Second week on the blog – and what a week it’s been!
Here at Criterion, it was great to get the news that the Codename: Cagney update for Burnout Paradise has passed through submission at Sony Europe. That’s a great place to be in. Next step – get the “okay” in the USA and we’ll be sure to be hitting our deadline of 10th July for this awesome FREE pack of game-changing content.
Also, the third episode of our video podcast, CRASH TV is blowing the roof off the iTunes charts with its combination of exclusive footage, news, and details of upcoming PlayStation-specific features.
And talking of upcoming PlayStation-specific features, we’d like to confirm here that Criterion WILL be supporting PlayStation Trophies in a future update of Burnout Paradise. It won’t be the Codename: Cagney update, but Trophies will be coming to Paradise soon.
Now, if that wasn’t enough excitement for the week, we thought we’d talk about Timed Challenges – a new feature that’s coming to Burnout Paradise online in Codename: Cagney that gives you even more ways for you and your online friends to get together and have amazing fun with cars.
If you’ve not played Burnout Paradise before, you may not know about what we call “Freeburn” or “Freeburn Challenges.” So if you haven’t, here’s the deal:
Burnout Paradise is about having fun with cars in a massive, open-world city. Sure, it’s about racing and other game modes, but one of the things that really sets Paradise apart is “Freeburn.” Up to eight players meet online to just mess around in their cars – see who can drift the furthest, get the most air, spins, barrel rolls, drive furthest in oncoming traffic, etc.
Freeburn Challenges are a part of that mode – special challenges that the host of the online game can activate for everyone to do together.
A challenge can be anything from simply driving in oncoming traffic or finding a billboard and smashing it, to lining up all of your teammates and jumping over them. It’s about teamwork and having fun, and there are 350 of these challenges to play with.
Now, Timed Challenges are a new set of 70 Freeburn Challenges that are coming with the Codename: Cagney update that add an extra, but exciting, element – a timer.
When a Timed Challenge is started, players must meet in a specified place within Paradise City. Once there, a timer begins to count down and the team of players must race to complete a challenge in the world in the shortest time possible. If you’re all successful and beat the clock, your best time is put on a leaderboard.
Sounds simple? It is, but it’s loads of fun, and that leaderboard drives everyone back for “just one more go” because you know you can shave a few more seconds off your best time!
And talking of countdowns, it’s just over 9 days to go before you can check it out when Codename: Cagney is released as a free update.
(These exclusive screenshots show a Timed Challenge in progress – here, two new Codename: Cagney cars – a Rossolini Tempesta Dream and a Hunter Steel Oval Champ meet up in a basketball court by the beach and must to leap off the roof of a car park on the far side of the city.)
@ 93, I see, thanks bro!
“Trophies will be retroactive, so, if you’ve achieved something today, the day the update arrives (not Cagney, we want to emphasise) that will be reflected in your Trophies.”
Do you see them, do you see them!
They tears of joy are dropping from my eyes.
I am not big online player in burnout but I love to put the disc to my Ps3 and bring on some serious Speeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed
around Paradice city. But I already managed to get the Elite licence (am I leet of what :P) so I am really happy to hear about this.
Also hearing that there will some more playing for the game after trophys and new updates arrive.
Glohohoho-hohoho-ho-hohorious.
I hope for the sake of GTA IV and MGS 4, the trophies are retroactive.
Thanks for the clearing that up for me, Simon.
I’d now like to jump in on the bandwagon and state that you guys really are an amazing team, and i love the support you’ve been giving Burnout Paradise after it’s release.
Thanks for everything.
lol you pwned gamesblow twice with one post.
1) you’re a third-party and you’ll support trophies
2) they will be supported retroactively.
AWESOME JOB GUYS!!!!
I may go out and but this game now.
Now this I like! Great Job! Keep up the great work! This game continues to rock.
damn this is great news im delighted.
to save time wouldnt it be better to just convert the paradise awards into trophies. its been a while since i played but i can remember doing things like taking down a car or something and a message pops up saying a paradise award was unlocked….but i guess that wouldnt cover online…guess 360 achievements are the best way to go since they will cover everything, just have to pick which ones will be bronze silver etc.
at leased we will have super stardust hd and …….super stardust hd to keep us busy until burnout gets patched.
anyway thanks for the trophies man. ive wanted trophies on the ps3 for so long i was bit sad to see such a small list of games supporting it but now i can add a kick ass game to that list my hopes are up. hopefully all devs care as much about their games to give us trophies too.
