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Blur Beta

James Day  //  March 18, 2010


It just might provide an alternative to Mario Kart.

B

reaking from the studio's traditional style of driving games, Bizarre Creations' Blur looks to have a lot more in common with the Mario Kart games than its own immensely successfully Project Gotham Racing franchise. The developer recently gave a select number of gamers the chance to test drive the game in the form of a multiplayer beta, and I've been burning rubber ahead of its proper May release.

If you've ever played Nintendo's mascot racer or one of its numerous imitators, you'll immediately feel at home at with Blur. The premise is the same — drivers must battle it out for first place position aided by a small arsenal of over-the-top weapons.



Drivers must battle it out for first place position aided by a small arsenal of over-the-top weapons.
Though there are a couple of original power-ups in the game most come straight out of Mario Kart, specifically the speed boost, land mine and homing torpedo which are direct analogues to the mushroom, banana skin and turtle shell items.

Where it does diverge from Nintendo's game play is in the handling of its vehicles. Blur boasts much higher driving speeds thanks to the upgrade from karts to cars, and in addition to the loose arcade-style handling this is a much more frenetic and adrenaline-pumping experience.

The second mode found in the beta named Motor Mash also brings to mind another car combat classic — Vigilante 8. Here, racing goes out the window and the objective becomes simple vehicle-on-vehicle violence, as victory is determined by how much damage you can inflict upon fellow drivers. On top of the destruction that can be caused with power-ups, physical altercations between cars are much more likely, adding to the chaos of this freeform mode.



Motor Mash, where the objective becomes simple vehicle-on-vehicle violence.
Although most of the game's mechanics are borrowed from elsewhere, Blur sports its own distinct look. A neon-inspired aesthetic is present throughout, with bright and heavily oversaturated light sources layered purposely over a muted color palette. Also, the over-the-top arcade nature finds itself juxtaposed to both licensed car models and tracks based on actual locations, all-in-all creating a striking and almost surreal style.

The beta also gives a little taste of game's overarching level system. After every event you earn a certain number of fans depending on your performance. These are essentially experience points, and as you continue to accumulate them and move up the ranks you gradually open up new vehicles, game modes and upgrades. It's a pretty straightforward system but a necessary one both for bragging rights and incentivizing return visits.

Judging from the beta, Blur is looking like it will provide a good alternative to Mario Kart with a robust online infrastructure. Its neon imagery, licensed cars and real world tracks might even drawn in a new crowd of players who were otherwise adverse to the cheery comic style of Nintendo's racer.




Ed Kirchgessner // March 18, 2010 // 10:24 AM

After the disappointment that was PGR4 (at least in this humble gamer's opinion), it's nice to see that Bizarre Creations may be back at the top of their "game." I'm curious, James: how are the weapons presented? Are we talking oil slicks and smoke screens or surface-to-surface missiles?


Michael Ubaldi // March 18, 2010 // 12:56 PM

Are we talking oil slicks and smoke screens or surface-to-surface missiles?

Wait, wait, wait. That means we're talking Spy Hunter.


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