After being delayed by unspecified bugs that apparently don't affect Playstation 3's, the "Cagney" patch is out today for the 360 version of Burnout: Paradise, the deliriously fast racing/wrecking extravaganza from Criterion Games. Up next from the developer is a patch that adds motorcycles, but without the spectacular wreckage the series is known for. MTV's Stephen Totilo tried the new motorcyles at a press demo in New York and he has this to say after plowing his bike into various obstacles.

A crash with a motorcycle will be less dynamic. What I saw were crashed bikes that stayed fully intact. No loose wheels. No bent handlebars. And the rider? He or she — gender is also arriving in the next “Paradise” expansion — will disappear as your crashed bike skids on asphalts and smacks concrete.

Totilo implies this is because the game is T-rated, and having a motorcycle rider go sprawling across the concrete would be the stuff of an M-rating. Which clearly isn't true given the T-rating on the Flatout games with their bloodless bodies ejected gleefully through windshields. And for ragdoll motorcycles riders splatting into walls, look no further than Sony's T-rated Motorstorm.

I can't help but think there's something hypocritical about Criterion presenting sickeningly realistic car crashes, but reluctant to show the ragdoll of it all from the seat of a motorcycle. Besides, electing not to subject motorcycle riders to the harsh realities of Newtonian physics misses the point. Burnout is a fantasy game that plays light with the realistic depiction of horrific traffic accidents. What's the point of ghostly riders on indestructible motorcycles?

Either way, Totilo's justification for the glossed over motorcycle wrecks is that Burnout is about speed instead of crashes. That's like trying to excuse violence in a shooter by saying it's about firing a gun rather than people getting hit by the bullets. The crashes are a significant part of Burnout's gameplay, and they're central to the design. Far be it from me to look a gift horse in the mouth – after all, the upcoming motorcycle patch will be entirely free – but I'm not entirely convinced magically immune motorcycles belong in a game that so blithely embraces the joy of wrecks.