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Now, don't get me wrong when I go off here. I love Mark Hildreth. The man carried Gundam Wing as Heero Yuy, and hell, he was even in Pirates 3. But dammit, the fact that he's the one doing the voice of DJ Atomika in Burnout Paradise makes me hate him so hard.

First of all, he ("he" shall henceforth refer to DJ Atomika, not Mark Hildreth) won't shut the hell up. Ever. Even when you find the option to shut him up (which will require a Sherpa guide, by the way), he still doesn't shut up. Sure, he doesn't say things like "if you hit the e-brake, you'll go into an e-brake turn!" while you're just driving around- I'll give him that much. But in fact, the option is designed to make you hate him more. You see, when DJ Atomika talks now, it is only at the worst time he could possibly talk. I speak, of course, of when you lose an event.

It's not enough that there's no retry option, or that he's saying anything, which prevents me from driving away in quiet shame. No, he's gotta be a dick about it. He's gotta talk like a dick, and he's gotta say dick things. And not just standard dick things, either- we're talking "DUDE BRAH!" dick things. It essentially waters down to these things:

"Hey, you should drive faster next time!"
"Hey, you should get more points next time!"
"Hey, if someone hits you, you're gonna crash!"
"Hey, it's entirely your fault that not only did the game respawn you straight into a wall, but that you didn't even have time to accelerate before twelve cars rammed you into oblivion! Way to blow it, lewwwwser!"
"Hey, you should waste forty bucks on a glorified webcam so you can have your picture on some in-game driver's license that nobody gives a damn about!"

Since I am such a kind person, I am volunteering- yes, volunteering- to rewrite DJ Atomika's dialogue to be a little less subtle, a lot more straightforward, and reasonable. For a small fee, of course.

"If you had an Xbox Live Vision camera, you could've had your picture on your license. But you're not a consumer whore, so here's a picture that you had already picked out anyway."
"Good drivin', Tex, but next time here's a better way to go. Also, you suck."
"This is DJ Atomika, still not shutting the hell up."
"DJ Atomika, still not shutting up."
"I'm DJ Atomika; I don't shut up."
"I'm going to tell you what to do in such a vague fashion that you'll probably do way worse next time, all because of the blind rage that I've caused to well up deep within you! Smashed controller and therapy, here you come!"
"I was raised in a home that discouraged speaking unless spoken to. Once that psychological dam broke in college, I never shut the hell up again!"
"DRIVE FASTER, DOUCHEBAG."
"I know you're in the middle of a race and going two hundred miles per hour, but I need to cut you off and freeze the action to tell you about a compass at the top of the screen that would be better off as an arrow, or not existing at all! I'll do the same thing again while you're doing a barrel roll in the middle of the best stunt run you'll never land!"
"I!"
"Don't!"
"Shut!"
"The!"
"Hell!"
"Up!"
"I'll tell you the most worthless, self-explanatory things in the world, but I will never once tell you how to do things like Road Rules! No sir!"
"I'm the worst part of this game! What's worse, it wouldn't have made a difference whether I'm here or not! You paid sixty bucks to listen to me even when you don't want to! AHAHAHAHAHA!"

Honestly, the Showtime mode is the stupidest gameplay mechanic I've ever seen in a game, but I'd rather do that for an hour than have to listen to Captain Ahab the ShutUpLess for another minute.



Otherwise, though, Burnout Paradise is a great game! I'm going to go watch Gundam Wing in order to redeem Mark Hildreth in my eyes.




(Comic will go live at 3 AM EST. I have no control over that.)

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Episode 421: Tragic