Vision Quest

It amazes me that someone would take a perfectly good game engine paired with reasonably good gameplay, and then shackle it to a rigid concept of how people should play.

Burnout Paradise is a giant piece of shit, really, but Criterion had to go out of their way to make it happen. There isn't anything inherently wrong with open world, sandbox design, as long as the overall game is made better for it. Very much not the case here. It's fine to have a big, well-constructed city in which to race, and secret routes and stuff to destroy is fine too, but forcing your players to drive around to each individual event is mind-boggingly stupid. Not having a restart option during events is almost as bad.

Supposedly, their goal was to do away with load times, thus the persistent world with no menus. However, having to spend a minute or two driving to an event is much, much worse than a loading screen. It's goddamned drudgery. Was I motivated to drive around the city, finding the shortcuts and whatnot? A little bit, but I don't need it shoved down my throat. When I just want to do an event, the game should let me. Loading screen? I'll get a drink or hit f5 a few times. Unlock events/cars/music/paint colors/fig newtons through exploration, great, cool. People will want to do it on their own. At its core, Burnout is a racing game, so let people fucking race.

If the gameplay was some master stroke, it still wouldn't justify all the bullshit, but then I could say "but at least the gameplay..." I'm not even gonna get into the lack of a real crash mode, although if I was, I'd start out with something like "Way to create a fresh, fun kind of gameplay and give it a golden shower." Sending this shit back to Gamefly tomorrow, hopefully I don't have to wait for Culdcept (expect a lot of posts about it).

Loco Roco is a fun, clever platforming game with brilliant art design and music. Probably keep it until my girlfriend gets tired of it.

Games I would design if I were a game designer-

Naruto mmo
Transformers fighting game
Dino Crisis 4
The Walking Dead rpg/Dead Rising 2