How effective the Burnout Store is is something that we’ll just have to wait and judge later to be honest.ĮA’s track history with online stores has been a bit mixed of course, and it’s predictable that not everyone will feel good about using it, though the system at least promises to be better than Games for Windows Live from what we’ve seen. How well and acceptable the Store system is still a bit hard to judge though – at the moment there’s no content to buy as the game comes with all the current updates from the console version of the game.
The Store is also where you can check out Crash TV News (podcasts, basically) and a load of other content fed straight from the developers. The Burnout Store isn’t just used for selling expansions and extra cars either – though there are already some packs on the way, as you can see at Criterion’s website. You’ll probably have to pay for any expansions to Burnout Paradise, routing them all through EA’s store. Forbiddingly though, this is probably going to be done through the Burnout Store, which sits in the centre of the entire Burnout Paradise game. Reassuringly though, there seems a high chance that Electronic Arts and Criterion will address these vulnerabilities and add in more options and race types to the game, especially the Party Mode. Again, it’s good that it keeps the pace up if you’ve got five players all waiting for their chance in the hotseat, but if you want to play something closer to the multiplayer in Burnout: Takedown then you’re left wanting.
Each round in party takes only a few seconds, a minute at most.