By now you should have heard about the new game from our studio, Burnout CRASH! and I am sure some of you are scratching your heads a little wondering what we’ve been up to. Burnout CRASH! is a spin-off from our much-loved Burnout series, but this time focusing solely on the Crash Mode gameplay which you may remember from previous Burnout games.

A lot of games take themselves too seriously, sometimes all you really need is to just kick back, relax, and blow stuff up. With that in mind, we designed Burnout CRASH! with a tongue-in-cheek style, harking back to the arcades we all used to hang around in. Our inspirations were manic pinball gameplay, over-the-top game show-style presentation, all tied up with our favorite music tracks from yesterday.

But I hear you ask, “I loved the original Crash modes, will I like this?” But of course! We have kept the spirit of the original Crash mode alive, with its simple gameplay of drive into a junction and smash as much traffic as you can – layered with deeper puzzle elements to work out the highest scoring strategies. The perfect game to sit on the sofa passing the controller back and forth with your friends, showing action that is as fun to watch as it is to play.

Looking back at previous versions of Crash mode, the single biggest request from our fans was to keep the crash going for longer… so that’s the first thing we did, giving you much more than the single Crashbreaker of old. This, in turn, leads to many more scoring opportunities and craziness — much like a pinball table, it’s easy to play but you need skill to rack up the really big scores. In addition to the standard scoring methods of smashing traffic and multipliers, we have made all of the buildings destroyable, introduced street furniture to add to your smash chains, added lots of different skillshots, explosion combos, and many more crazy new features. Some of these help rack up your score, such as the Lightning Storm, and some get in the way, like the Bulldozer.

Of course, this being Criterion we couldn’t leave out Autolog, as last seen in our previous hit game Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit. Autolog adds that essential element of personalisation to Burnout CRASH!, as your high score tables (Crashwalls) will only be populated with your friends’ scores. We still have the Autolog staples of Recommends based on what your friends have been doing, with Friends Recommendations to help build up your PSN friends list.

We’ve also taken the social competition one step further with the new Autolog Challenges. This is a much more direct mode of play where you can select any of your PSN friends and challenge them to a one-on-one contest. You each get one turn on a level, with the winner taking the cup. Sounds simple, but it works a treat… I have been battling some of the other guys in the studio for some time now, and the trash talking alone is gold (Doug, I am coming for you!). And of course one of the Trophies is for beating a friend three times in a row in Autolog Challenges.

If you like having pure mindless fun, then come and check out Burnout CRASH! when it hits PSN today for $9.99.

Need for Speed Hot Pursuit PlayStation 3 players will experience the thrill of the chase and the rush of the escape as they play through full careers as both a cop and a racer solo or connected. The blistering speeds, brutal busts and heart-stopping getaways are all connected via Need for Speed Autolog.

This network not only connects friends for epic head-to head pursuits and races, but also enables players to compare performances and stats, thereby setting the stage for the ultimate in friendly competition. I can tell you from playing here in the office that Autolog will bring out the competition in you – even if you’re not a competitive person. Every day we’re amazed at the new times people set on each of the events. You think it can’t be beaten…until it is. Finding the right combination of shortcuts, nitrous useage, and bust strategies is the key to achieving the best time.

Need for Speed Hot Pursuit also provides you with exciting online game modes: Hot Pursuit is the exciting hunter vs. hunted mode where players can play as cops or racers. Interceptor mode is the ultimate head to head battle as one racer faces off against one cop. Finally, you have the traditional race mode. Pick your racetrack and car and win the race!

In addition to your racing and chasing skills, you’ll have access to weapons to help you including: spike strips, jammers, EMPs, helicopters, road blocks and more.

With its vast open-world, Seacrest County is the perfect place to get your fix for high-speed racing (or chasing) action. There are several diverse locales throughout coast, desert, forest, and mountain with unique features to provide each side of the law with certain benefits and challenges. One strong suggestion we would make is to drive around the county a few times on your own before taking part in any pursuits. Get familiar with the beautiful scenery and its many hidden shortcuts.

Please join us for a Game with Developer session on Saturday, November 20th from 11AM – 1PM PST. Put your driving skills to the test against the Criterion developers and see how you match up! Visit the Hot Pursuit website for more details.

Make sure you follow us on Twitter, fan us on Facebook, and visit us at the official website for up-to-the-date Need for Speed Hot Pursuit news and information.

With the game only about 2 months away, the team from EA was eager to talk about the social elements of Hot Pursuit. Watch this video, then read my conversation with Need for Speed producer Jesse Abney, who not only answered my questions, but yours as well.

Jeff Rubenstein, PlayStation.Blog: How did Criterion end up at the wheel on Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit?

Jesse Abney, EA: Criterion’s a AAA developer of action-racing games, with many years of doing great designs, great innovations, and platform technologies – especially for PlayStation 3 and online connectivity. And they kind of just waited patiently for their turn to get the keys to develop their favorite Need for Speed – and revive Hot Pursuit. Hot Pursuit really is a milestone in the Need For Speed ethos of “grab an exotic car, pick an exotic location, and hit the pavement.” And that really is a core tenet of Criterion’s expertise. It was really their interest and their call to revive Hot Pursuit.

