we want to do it through downloadable packs. We want you to know that if you buy Burnout Paradise, you buy much more than the disk we shipped back in January, and the Bikes Pack is the biggest indication yet of how far we’re willing to push the game.

We’ll be back next week to talk about how we’re mixing things up a little in the Bikes Pack with the introduction of Day and Night gameplay!

Today we’re proud to announce another PlayStation exclusive for Burnout Paradise. This fall, we’ll be making the entire game available for download via the US PLAYSTATION Store. You’ll finally be able to join us in Paradise City without leaving the comfort of your home, and you won’t have to get up to put the disk in!

A big thanks to the folks at Sony for making the future of video games a reality now. We’ll announce a release date soon, but in the meantime, it’ll look something like this:

The download will be $29.99, but it’s not the disk version of the game we originally released back in January. This is an all-singing, all-dancing version complete with all the free packs so far. Here are some of the highlights. All new game modes, like Online Marked Man and Online Road Rage. Awesome new vehicles, including the Hunter Olympus and Nakamura Rai-jin Turbo. 70 all-new challenges featuring against-the-clock gameplay and leaderboards plus the in-game calendar and news page. Check the details on our website.

And this is just the start. We’re all about supporting Burnout players through online this year.

We want to change the way you think about DLC. We’re bringing you much more than just a couple of cars or a new track – this is the complete transformation of Burnout. That means you’ll see new game modes, new vehicles including motorcycles, day / night gameplay, weather, a huge new island play area, stacks of new challenges and maybe even aircraft!

The next pack from us will be the free Bikes Pack that we outlined in our last post. We promised a little more detail on what to expect. So here it is.

The two bikes available from Day 1 will be the FV1100 street bike and the Nakamura Firehawk V4 racing bike. With bikes, we’re introducing characters for the first time in a Burnout game. Both bikes feature designs for male and female riders. Just make your choice in the Junkyard.

The Nakamura FV1100 is a no nonsense street bike. The sweet 1100CC engine delivers high performance with easy handling making it the most versatile bike in Paradise. The exposed engine doesn’t leave much room for stylish paintwork, but when the engine looks this good, who needs bodywork?

The Nakamura Firehawk V4 is thoroughbred racing bike. It arrives on the streets of Paradise straight from the race track! The Kanji characters on the guys’ version mean “fire”, but we also have a version for our female rider, featuring an all-new Burnout cartoon character.

We’ve got more on bikes from their Japanese creator – Yuta Nakamura – in our next video podcast, and of course our website – www.criteriongames.com

Burnout Paradise. Always changing.

A huge week here at Criterion Games. We’re just adding the finishing touches to the Burnout Paradise Bikes Pack and wanted to reveal a little about what’s coming.

For the first time ever in a Burnout game, you’ll be able to ride motorcycles.

It’s a huge step for us here on the Burnout team, but this year’s all about changing Burnout in a BIG way through continued support. In July, we brought you our Cagney Feature Pack and introduced 3 awesome online game modes, two great cars, a live news page and calendar, 70 all-new timed multi-part challenges, a complete overhaul of our Online Racing System and a stack of other major improvements. In early September, we’re breaking out the big guns.

Here’s what Burnout Paradise players can look forward to, when they get the FREE Burnout Paradise Bikes Pack next month. (This is the pack formerly know by the codename “Davis”.)

We’ve got two rides ready to go – Day 1. Just head for your nearest junkyard in Paradise City to pick up the FV1100 street bike and the stunning Japanese Firehawk racing bike. That’ll do for a start, but there’s more in store once you’ve played a little way through the bike-specific gameplay. We’ll bring you more on these vehicles in a future post.

From the second we added the first prototype bike, we wanted to cruise the streets of Paradise City at night. So, in addition to the bikes, we’re adding night to the game. You’ll see day cycle through to night and see the city change with it. Paradise City takes on a life of its own once the rush hour traffic thins out!

During the day, you can play a variation of our Burning Routes challenges. Beat the target times on specific routes to complete “Burning Rides”. The big change here is that these routes feature multiple checkpoints – they’ll take you all over the city. At night, complete a different set of routes – the “Midnight Rides”.

If you’re used to seeing Paradise City swathed in blazing sunshine, you’re in for a surprise. We’ve also introduced a dynamic weather system to change the feel of the city – another Burnout first.

And that’s not all.

We’ve created 70 challenges specially for bikes. 35 of these are timed, multi-part challenges – the kind you’ll have experienced if you’ve been playing last month’s FREE software update codenamed Cagney.

We said we’d support Burnout fans 100% this year. We’re passionate about doing just that. The most radical changes to Burnout since we began the series are coming this year. Support for a game through DLC has never been this good. For more detail, hit www.criteriongames.com and for a great look at how we’re working check us out on Crash TV – our video podcast.

Burnout Paradise. Always changing.

The truth is – we simply haven’t stopped.

We’re into our “Year of Paradise” – 12 months where the Burnout Team keeps on developing exciting new stuff to expand and change Burnout Paradise (and in the process, we aim to radically change what everyone expects of downloadable content).

We’ve so far released our 1.1 update, and our second update, codenamed: “Bogart,” packed with fixes and game-enhancing features.

Now, we’re expecting our third FREE update codenamed: “Cagney” that’s coming on 10th July (yes, that’s FREE – just put your Burnout Paradise disk into your PLAYSTATION 3 and it’ll download automatically), and we’re really excited about it as we count down to its release.

We’re talking:

3 new Online Game Modes

• Online Stunt Run – you and up to 7 others compete for the highest stunt score
• Online Road Rage – where you team up and try to stop the other team from reaching their destination
• Online Marked Man – someone gets called out and everyone else tries to hunt them down

70 new Online Timed Challenges

• Everyone teams up to pull off stunts and other feats in the world, against the clock

New Vehicles (including the Hunter Olympus)

Major improvements to our Ranked Racing system

Plus heaps more, including:

• 1080i support for PlayStation 3 owners with “almost HD” sets
• Improved Standard Definition rendering for PlayStation 3
• Support for Custom Soundtracks on PlayStation 3

Outside of the game, our website, www.criteriongames.com is changing too – we’re posting up to 4 stories daily direct from the team and we now have an audio and video podcast from the team that goes out on a weekly basis. This week’s podcast released on Friday, we’re talking in detail about what to expect in “Cagney” and the other game-changing updates beyond that.

The pace of change here at Criterion is breathtaking, so we’re going to be posting here on the PlayStation.Blog at least once a week to let you know more about what’s happening and what’s coming to Paradise City.