GC - Blur Hands On

From a distance, Blur looks like just any other driving game on the market. And there are certainly plenty of those floating around out there. It wasn’t until I got a hands-on that I realised that there is a lot more to Activision’s up-coming Blur than meets the eye.

Admittedly, Activision might be a bit hopeful considering that CEO Michael Griffith was quoted as saying that “Blur [will do] for racing what Call of Duty did for shooters”. But it is clear that Blur will definitely have something new to offer when it hits the track late this year. Developed by Bizarre Creations, the former team behind Project Gotham, the game is essentially an arcade racer with all of the attention to detail as their last effort on the 360. However staying on the track and getting great lap times is only a small part of the game with the inclusion of power-ups that make the game suddenly feel more like Mario Kart.

What this means is that at its core, Bizarre have taken their authentic and solid racing game engine and added a bucket-load of mayhem, strategy and combat into the mix. The game is also stunning to look at, with polished graphics and lighting effects that literally stopped people in their tracks at GamesCom.

The environments and maps in Blur are modeled off real-life locales such as Los Angeles and London. As too are the vehicles, with Dodge, BMW and Ford models being on the tasty roster of cars. But what is completely out of the pages of fiction are the combat based power-ups that you can collect to aid you on the tracks. There are currently six types:

Shock – shoots an electromagnetic pulse from your vehicle that targets a nearby car and stalls their engines temporarily.

Barge - emits a wave of plasma-like energy out of either side of your car that can knock nearby vehicles off the track. As you can imagine it’s most lethal on corners or at a junction to veer your opponent into a wall.

Shunt – this is sort of like the green turtle attack in Mario Kart. It launches a projectile from the front of your car but when it strikes your opponent, it sends them lurching forwards at an almost uncontrollable rate. If used correctly (ie: at a sharp bend) then it can cause the car in front of you to be nudged off the track allowing you to scurry past laughing (like an idiot as I did).

Nitro – is pretty self-explanatory. The brief burst of speed it delivers is ideal for clear stretches of road but the hazy blur effect that comes with it can make steering tricky.

Mines - another self explanatory weapon but the main one for dealing with tail-gaters. The mines in Blur are large enough to be easily spotted but clever use of them can cause havoc to a strategic driver.

And finally Repair is the last power-up available in Blur. Every car has a health or shield bar that gets depleted upon attacks or just poor driving. Blur also has an impressive damage engine that tracks every scratch and dent that is inflicted on your beloved ride. Using Repair fixes most of damage on your car.

All of these power-ups mentioned above (except for Repair) can be stored amongst three slots to be used one by one, or combined together for one uber power-up attack that can have devastating results.

The controls in Blur are very easy to get hold of, with the driving feeling instantly comfortable with a great sense of speed. What was harder to get the hang of though was the insane amount of mayhem happening during each race. With the games’ ultra bright, neon visuals littering the screen I felt like I needed sun-glasses half the time. But the game had an incredibly fun vibe to it and reminded me of the first time I played WipeOut. Blur is going to slip under the radar for while with the likes of Activision’s Modern Warfare 2 hogging the lime-light.

But I have a feeling that when Blur gets properly introduced, it will strike a very positive chord amongst the gaming community. Especially for those like myself who bore quickly of just driving around and around a track to shave off .7 seconds off my record. I want guns and explodey things. Only time will tell though and NZGamer.com will be right there to give you the inside word closer to launch.

NZGamer.com would like thank Activision, Capcom, Microsoft NZ, SCENZ, SEGA, THQ and Ubisoft for making this trip possible.

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