Wow! Week #3 for Criterion Games on the PlayStation Blog!
Week #1 we set the blog alight with details of the new game modes coming to Burnout Paradise in the Codename: Cagney update.
(And mentioned 1080i support for those who have HD TVs that only support that mode!)
Week#2 we talked about the Timed Challenges coming to Burnout Paradise in the Codename: Cagney update. (And broke the news that we’re supporting PlayStation Trophies retroactively in Burnout Paradise at some point, too!)
This week…
Well, we’re pleased to announce that Codename: Cagney – the FREE update game of changing content for Burnout Paradise is here!
To get it – just put your Burnout Paradise disk into your PlayStation 3, launch the game and it’ll download automatically.
It’s that easy – and it’s all FREE – new online game modes, new vehicles and a stack of enhancements and fixes to make playing Burnout Paradise even better.
But even with all that there’s more – there’s the Game’s new Live Page, which is the thing we’re really excited about and want to let you know about this week.
The Live Page does two cool things:
First, it serves up news about the game – so that’s news about updates and the kind of stuff you’d expect on criteriongames.com, but it’s also news about what’s happening in the game – so, expect to find news about what you’ve done in Paradise City as well as about what’s happening online, like when we hit the 100 millionth crash, for example.
Secondly (and this is the really, really cool bit), it’s where we can, using the Game Calendar, create what we’re calling ‘Live Broadcast Gameplay’. This is how it works:
If you check out the Game Calendar, you’ll see certain dates on it are ringed. These represent ‘Live Events’ that will occur on that day. In the news panel on the Live Page there’ll be a corresponding story telling you about what’s happening on those days.
So, for example:
Saturday 12th July 2008 – Prize Cars Weekend
Where for one day, if you go online we’ll let you try out all of the Carbon and XS Cars (that are normally available only when you complete the offline game) for you to test drive in races and Freeburning.
As this shows – it really allows us to mix up the game, and we’ve got a schedule packed with cool events that stretch out through the summer.
This breaks down as:
Every Tuesday, we’re going to mix things up online by focusing the game around a specific set of cars. For a whole day, your online junkyard will look radically different. This coming week (Tuesday 15th July 2008) will see only Speed Boost cars online.
Every Thursday, we’re going to mix up racing (both ranked and unranked.) Everyone’s junkyard will be as normal, but in races we’ll supply a certain set of cars to race in. This will really level the playing field in racing.
The other great thing about Live Events is that it allows us to award our players with all kinds of cool stuff. So, starting in a few weeks’ time:
Graduation Weekends
In these, we’ll let you try out new cars and new liveries for a whole weekend. Over the course of the weekend, you’ll be able to test drive our vehicle of choice, and if you want to keep it, then we’ll set up an online challenge for you to complete.
The first such event will be our “Mount Olympus” event in which you’ll get to test drive the new Hunter Olympus, and, if you win an Online Road Rage event in it, you’ll get to keep it forever.
We’ll be running multiple Graduation Weekends that will introduce even more vehicles and for those players who participate in all of them, there’ll be a special prize.
So there you go – more exciting and innovative stuff from Criterion Games. Now, let’s see what we can come up with for Week #4!
I have just tried to download the update and I got an error (FFFFFFFB) When it reaches 60 % so please fix this Criterion.
Free is good – thanks, Criterion!
Thanks for the great response Simon, looking forward to everything Criterion has to offer (please please PLEASE black 2)!
It is PHAT! I have already added my playlist of 66 tunes and have dabbled in some of the online stuff! Three cheers for Criterion – you’re the example that other companies need to emulate!
There is no questions Criterion is clearly looking out for my investment in their company!
I really appreciate the work put into the most open play (racing) games I have seen on the PS3.
Any Trophies planned?
So im probably gonna sound really stupid…But how do you unlock the freakin cars, i can’t wait to feel the power of the olympus and im dieing to know what the secret car is…Anyone?
As I mentioned in the post – for the Hunter Olympus – join us in our first Graduation Weekend for the Mount Olympus Event – test drive it, and, if you win an Online Road Rage in it, you get to keep it for good.
Not saying any more except – keep your eyes on the Live Page, spare a few hours over the coming Graduation Weekends (don\’t worry we will give you more than one opportunity to unlock these cars.)
And the secret car…well, one of them…is…
Hang on…I know…catch our CRASH TV video podcast tomorrow on iTunes, and we\’ll show you…
(Unless you\’re lucky enough to get buzzed by one of these ultra-rare cars while online…)
:)