This coming year, to folks at Criterion Games have quite a lot in store for us for Burnout Paradise.

• Party Pack - On January 9th, they will be releasing the Party Pack, where up to 8 players can join in the fun and participate in a series of events to see who can come out on top. The pack was made specifically for some good, clean fun with your friends.
• Legendary Cars - Criterion created 4 new of this world sports supercars, one of which can actually hover and fly. They include the The Jansen 88 Special, Cavalry Bootlegger, Manhattan Spirit and the GT Nighthawk.
• Toy Cars - 9 toy sized cars have been made, including the Carson GT Concept P12, the Krieger Racing WTR, the Hunter Takedown 4×4 and the Hunter Manhattan.
• Boost Specials - If you like classic hotrods, with flaming exhausts, this add-on will satisfy your needs. There are 2 in this pack, one of which is the Carson Extreme Hotrod.
• Big Surf Island - Remember that closed suspensionn bridge in Paradise city? Well it will be finally opened once you get the Surf Island mod, which is a small island full of new stunt courses and buildings, etc.

You can get all these mods soon enough, but in February, the Ultimate Box will be released for the PS3, Xbox 360 and PC which will include all of these mega mods into one compiled package. So stay tuned for more on Burnout Paradise.

Continue the discussion of Burnout Paradise over in the forums.

GTA IV has made its mark in 2008, as it was ranked as the 3rd most played game of 2008 on the Xbox Live network. Forza Motorsport 2 also came in as the 19th most played game. Hopefully in 2009, we may see more racing based titles making the top charts. Below are the 20 most played games in 2008 on Xbox Live.

1. Halo 3
2. Call of Duty 4
3. GTA IV
4. Gears of War 2
5. Gears of War
6. CoD: World at War
7. Guitar Hero III
8. Battlefield: Bad Company Demo
9. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Demo
10. Rock Band
11. Fable II
12. Mirror’s Edge Demo
13. Madden NFL 09
14. BF: Bad Company
15. Rainbow Six Vegas 2
16. UNO
17. Castle Crashers
18. COD: World at War Multiplayer Beta
19. Forza Motorsport 2
20. Too Human - Demo

Talk more about GTA4 in the forums.

Over at the Forza Central forums, Badned the moderator posted some information about Forza Motorsport 3. It seems that a while back, Kaarbo Design, the people who designed the graphic menus for the original Forza game, posted 4 poster shots promoting different features of the game. Also noted was the fixture of the Forza 3 logo at the top of each picture. Currently these graphics are still available here, and Forza 3 is also listed in their games list over here. Some people claim this to be an accidental spill, but I think it’s just that no one saw it, since the post date on the poster page was October 16th 2008. I took a screen capture also of the two pages, just in case they pull it (which I highly doubt they would anyway).

**Update**

It seems that Kaarbo has pulled the screen shots and removed Forza 3 from their listings. So they are paying some attention I guess.

Here are 8 screen shots from Kart Attack, which is being developed by Blimey! Games and is set for release in 2009 for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. It’s a kart racing game which features lots of fantasy race circuits. The game is destined to go directly to the Playstation Network, Windows Live Arcade and Xbox Live Arcade. Screen below.

Here are 12 new shots from Race Pro. We get to see two things in particular in these shots: the weather and damage models. Even though the damage may not be as detailed as that of GRID or DiRT, it is still a significant improvement over the previous SimBin titles. Also, there are quite a number of internal cockpit visuals, which give us a good look at the details of the dashboard and much more. Check them out below.

Just over a month ago, PC fans got the chance to download the demo copy of MotoGP for the PC. Now an Xbox 360 version has been uploaded to the Marketplace for download. It’s free, weighs in at 377MB and is available for download to all except in Japan. Check it out today.