Throughout 2008, game developer Criterion Games earned plenty of well-deserved praise for its racing title Burnout Paradise (PS3/Xbox360).   Not content with creating a great, open-world racing game, Criterion spent the last twelve months delivering additional content, and further tweaking the game play, garnering respect from gamers and the gaming media alike along the way.  Best of all, that content cost nothing!  Feel free to correct The Incomplete Gamer, but if there’s a better supported title on the market today, then we don’t know about it.  That support continues this year, commencing with this major free update which landed on February 6th.

Criterion Games have done a sterling job in keeping the Burnout Paradise faithful happy, but what does a developer do to jump start sales of a 12 month old game in a crowded marketplace.  Criterion Games relaunched the game!  A new SKU, and a new title (Burnout Paradise: Ultimate Box), complete with all the free downloadable content to date as well as the new premium (read: not free) content; the Party Pack – a play at home, social, pass the controller type mode.

Just an aside; call us anti-social but we’re not seeing the appeal of Party Mode.  It works like this.  Your mates drop around.  Drink your last beer and show you up; all the while sloshing beer and dropping chips on your favourite Dual Shock controller.  Basically, Party Mode is a pretty good argument for the benefits of online gaming.

But back to the Burnout Paradise reboot.  The new SKU makes sense, getting the game valuable shelf space and in-store visibility.  So far so good.  What doesn’t seem to make sense;  the $99 being charged by EB’s and GAME, for the physical PS3 and Xbox360 versions of the title.

Coincidence Only.  It’s another Jez.  No Party Mode for the Incomplete Gamer…not yet anyway.

Of course you could argue that there’s something wrong with all of GAME and EB’s pricing, but that’s another post for another day.  Back to the $99 price point.  Burnout Paradise was previously available in the PS3 Platinum range and copies of those can still be found in store if you look hard enough.  Considering the only new premium content to come bundled with the Ultimate Box is the ‘Party mode’, you are paying almost $50 extra for one new mode, arguably, worse cover art, and the convenience of not having to download the free DLC.

Speaking of Party Mode; head over to the PS3 store.  The Party mode is priced at $15.95, which may seem high, but add that to the price of your Platinum version of the game and your still $36 better off.  If you’re a Generation Y or what ever the hell the generation is called that that no longer cares for bulky game boxes cluttering up their lounges, then you can go one better, and pick up the Game and Party Pack from the PSN store for only $55!

On the one hand we’re stoked to see the downloadable games being retailed more cheaply than their Blue-ray equivalents.  Frankly, it’s about time!  On the other hand, (and keep in mind, The Incomplete Gamer prefers our games in a form that we can hold and caress and gaze lovingly at), it seems obvious that the powers that be have priced the boxed game way too high.

Now of course no one’s holding a gun to your head and if you can find a Platinum version of the game, or even better, a minty-fresh used copy, with the original and best cover art, you can enjoy your Burnout Paradise, download all that free content and still have $50 burning a hole in your pocket.

Even in the best of economic times we like to see game prices falling, not rising.  As much as the game deserves to continue to build an audience, I can’t quite see this game flying off the shelf at $99.  Not when it can currently be had so much cheaper, both as the Platinum Edition and in the PSN Store.  Of course the Big W’s and JB’s of the world will surely shave a few dollars of the RRP, but how much remains to be seen.

In the humble opinion of the Incomplete Gamer; had it been priced at $59, a ten dollar premium over the platinum version, it would have moved off the shelves a lot faster.  Still, what do we know about video game retailing.  Perhaps it’s all a deliberate (and very smart ploy) to drive all the ‘late to the party’ Burnout fans to the online store.

Call us old fashioned but sometimes you just want to hold the box and turn the pages

As for video game buying, yesterday we put our wallets where our mouths are and picked up the aforementioned ‘minty fresh’ used copy of Burnout Paradise for $39 from our good friends at GAME and the Burnout Paradise Official Game Guide (Prima) from EB’s for the bargain price of $14.95

If you’ll excuse me now, I’ve got some new trophies to unlock.