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Blur is an upcoming racing game published by Activision and Developed by Bizarre Creations, for those of you in the know you'll already be aware that Bizarre Creations are already known for their past racing games, having previously been involved with titles such as the Formula One racing games on the PlayStation and the Project Gotham Racing franchise spanning the Xbox and the Xbox 360 (Once described by Bill Gates as being his favourite game). Having being acquired by Activision they've been busily beavering away on a brand spanking new racing game franchise, the result is Blur, a mixture of fantasy and reality as real world cars get weapon based upgrades in fast and furious style races.
All the cars included in the game handle differently and this shows from the start, there are many different car types in each race ranging from the standard racing fair such as Dodge Vipers, to Ford Transit Vans (fitted with an F1 engine, don't worry about being lumbered with a two litre diesel engine spewing dirty black smoke), often you'll find yourself in a race with all kinds of vehicles. As the cars begin to pull away from the start line you can't help but notice someone has littered the track with glowing things that are floating in mid-air, these are the pick ups for your car and what brings Blur firmly into the arcade racing game genre; collecting these pick ups gives your car one of several abilities which can either help you gain advantage on the race track or protect you from others that mean you harm. Pickups can include weapons such as missiles or mines for you to drop but you can also protect yourself with shields, should you find your car has taken a kicking from the other competitors on the track then you can also find a power up to repair your car. More than one power up can be carried at the same time so you can always save one for when you need it most, there is nothing quite so satisfying as being in second place, on the final stretch of the lap with your competitor in front of you and blowing him away with a homing missile enabling you to take the lead at the last second.
Blur uses a levelling up system, levels are built upon by the number of fans that you have, the more fans, the higher your level; with this in mind its likely that you'll take a pummelling in your early races as the higher the level the better cars you have access to and therefore the more of a sitting duck you are on the track for those with experience, more of a fly waiting to be swatted out of the way than an obstacle to be taken seriously.
Listening to Bizarre Creations talk about the game gives the impression that this is more of an action game to them and you can see why after a couple of laps, there becomes sort of a strategy behind using the power-ups and saving them until you really need them, in fact you could even liken the game to the WipEout series of games given the games icon styling and the weapons available to you, knocking your competitors out of the way and hindering there chances of success on a track soon becomes second nature. But then of course, there is the track to negotiate as well, so, some racing skills do come in handy.
The full title will allow you to play offline and online with up to twenty racers online in the same match, or the game will allow you to party up to four player split-screen for those times when you've got you mates round for a gaming night, there's also integration with Twitter so you can make sure your mates know how your doing and indeed how they are doing as well, just to make sure you know if you can brag about your progress or keep your head down the next time you pass them in the street or bump into them in the local pub.
It's safe to say that this title is one to keep an eye on upon release, it's not quite as much an arcade game as say the Burnout series but it's not as much of a racing game as Project Gotham Racing either, it's definitely something different and that can't be a bad thing.
