As it happens, I’ve been playing the Blur beta since it got released as a private one from way back. I guess I just kept forgetting to write about it. But hey, it’s officially a demo now, so time for a preview!

What is Blur, you ask? Why, it’s Bizarre Creations’ (makers of the Project Gotham series) newest racing title, with a heavy focus on the combat side of things. Essentially you’re looking at Mario Kart in a PGR style racing environment, complete with real life cars, twisty-turny circuits, and weapons.

So what’s gameplay like? Well, it’s you against up to 19 other racers, battling it out on the racetrack for first place. You can use different energy weapons picked up along the route to blast your opponents out of the way, all of which have fantastical names that I can’t remember, since I simply refer to them by their Mario Kart names. Essentially you’ve got your red shell, green shell, banana peel and mushroom, then some bonus stuff like a shield, a shockwave that blasts enemies away, and a really strange number that fires huge pits of lightning into the track ahead. It all works well and keeps the pace frantic and fun.

The cars you drive are all licensed and real, which makes the whole thing a slight bit more surreal than it already was, but it still works, and means that if you have any knowledge of cars, you’ll already know which ones are going to be good. The cars all handle well, although people seem to complain that drifting is a little too hard. There’s a science to it, sure, but it doesn’t take much to get used to it.

Surprisingly, lag isn’t such a major issue in Blur. Even with 20 people racing at the same time, lag manages to remain mostly unseen, and if it is there then it hardly gets in the way. The major problem in the closed beta was sometimes joining a match and having everyone else suddenly quit out, so you instantly won. Thankfully, this seems to have been resolved, which makes matches far more fun and easy to get going. Still, there’s been one too many occasions where I joined a game in progress, and had to sit in the lobby until it ended.

If you’ve played CoD (and you have, don’t lie) then you’ll know how levelling up in multiplayer is awesome, and every game should do it. Blur is no exception. In races you gain “fans” (or “kudos”, or “xp”, whatever you want to call it) that fill up a meter until you reach a new level. Levelling up unlocks newer, better cars and different starting bonuses, so at least you’re well rewarded for all your hard work.

Graphically, the game looks very pretty indeed, with a modern, almost futuristic art direction in the energy weapons and timer countdowns and such like. The cars are well crafted and look identical to their real life counterparts, though that’s come to be expected from Bizarre. The tracks are well made, although some are definitely much better than others (the country back roads, for example, really is much too long), but thankfully the voting system means you can usually skip out the ones you don’t like. All in all, it’s very pretty.

Sound wise, the cars all sound brilliant, and the explosions and collisions going on all the time add to the manic pace of the racing. There’s no music, but you can let that slide, given how load the engines are roaring at all times. Nothing much else to say hear, just top notch stuff.
So obviously you can see where I’m going with this; Blur is great. It’s fast paced and fun, and is sure to keep everyone entertained for months on end. Here’s hoping the single player is as good as the multiplayer!

Blur hits shelves on May 25th.

Wanna get your view across about this game? Let us know in the comments!