!!!!!!!!!!THANKS CRITERION GAMES!!!!!!!!!!!!
Another day another great news!
TOTALLY AWESOME!!!
Criterion Games delivers AGAIN.
I wish there were more developers like you guys and Insomniac out there.
Simon, THANKS for the update
Keep it coming.
SPARDA
This level of support for a game that is already out AND that has just had an MSRP drop is remarkable. Hats off to you folks. I’m deeply impressed!
so how did u guys locked the save data to the psn id?also i truly love Criterion Games but moving forward will u guys keep supporting the ps3 with new games and will u guys ever support the psp?will u guys ever think about making an exclusion game for the ps3.im sorry i haven’t gotten burnout but its in my top 10 game to own this year i have it by aug the latest.
Lol I’m thinking I should stop playing so I can take advantage of trophies…BUT…its TOO fun to do that…i’d rather just do em ALL over again.
Btw, are there ever going to be drivers added into the game? I know its weird but some people are turned off by the game cuz of no driver!
Hey guys thanks for all this awesome free updates, but I have a question:
For Custom Soundtrack, when update 2.4 comes out and we try to go to the music section while playing burnout, it will tell us to get out of the game? Or is still possible to hear our music now but it won’t be implemented in a cool way like having the EA Trax saying the name of the song etc etc?
Sorry if I couldn’t explain myself properly, but this was the only way I could think of explaning it at the moment. I’m kinda sleepy here lol.
Thanks for your time if you respond!
I’ll be picking up this game because of this news. Great to see trophy support!
I applaud the commitment Criterion has shown with Burnout Paradise. Thank you once again. :D
Time to go buy Burnout Paradise to whore some trophies…
what time will the update be up?
retroactive trophies..awesome. I love Criterion
@ 39
Mr. Simon Phipps | July 1st, 2008 at 10:34 am
You are the MOTHER F¨CK!ING MAN!!!
Is there any chance you could have a chat with Sony representatives about what you feel should be done.
I know there are allot of gamers that want feature a,b, and c but I think its important that Sony focus on getting certain features done before others to make it better for the gamers and developers overall.
They spoke about the possibility of cross game invites among other things. I think cross game invites should be placed on high priority.
Once they have the api done it would obviously make things easier on you. Instead of patching the game for trophies etc now and then patching it again for cross game invites later.
Its important that Sony realize that games companies don’t have an infinite amount of resources and that they should ensure that the games developers get these new standard api’s in one go so both the developers and gamers get the compatibility from the get go.
I’m with Evo — I hate EA Games, for a variety of reasons, including their terrible porting history for the PS3, but including their poor employee relations before that.
However, Criterion has been on my white list since Burnout 3 (although you guys really should have fixed the camera issues in Burnout Revenge), and Black was an excellent game too.
Criterion has proved that a really good game developer can publish through EA and not just put out crap. Good job guys (and this game rocks)
incredible community support guys!!!!
keep up the good work!!!!!!
!@ sentry : send me your psn tag so i can add you if you like, here is my e-mail mendezjorge13@yahoo.com
If you have AIM you can hit me up there; Newar93
Once I get my PS3 online (im out of country, and where I am temporarily staying the internet is too weak for the PS3 to pick it up), I can add you.
Thank you and much respect to anyone/everyone at Criterion Games. It’s great to see such strong relationships between developers and gamers. You guys know what we want and you deliver, thank you once again.
@ sentry, nope dont have that one but how bout wm or y!m
Can’t come back to work ever… Winning trophies…
The dev support of this game has inspired me to buy burnout on friday. :) I’ll be picking it up when this weekend. Looking forward to playing with you guys.
http://uk.ps3.gamespy.com/articles/885/885361p1.html
GameSpy: It’s been mentioned that currently existing save data won’t be eligible for trophies, due to concerns about someone taking a game save from a friend and cheating to level up. What about currently available games with award systems, like Burnout Paradise or Devil May Cry 4, that have save data that’s locked to a single PSN ID?
Lempel: We’re currently not allowing that data to roll over into the trophy system.
Ummm, what’s going on with all this uncertainty between you and the developers?
