September 4th, 2009 -- Blur is an arcade-style racing game that focuses on fun, accessibility, and the thrill of racing, with just enough strategic elements and variety thrown in to ensure that its beauty isn’t only skin deep.
“Blur is the game we’ve been wanting to make for quite a while.”
-- Ben Ward, Studio Communications Manager for Bizarre Creations
And Bizarre is no stranger to quality racing games, having created Project Gotham Racing series for the Xbox and Xbox 360 while partnered with Microsoft.
Now Bizarre is set to redefine their racing games by kick-starting their new racing franchise -- Blur -- for the Xbox 360 and PC in November 2009.
Similar to Project Gotham Racing, Blur puts you behind any one of more than fifty real-world vehicles, each with their own handling characteristics.
Cars are classified as A, B, C, or D, with D being the lowest rated and Class-A the highest. Although every car features its own handling characteristics, those characteristics are expressed in very general terms to make it easy to pick a vehicle that suits your racing style—for example, cars that drift a lot, cars that hug the road, cars that accelerate better, etc.
“It’s all about fun rather than pure realism. We’ve not been slavish to reality.”
--Ben Ward, Studio Communications Manager, Bizarre Creations
However, despite the real-world vehicles and the variety of handling characteristics, everything is presented in an accessible, easy to understand manner. Blur clearly isn't aimed at hard core simulation racers -- it’s intended as a pure adrenaline-junky fun machine.
In short, you could probably safely say that Blur is a bit like Mario Kart in the trappings of a game made for grownups.
Like Kart racers, each race track in Blur is loaded with various power ups you can use to improve your speed, protect yourself, or mess up other racers. Power Ups include things like Shunt, Nitro, Repair, Barge, Mines, and Shields. The Power-ups are nothing new to the genre, but they do offer just enough strategic kick to the game to help keep its beauty from only running skin-deep.
Shunt fires a wave of energy at a car in front of you and knocks them about, while Barge has a similar effect but shoots out sideways from your car. Nitro offers short bursts of speed, and the mines power up lets you drop an explosive surprise for cars behind you. The fairly plentiful Repair power up restores your car if it’s been damaged, and Shields protect your car from other attacks (like Barge and Shunt) for brief periods.
Even if your car is severely damaged, it won't bring your car to a screeching halt -- it just slows up your car and compromises the handling a little until you run over a Repair power up, which seemed pretty plentiful.
If you collect two of the same power up, you can unleash a more powerful version of it. But no matter what Power-up you might get nailed with, they necessarily aren’t race-breakers. The game automatically restores your car after any crash or effect, so while getting hit with a Shunt from behind might slow you down, it isn’t necessarily death blow that sends you from first to last place. Blur is designed to maximize the fun and minimize the frustration, making it easy for new racers to pick up and play.
This proved to be true. In my hands-on experience with Blur, I was becoming fairly proficient at driving after only 2-3 races.
The single player game has a bit of a loose story to guide you through the game, and to keep things interesting it isn’t just all about winning race after race to advance in the game. For example, one race tasks you with letting your compatriot – an NPC named “no one” – win the race. Your job is to hang back and prevent other racers from passing him.
Other challenges are won by accumulating enough “Fans”. Fans are Blur’s equivalent to Kudos in the Project Gotham Racing games. Like Kudos, you earn fans for stylish driving, passing other cars, and pulling off spectacular maneuvers.
In keeping with the Blur’s goal to eliminate racing game frustration, even when you fail a challenge or lose a race, you’ll still get money for the effort, which can be used to upgrade your car. Again, this is to help minimize the player’s frustration with the game and keep “blockers” to a minimum. Eventually, you’ll get enough money to upgrade your car, win the race, and advance in the game with minimal frustration.
Blur supports up to 4-player multiplayer on the same screen (which worked well on the 50" screen we were playing on), or up to twenty player online play via Xbox Live on the Xbox 360. (Details of the PC release and its multiplayer capabilities haven’t been released yet.)
Blur is set to release for the Xbox 360 and PC in early November 2009.
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PAX 2009 BLUR game play video with commentary
Comments
But what are the system requirements? Is this another game that's going to require another new computer?
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