Blur (Xbox 360) Preview
Posted by Jon Seddon on 09.17.2009
We see what happened after Project Gotham with a hands on session with Blur...
What do you most like to do in a racing game? According to Bizarre Entertainment, the answer is overtake and not, as you might have thought, win. I sat down with developers of the Project Gotham Racing series to see and play their new game, Blur, which is being published by Activision and will be available on both PS3 and 360. Release date pegged as November.
This is a racing game that attempts to mix the fun and hi jinks of games like Mario Kart with the hi-octane racing of the likes of PGR. Bizarre are also throwing into the mix a story mode with cut scenes and a social networking aspect, trying to capitalize on the ideas of Facebook etc. Originally, the social networking was all fake emails and messages from the AI drivers, but last week it was announced that the game would support Twitter and so your high scores will be Tweeted to your friends and rivals. Suddenly, its a real feature.
The game features real life licensed cars, but the developers have tweaked them to suit the game, maintaining the full support of the manufacturers. The courses are constructed from real life landmarks and road sections, but again they may have rearranged features or added sections of track in order to make the course race better.
During the single-player career mode, which sees you as an up-and-coming street racer, you'll globe trot from America to Europe and finally hit Japan. The races will take place in the twilight hours to make the most of the neon lighting effects the guys haved worked so hard on and fit within the world of street racing.
The Mario Kart reference comes from the power ups that you'll collect, which have names like Nitro, Shunt and Shield. The names give you a sense of what each one might do. You can can collect up to 5 of these powerups at once, although the demo we played only allowed a maximum of two. You can juggle which power up you use and if you get more than one of the same type its effect is multiplied. The developers were keen to stress that use of these items would rely on skill and judgment to maximize their usefulness and there would be no magic way to win. No Blue Shells in this game.
The mode we got to play was the 4-player party mode, which is played split screen. When asked if the game was played with just 3players, you got a little race course map in the 4th quadrant, there were some stern glares. We raced around both the Hackney (London) course and the Barcelona course. The first thing that was immediately obvious was the frenetic nature of the racing - with 19 other cars and the relatively small courses it felt like you were always in the thick of it. The controls were on the more casual side with the handbrake your most valuable ally on some of the tight turns. Getting the hang of the powerups was tricky whilst trying to watch where you were going - a second's look at where a victim of your Shunt was and you were straight into a wall.
I'm not sure what the full-screen experience is like, but with 4-player split screen it was often hard to see where you were going amongst the murk of London's Hackney Borough. This may however have been down to the bright lights and the contrast setting on the LCD we were using.
Races are over pretty quickly, which matches the party play style, meaning that even if you were ruined on this course you can quickly have another go. At the end of the race, you are scored on aspects such as your time and how many combos you got and you can then convert these to cash. You can then spend this cash on upgrading your vehicle. Whether you can carry these upgrades through the various modes, wasn't being revealed.
Given enough time to learn the courses, find the shortcuts and get used to the powerups, there could be some real fun to be had here, but I wasn't desperate to keep hold of my controller at the end of the session.
Spending most your time trying not to hit the scenery might not fit with the casual audience Bizarre think there is for this game, so hopefully, single player full-screen modes will allow you to see better and learn the tracks. Then you can invite your mates round, give them a good going over and prove that winning is everything in racing
