Oh, Axl, you’re such a poet.

Burnout Paradise has proven me wrong and is totally fantastic. Almost all the misgivings I had about the demo are still valid, but the core design and philosophy behind the final product is so focused and perfect that they don’t matter. You can’t pick events from a menu, but that’s okay because the city is small enough that it’s not too difficult to get around, and interesting enough that you want to explore it between events. This also helps you learn your way around the city.

It’s also a new standard for online integration, as well as the perfect system for online in an open world title. I’m going to be disappoint when GTA IV doesn’t work like this. You can invite a friend or be invited from an easy-to-use D-pad menu, and then the world you are in becomes the online world seamlessly. The host can then decide to make a race event and can set the start and end points anywhere on the map. There’s also challenges, which are just little goals like “boost 400 yards on this street” or “do three barrel rolls on that jump” but when four or five people are all trying to do that, hilarious things occur. This also forces you to learn the nooks and crannies of the city. The design is all-encompassing in its scope, and it’s far more than the sum of its parts. It actually feels astonishingly new – the series has totally reinvented itself for the second time. That said, it’s not perfect. The crash mode replacement sucks really bad and the soundtrack thankfully allows you to toggle off individual tracks. Still, it’s great.

Other than that, I got alien laid in Mass Effect. It’s starting to wear thin; I’m glad I’m near the endgame. I also played Pokemon Pearl a bit on a car trip.