Right, so, it’s happened. One of my calls for a new Burnout game via the art map void has received a response. Quite frankly, assuming it’s accurate, it’s not the news I was hoping for. That doesn’t mean I’m stopping here, though.
In case you’ve got no idea what I’m on about, the other day I made my mark (no pun intended) on wplace, a site that picks up the mantle from Reddit of letting people doodle all over a map of the world. In two different places, I politely asked for a fresh entry in the Burnout series via slightly wonky writing.
NEw Burnout PlS! It was a simple request, penned next to the Paradise City resort in Incheon, South Korea, and up Shitten Creek in the US state of Oregon. If I’m honest, I figured I’d just be ignored by the people of wplace and the wider world. Rightly dismissed as a confused crank with a pitiful desire to see an old racing series fired up again. It’s now two days on, and I’ve discovered that this isn’t the case.
Directly below my call for a return of the road rage nestled near the Korean holiday destination, an unmistakable reply. ‘Cancelled SOZ’. Someone came all the way down to the Paradise City, just to tell me that my dream could not be, in the default black pixel shade, as though they were keen to convey that this truth is non-negotiable, black and white.
At first, I wasn’t sure what to do. I could go back to my other bit of wishing, the New BurnouT! PlS daubed up that American creek, which remained in a safe responseless haven. I could attempt to seek out the responder, whose Discord handle was clearly visible if I clicked one one of the pixels they’d shaded in. I’ve opted to go a third way.
R u SurE about that? I have to know, so I’ve asked this mysterious font of knowledge that question in wplace, using the same method they employed to respond to my attempt to summon the Hunter Cavalry. They might respond again. Maybe we’ll end up having a conversation that drifts down the Korean coast, towards the islands that house Yeonghueng and Seonjae-ri. Maybe more people’ll join in and the chat’ll drift east across the Korean mainland or west into the Yellow Sea. They might not reply. Maybe the dream quietly dies here.
Regardless, it’ll have been something that helped crashbreak the tension of a long silence without the sound of fresh Burnoutage. Oh, and before I go, I realise I’m yet to outline which of the existing Burnout games are my favorites.
Burnout 3: Takedown’s the one that got me into the series, and was one of the first games I owned on the PS2, in front of which I sunk hours and hours into road rages and the chaos of crash mode. I rarely ever got the right car body bounce to rack up big damage in the latter, but there were a few occasions when I caught a bus and things got tasty. Despite its differences, I also loved Paradise. Having an open world to blast around felt like a natural evolution to me, even if it came with some drawbacks. Controversially, I also don’t mind DJ Atomika, though this might just be because growing up through the energy drink-tinged extreme sports era of the Colin McRae Dirt series fundamentally warped my tastebuds.
Feel free to tell me I’m wrong in wplace, if you fancy.
