14 DAY TRIAL // A post mortem analysis and a series of images coming from an Electronic Arts employee have revealed that well-known racing series Burnout had a planned spin off for the Nintendo Wii home console and the DS line of handhelds, called Freestyle, which has been canceled when the developer moved on to work on the need for Speed franchise.
Paul Dibden, who is an outsource manager working for publisher Electronic Arts, has revealed the existence of the title and the information has been spotted by VG247 before it was taken down from the Internet.
The EA man offered a host of images taken from the Nintendo DS version of the game that suggested a title which aimed to capture the feeling of the Burnout concept even if the graphics of the device were not even close to those seen on gaming consoles and on the PC.
What is somewhat surprising is that Criterion thought of Freestyle as exclusive to Nintendo platforms, which traditionally have only welcome racing games when they were powered by popular characters like Mario and a host of his friends.
Criterion launched Burnout 2: Point of Impact on the Game Cube from Nintendo in 2002 and Burnout Legends arrived on the DS handheld.
Criterion latest effort is the new Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, which launched late in 2010 and was met with critical acclaim and a lot of love on the part of gamers.
The racing game managed to transmit a feeling of speed and danger to the player while delivering very well structured racing events and an Autolog feature which turns every race in a race between friends even for those who are not interested in actual multiplayer.
Criterion has not said whether they are planning to do more video games in the Need for Speed series but the success of Hot Pursuit means that we might see something new from them in 2012.