Ok, so Criterion have added the restart feature to Burnout Paradise with the free 6th Feb 09 update. But where the heck is it?

You’d think that after failing an event you’d see an option to restart it? Err, no. Its been added to the options menu opened by pressing the right d-pad button:

Also the restart option is only available during an event! When you fail an event the option disappears and pressing right on the d-pad opens up your freeburn online menu as it always has. If you want to restart the last event you can do this as well now. As before press right on the d-pad to open up the Paradise City Live! menu. You should now see the option “restart previous event.”

Criterion will be releasing a free update to Burnout Paradise on the 6th Feb 09. This coincides with the release of the Burnout Paradise party pack, which you have to pay for.

There’s quite a lot of good stuff in the free update though:

• Restart - You can now quit or fail and event and restart it. Yay!!!!!
• Self-righting Barrel rolls – Making them nice and simple to pull off
• Vibrant visuals – Billboards, smashes and super jumps are now more obvious (via pulsation, and colour tweaks)
• Road rage tweaked – Time is not added after you’ve reached the target car total
• Stunt timer tweaked – Countdown is slower, making it easier to play at the start
• Vehicle dynamics overhaul – First cars available are now easier to drive
• Rebalanced events – To take into account all the other updates
• Junkyard tweaked – Easier to view vehicle stats, now with added vehicle filter
• In-game browser site – For PC and PS3 only to bring the upcoming Criterion Games Network
• In-game store - Easier to browse and buy new content

I’m very happy to see that Criterion have finally given in and added the restart feature. This improves the game no end by vastly reducing the time I used to spend driving back to the start of an event. Also Criterion are going to announce more details about the upcoming Criterion Games Network next week.

Criterion have released details about all 4 cars in the legendary cars pack which is due to be released in Spring 2009 for Burnout Paradise. They are:

• Jansen 88 Special – DeLorean DMC-12 from Back to the Future
• Manhattan Spirit – Ecto 1 from Ghostbusters
• GT Knighthawk – Ford Mustang Shelby GT500KR used in the new Knight Rider
• Cavalry Bootlegger – 1969 Dodge Charger from Dukes of Hazzard

No idea how much this pack is going to cost, but probably around the 600-800 MS point mark. Here’s some pictures of these iconic cars (3 are iconic, 1 is just not KITT. Boo) and a video of the Jansen 88 in action and a look at the other 3: