Burnout-paradise-the-ultimate-box posts

The Steam PC game download site continues its annual and massive holiday sale into its second day today. While there are a ton of price breaks for individual games, publisher bundles and other game collections, the following games are on sale for just one day only, until 1 pm Eastern time on Wednesday.

Defense Grid: The Awakening - $2
Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light - $5.10 or $3.60 if you own any Tomb Raider game
Burnout Paradise The Ultimate Box - $5
Gothic Bundle (all games in the Gothic series) - $34.99
Disciples III Renaissance - $7.50
Men of War Gold Edition - $8.75
The Witcher - $5
Resident Evil 5 - $10.50
BioShock 2 - $9.99
Aion - $10
Puzzle Quest - $1.50
The Polynomial - $2.50

Thursday must be a day for gearheads at Steam. The PC game download service continues its EA week of sales with a trio of racing games that have had their prices cut for today only. From now until 1 pm Eastern time on Friday you can get two of the Need For Speed titles plus a Burnout game at low prices.

The most recent game, Need For Speed Shift, gets a 25 percent price cut today to $22.49 while the previous game, Need For Speed Undercover, is on sale for 50 percent off at $4.99. Burnout Paradise is also on sale for 75 percent off at $7.49.

Criterion Games made their first PC game in Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box. While the developer didn't offer the Big Surf Island DLC for PC players to purchase after the game's release they did over other downloadable content for their open world driving game. But in a new post on the Criterion web site they also reveal other DLC plans that for one reason or another didn't make it.

Among the plans discussed and discarded were adding planes and helicopters to the game (they would not work in the city the designers created) having underground areas of the city to drive in, motorcycles versus cars gameplay modes (cars would always wreck motorcycles) and even wild suggestions like time travel and racing on the Moon. This last suggestion was even prototyped with Criterion saying, "The actual surface of the real Moon was modelled and it was drive-able. Lunar Challenges would have been totally unexpected - as would have been zero gravity Takedowns and Challenges." Maybe for the next Burnout game?

For those who don't recognize the system, Big Download gave away a computer very similar to this one in contest a few months ago. So, we couldn't help trying out one of these monster systems for ourselves. iBuypower custom builds high-powered gaming computers, and the Paladin F870-SB has everything top-of-the-line technology has to offer. For starters, they system features an Intel Core i7-940 2.9GHz Quad Core processor along with a Nvidia GeForce GTX 295 video card. Other features include a whopping 6 GB of RAM, a Blu-ray/HD DVD drive in addition to the standard DVD read/write drive and multicard reader, running Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit. It's all topped off with a Sceptre 20.1" monitor, an NZXT "Avatar" gaming mouse, and a Logitech G15 gaming keyboard. Altogether, this monster has power and features to spare, and we threw a bunch of games at it to see how it all stacks up.

Valve has already put Unreal Tournament III on sale until March 15 and let folks play the full game for free this weekend. However their regular Steam weekend update is still in play and today they have put 2D Boy's terrific puzzle title World of Goo on sale for just $4.99. That's 66 percent off its normal price of $14.99 on Steam.

That's not all the Steam news today. The official Criterion Games web site has posted up word that their racing game Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box will soon appear on Steam. The racing game was released in full by publisher EA last month in a trial version. You can download the full trial game right here at Big Download.

The first full week of February didn't yield much in the way of change for the NPD Group's latest list of the US top 10 best selling PC games in retail stores. Blizzard's MMO expansion pack World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King stayed on top of the list for the week ending February 7.

In fact the list is notable for what game isn't shown, namely Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box. Despite lots of hype the racing game port from Criterion Games failed to make the top 10 in terms of retail sales in its first week of release.

1. World Of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King - Blizzard
2.The Sims 2 Double Deluxe - Electronic Arts
3. Spore - Electronic Arts
4. World of Warcraft Battle Chest - Blizzard
5. Fallout 3 - Bethesda Softworks
6. World of Warcraft - Blizzard
7. Left 4 Dead - Valve/EA
8. Call Of Duty: World At War - Activision
9. The Sims 2 Apartment Life - Electronic Arts
10. The Sims 2 Deluxe - Electronic Arts

Criterion Games's first foray into PC games was released earlier this month with Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box. At the time, Criterion announced that they were planning to add even more content to the game via paid add-ons. However it looks like PC owners will have to wait while console owners get first crack at the content.

Xbox 360 and PS3 owners will be able to download and purchase the Legendary Cars pack on Thursday. The pack comes with four new vehicles that look more than vaguely like certain famous movie and TV cars. However, Criterion has posted up a note on their site that says, "We'll be back with PC release information soon, but expect the Legendary Cars to be available to you guys in about a month." Oh well.

Last week Criterion Games released the PC version of Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box. This is the first PC game from the developer, as it collects all of the content of the 2008 console arcade racing game with the later free downloadable expansions and the new Party Pack multiplayer mode.

The release of The Ultimate Box will not be the end of Criterion's plans for the game. They plan to release a number of paid DLC packs in the next several months. While there is no specific confirmation yet on if any of these expansions will be made available for the PC, Criterion is working on three car packs for the game that will add a number of new vehicles to the streets of Paradise City. The Legendary Cars Pack has cars that look more than a little familiar while the Toy Cars pack will let you drive minuature cars on the streets. The Boost Specials will add two more extra fast moving cars.

Criterion also plans to add an all-new driving area to the game, Surf Island, and just this past weekend announced their plans for the new Cops and Robbers mode, which sounds on the surface to be an awful lot like the Need For Speed series. Again, Criterion has not yet announced when any of these content upgrades will be available, how much they will cost and if they will be made available for PC owners.

Criterion Games has just released the PC version of their arcade racing game Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box (and Big Download will have the full free time-limited version of the game available for download later today). However the game's new in-game news network is apparently dealing with some launch day problems.

According to the Criterion Games web site, some PC players are "....having trouble accessing the Criterion Games Network (our in-game browser pages)." Criterion states, "...we're also attempting to resolve this and will post as soon as we have progress to report. We hope to get this working in time to bring you news of a new pack for 2009 tomorrow." This issue apparently doesn't affect actually playing the game itself

PC owners who have been waiting for their port of Burnout Paradise can now rest easy, Electronic Arts has announced that the PC version of Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box will be released to stores in the US on Feb. 5. Previous plans to release the game as a retail product for the Xbox 360 and PS3 in the US have now changed; only the new Party gameplay mode will be released as a premimum download for previous console owners (the console versions will still be released to retail stores in Europe).

As we have mentioned before the PC port of Burnout Paradise, developed by Criterion Games, will contain all of the content of the original 2008 open world racing game along with all of the previous downloadable content and the new Party multiplayer gameplay mode. It's supposed to have PC-specific features such as "multiple monitor displays support, ultra high resolution graphics, motion blur, soft shadow effects and more."

It's currently unknown if PC owners will be able to download the planned future content for the game that its console owners have been promised. Also the previously promised free full trial of the PC version was not mentioned in today's press release.