Season 18, Episode 36

In-Game Chat

Sometimes time is all we need.

Listen, that line works on a lot of things a whole lot better than I’m using it here, but let’s discuss it in the terms of video games.

I’m a massive fan of the Burnout series and in 2008 Burnout Paradise was released. Played it a ton. Online and offline. And I specifically remember having anxiety while playing certain modes of the game. Mostly things that were timed. Modes like the “fastest lap” or “Stunt Run” or “Marked Man”. The regular racing and “road rage” events were perfectly fine and felt fun to play.

Fast forward to 2024 and I’m playing the Remastered version of the game again. As I progressed through it I specifically stayed away from the “Stunt Run” and “Marked Man” events. The lap times, however, I have tackled at every chance I have to get them over and done with. Given those are the only events that aren’t required to replay after upgrading your license, I wanted them off my list as soon as possible. It was a sense of facing my gaming fears head on so they wouldn’t loom on the horizon for later.

All of that is to say that NONE of these things I remember sweating over back in the day are giving me any issues now. I don’t know if the game was toned down or up or whatever to make things easier, but I find myself (16 years later) easily completing these events.

I know in some games with puzzles or boss fights we can step aside for a few days and come back and knock it out of the park and wonder why it was so hard before, but this feels different from that. And it could be my memory of the game (but it doesn’t matter the game, I’ve hated anything that times me) and I’ve made those things out to be more difficult than they were.

It’s been an interesting revisit to the game, and I’ve loved every minute of it. But it’s also made me miss the series – but that’s a write-up for another time.

Maybe one day I’ll write about why I’m counting all these days for a new Splinter Cell game. Ubisoft, it has been 4,086 days since a new Splinter Cell game (non-animated series or guest spot in another game franchise, remake, BBC radio drama, or VR exclusive) was released.