PSB: What fundamentally makes NFS NFS, as opposed to say, Burnout? Will elements of NFS: Hot Pursuit look familiar to Burnout vets?

EA: Need for Speed’s always been about licensed vehicles. Criterion made the call to throw back to Hot Pursuit… no distractions, no customization, no real performance tweaking. It’s all about car, pavement, location, the competition of the race, and in this particular game, it’s all about social connectivity.

Autolog is an innovation, really a step up from what we saw in Burnout [Paradise]. It’s a total social experience. Always connected, always exchanging information, and always establishing where you’re at in the product versus your friends.

And instead of the Blacklist like you saw in Most Wanted, Criterion has brought in the Blacklisted Speed Wall. Autolog Recommends is a facet of that, whereby it’s always listing where your friends are in their career versus your career, event for event, and giving you recommendations based on the scores you’re laying down both online and offline.

PSB: Criterion won over a lot of fans with its community involvement, and the feeling that the game stayed alive long, long after if came out, thanks to its “Year of Paradise” DLC and update rollout. Will that happen with NFS: HP?

EA: Absolutely. We give all the credit in the world to Criterion for really proving out this model at EA; doing telemetry gathering, and establishing which core features people are really attached to, what things we can go bigger on, and dedicating people to work on that 3, 6, even 12 months into a product’s life cycle. It’s no longer “ship and forget” for us; we really want the product to have a life, we want it to evolve, we want to continue to improve it. With such short development cycles, we really want that post-launch development to not only address potential problems, but also to improve gameplay features and modes. It’s an absolute commitment from the NFS franchise.

PSB: What have you learned about player behavior – especially in the multiplayer arena – that we’ll see in NFS: Hot Pursuit?

EA: They’ve been taking a ton of lessons from online telemetry gathering: what people love to play, how they compete, and how that metadata is conveyed online. We have a very in-your-face approach to the connected generation. And that is multiple points of data, always streaming in information, always giving the player updates through messaging. “I’m going to throw down the best time I can and all my friends are going to get this message,” and it’s going to challenge them to do it.

That’s the lessons, like the refinement of the experience, that Burnout really paved the way for. And Criterion has really been at the forefront for all of EA in a lot of ways in how they turn that data into actual gameplay feature sets. Hot Pursuit is really a culmination of all those lessons over the past 2 or 3 years, especially for the connected platforms.

PSB: Do you see the reach of NFS Hot Pursuit extending beyond those times when you’re on the PS3 to places like Facebook or Twitter?

EA: Absolutely, there’s interactivity based on Facebook Connect and other elements that they’ll be working on. You have a ton of connectivity through the web and then back to your platform. Don’t discount any medium that Criterion has at their disposal. They’re supporting the PlayStation Eye to do in-game captures of player profiles; fans of Burnout will remember that. Every action point in the race is capturable and uploadable via Autolog.

Question via Twitter (@Y_AlAnsari): Is Hot Pursuit gonna be like “NFS Underground” style? The one with all the blacklist stuff :D

EA: There’s aspects of the Blacklist. Criterion really wanted to bring in elements of both Hot Pursuit and Most Wanted. Instead of the Blacklist being a grouping of AI players, our Blacklist is your friends list. You’re ranking up through the friends that you have via the Autolog, event for event, and knocking your friends off of the Blacklist. So you’re actually racing against real people, not just NPCs.

Question via Twitter (@RustyFirestar): What types of events are there? The gameplay seems fun, but not varied.

EA: Criterion is a great studio for creating dynamic game modes, and the introduction of cops and racers at high speeds, and exotic cars and exotic locations, for us it’s a playground. What we have are online modes where it’s 4 vs 4 where 4 of your friends are playing a career as a cop, and they’re entering into a Hot Pursuit with 4 of your friends who are running careers as racers.

General categorization of race events aside, Hot Pursuit is not about drag racing, it’s not about drift racing, it’s kind of a culmination of all those elements of driving within an action-driving design.

Question via Twitter (@BenSDixon): I’d like to know what games they would compare the handling to and whether it’s like Burnout Paradise. (does real cars = realistic handling?)

EA: Criterion is not a company to design a real-world physics simulator. One of the core tenets of Need for Speed is that action-driving experience. You don’t need a drivers license to play this game. That said, these are cars built upon a real-world-style physics simulator, and then amped up for arcade action. So this isn’t that you need to know how to drive, that you need to hit the apex of a corner, it’s much more in the vein of Burnout. It really is an action-arcade, pick-up-and-drive experience.

Question via Twitter (@DMax901): How many cars will there be? And what will the Racer’s equipment be like? Thanks PS!

EA: Over 65 top-end exotics, and maybe a few real key surprises. There are cars in our game you’ll never play anywhere else. And Criterion’s done a great job creating a career as a cop, so every car in the game comes in lovely cop colors. There’s always the idea that more cars can come via post launch development all the time.

Thanks go to those of you who asked us questions via Twitter, and to Jesse for answering them. Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit comes to PS3 on November 16th.

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!