E3 2009: Blur Impressions

by: Chuck - posted: 6/4/2009 12:00:00 AM

Blur is the new racing game from the car nuts at Bizarre Creations and it’s bit of a departure for the folks who are known for their work on the highly detailed Project Gotham games. For their latest title they are working on a next generation kart game that puts a bit of a twist on the formula.

When most people thing of the kart genre they think of cutesy games usually involving turtle shells and stars. Blur is going to change that by bringing HD graphics, real world physics, and licensed, destructible cars to the genre.

The weapons in the game are handled differently as well. You can’t just fire a weapon and forget about it as the different weapons in the game require some skill. In Blur you can carry three offensive powers, barge, nitro, and shunt. The barge and shunt skills push cars to the side and front respectively while the nitro skill gives you the obvious speed boost.

While we didn't get a chance to play the game the game has a nice clean look to it and some very detailed car models that break apart nicely.  Game play is a bit more frantic than Project Gotham if only because the cars are constantly firing off powerups.  The game will also be going the route of modeling real locations but with an eye for less traveled locations than what Bizarre has done in the past.

Where the strategy comes into place is that you don’t want to fire the shunt directly into someone’s rear bumper as it will actually give them a speed boost, instead you want to hit them in the side as they turn to spin them or hit them in the rear right before they turn to push them into a barrier. It’s a nice system and a bit of a change up from what we normally see in the kart genre. The game will also have a few defensive items like shields so you’re not completely unprotected from the other 19 drivers on the road.

The game will also have a deep social networking component both in and out of the game. Inside the game you’ll interact with NPC’s and receive missions via comments and notes left from friends. When you go outside the game the NPC’s are replaced by your real world friends. Bizarre is going to be releasing a full API so that developers can use the data from the game to create a wide variety of applications (such as linking the game to Facebook and Twitter).

The game itself is actually pretty solid and it’s nice to see the folks at Bizarre taking an established genre in a new way. Gamers will get to try the game out when it ships this fall on the Xbox 360 and PS3