GameSpy: It’s been mentioned that currently existing save data won’t be eligible for trophies, due to concerns about someone taking a game save from a friend and cheating to level up. What about currently available games with award systems, like Burnout Paradise or Devil May Cry 4, that have save data that’s locked to a single PSN ID?
Lempel: We’re currently not allowing that data to roll over into the trophy system.
@ mendezgato, my MSN is S3NTRY93@hotmail.com
Let’s get back on topic, I feel bad. :P
Burnout = Awesome. Criterion Games = Awesome. Trophies = Awesome.
Nuff said.
uk.ps3.gamespy.com/articles/885/885361p1.html
More and more reasons for me to buy it…I will soon
uk.ps3.gamespy.com/articles/885/885361p1.html
GameSpy: It’s been mentioned that currently existing save data won’t be eligible for trophies, due to concerns about someone taking a game save from a friend and cheating to level up. What about currently available games with award systems, like Burnout Paradise or Devil May Cry 4, that have save data that’s locked to a single PSN ID?
Lempel: We’re currently not allowing that data to roll over into the trophy system.
This completely contradicts what Criterion has said.
I registered with Playstation Blog just so I could comment to this post. I want to say that I am highly impressed with the development of this game. These free updates have been and will be incredible and will basically change the face of the game drastically from how it was when I bought it. As a fellow developer, I am impressed by Criterion’s handling of Burnout’s development.
One thing I was distressed about, however, was the FAQ from Sony that previously earned trophies wouldn’t count, and I was quite angry. But to come to this post to find that Burnout’s trophies will be retroactive really thrills me to the bone. I sincerely appreciate your efforts and development practices, your company is certainly a pearl among the swine of other game-makers!
uk.ps3.gamespy.com/articles/885/885361p1.html
GameSpy: It’s been mentioned that currently existing save data won’t be eligible for trophies, due to concerns about someone taking a game save from a friend and cheating to level up. What about currently available games with award systems, like Burnout Paradise or Devil May Cry 4, that have save data that’s locked to a single PSN ID?
Lempel: We’re currently not allowing that data to roll over into the trophy system.
This completely contradicts what Criterion has said.
Nice! Too bad I don’t like raceing games all that much. but this is vary nice! please tell the people who made BF:BC to add trophies, and IN-Game XMB support to that game as well!
It will realy help BF:BC gamers like myself to know we get more then just ranks, and online stats but we can also check our stats in the XMB too!
Sweet. I love Paradise. Takedown holds my spot as “Best Racer Ever” though.
Criterion, you guys are raising the bar with your support of this game. Not only that, but you’re one of the few third-party developers who seem to really know what they’re doing with the PS3. Respect.
http://uk.ps3.gamespy.com/articles/885/885361p1.html
Gamespy posted:GameSpy: It’s been mentioned that currently existing save data won’t be eligible for trophies, due to concerns about someone taking a game save from a friend and cheating to level up. What about currently available games with award systems, like Burnout Paradise or Devil May Cry 4, that have save data that’s locked to a single PSN ID?
Lempel: We’re currently not allowing that data to roll over into the trophy system.
uk.ps3.gamespy.com/articles/885/885361p1.html
Gamespy posted:GameSpy: It’s been mentioned that currently existing save data won’t be eligible for trophies, due to concerns about someone taking a game save from a friend and cheating to level up. What about currently available games with award systems, like Burnout Paradise or Devil May Cry 4, that have save data that’s locked to a single PSN ID?
Lempel: We’re currently not allowing that data to roll over into the trophy system.
Someone hit mxpxboy with a mute button.
:P
No need. I just want people to see this and not to act like it’s not a big deal.
I think we all deserve an answer.
Regardless of any forthcoming updates, Burnout Paradise is a great game worthy of your purchase.
WITH the forthcoming updates, Burnout Paradise is a MUST OWN game and one of the very best games of the now-generation (cuz it ain’t “next” anymore).
I don’t get it..
so if they are retroactive, what stops me from just downloading other peoples saves?
LOL at encryption cant be broken, not sure if thats going to work out
@willacus #148
You cant do that since the save file is recorded with another guys PSN id. I just guess it but let say RANDOMGUY got lots of trophy in his save file. The trophy is in the save file but the tag RANDOMGUY is also included. So when you log in with WILLACUZ profile the PSN will not allow the trophies RANDOMGUY made in to your WILLACUZ profile.
See?