Blur is a game that advertises itself as a realistic game with unrealistic properties or more specifically power-ups. Between this and the many racing games that have come out in the month of may is this worth your purchase? Bizarre Creations sure packed a lot into this game which can potentially have a lot of bang for your buck but do all of the features in this game perform well? Or will this game just be a Blur in your memory.
Where Power-Ups Meet Reality
Let’s start off with how this game performs. The graphics in this game are noticeably bad but what’s also noticeable is the amount of special effects they use to cover up the graphics. No matter how much make-up you put on an ugly doll it’s still an ugly doll. The anti-aliasing is a tad low and the some of the environments look like low res pictures that turn when you drive past. However, the frame rate is solid and no matter what the game still stays smooth. As I mentioned though there are a lot of effects that hide the “Blurry” scenery but the two most seen effects are the futuristic lens flare and the moving light waves. This theme starts to become repetitive about halfway through the story but then again this kind of complaint begins to become nit-picking. One thing I do like however is the menu style. The menu’s are straight up sexy as they are sleek, smooth, and simple and straight forward. The sound in this game is nothing special however. The car sounds seem muffled and the soundtrack is nothing to get too excited about. There are in-game soundtracks and the game really saves itself with that. Too little games utilize in-game music today on PS3. The only problem with the in-game music in Blur is that the quality does degrade slightly when listening to it in-game and the in-game music doesn’t work when in an online race. When your done with online the in-game music automatically starts back up.
Fairly large Color palette
Blur has a sleek presentation and the theme behind is nice. Some people may not like it as much as other game styles but it works for what it’s there for. The load times are slightly long but that’s okay because, while you are loading a level there is an overview of what you will be doing in each event. The story is structured a lot like Split/Second in terms of overall career mode progression. To progress through the career you need to accomplish certain requirements to race a big time rival (sort of like a boss). These rivals or opponents are very fun and sometimes very difficult in races where you need to beat them in a one on one or eliminate their car. As you play the career more opponents will unlock with a list of new events for you to play. Each boss has a special car and mod you earn when defeating them and we’ll talk about mods later. The challenges/requirements you must complete to face a boss are really fun because they can be literally anything. Dodging a certain number of attacks to completing a fan run (which we will talk about later as well) are just some of the things you end up doing to face a boss. After completing an event you get a different amount of lights 3 lights for third, four lights for second, and 5 lights for first. You can get an extra two lights in every event by completing a fan run or achieving the fan goal. You can acquire a total of 50 lights in any opponent/bosses event line-up. A fan system is well integrated into this game to show your progression. By doing well in a race or performing special actions during a race you will earn more fans and as you get more fans you can unlock more cars and their actual cars that people actually drive. Yes you can see people driving the cars in this game rather than no one or some pro racer with a helmet on. One thing that is nice is that there is not much customization for cars the color scheme for each car can be changed to a large variety of options with a huge color palette and different patterns to choose from there is a lot that can set your car apart from the others.
Speaking of cars there are a lot of them, more than you will probably ever use. They are real cars too from companies like Ford and Toyota. It’s nice to see that in a game that isn’t totally realistic. Each car obviously has their stats for grip, speed, acceleration, and difficulty. However for a game like this it is surprising to see speed classes. A, B, C, and D speed classes are included in this title and the this further represents the aimed mix of realistic and unrealistic racing games to bring them both into one theater. Now keep in mind you can only race cars of the same speed class which I believe is a good thing. Each car has its own challenges adding even more to the game. You just need to keep in mind that defeating a boss or beating a difficult event could all be about the car you choose.
This game also has a photo book feature that is pretty decent. Any time during a career race you can take a picture. When you go into photo mode you can move your camera in almost any direction around your car allowing you a lot of freedom with your shots. After you take your pictures you can view them at the main menu. The only problem is that I did not find any type of system for putting these pictures on your hard drive. You could only upload them to blur’s website or to facebook. I find this a nice thing to have for this game I mention this because this game gives you more freedom with this feature than other games do.
Let’s Talk about the Power-ups First I will describe them to you then tell you how I fell about them.
- Mine – lay a mine in the road to blast the opponents behind you
- Shunt – acts like a homing missile
- Nitro – boost your car to high speeds
- Shock – Place 3 lighting traps ahead of you to hurt your enemies
- Barge – Release a radiant blast that hurts the cars that are around you (useful in matches with 20 cars)
- Bolt – Fire a bolt in a straight line in-front or behind you
- Shield – temporarily shields attacks from enemies
- Repair – Repairs your damaged vehicle
So now you know what each power-up does now my issue with these power-ups is that they are not that “powerful” they can slow your enemies down a bit but they never do anything that is irrecoverable. When you finally do something to an opponent to wreck them they still respawn. So after all your effort in killing your opponent they still just respawn. Now wrecking someone isn’t that effective still as they can recover within usually 30 seconds of the wreck. In my opinion I think this all makes the power-ups less effective and are never something that is a real threat in the game. The best part of this game I feel is not the power-ups but the genuine racing gameplay.
4-player split-screen!
The gameplay in blur is something that can be an acquired taste for some. It has a slow start getting into it but in the end can mean for some great fun. The career starts you off in a bad way for those new to this style of racing however it quickly picks up and gets you really in the game. If this game is an experiment to see if realism can mix with non-realistic elements than I have to say it is a success. The racing is flat out fun and can be hectic at times and professionally smooth at others. This game has some pretty good gametypes to keep you interested as well. There is obviously your standard racing but there is also things like destruction which is similar to burnout’s road rage gametype but instead of shoving people out of the game you need to use power-ups to eliminate them. Checkpoint is fun and classic, it’s a time trial where you have to hit nitro’s and clock stopping icons to make sure you can pass the finish line with at least 20 seconds left for 5 lights. Motor mash is a gametype similar to twisted metal in the way that it is an all out death-match in an arena map. There are even team matches where you and your team help each other in a race or death-match. I know what your thinking, how do you have a team based race? Well it’s difficult and doesn’t work all the time but in theory it is where you can help out your team mates in a race by dropping power-ups for them and targeting enemies instead of friends. This works if you have friends with mic but otherwise most players are kind of greedy and don’t pay attention to the teamwork in my experience online playing this gametype. Team match works better in the motor mash gametype. Motor Mash is fun but not fun enough to be something I would play often. The level design in this game is nothing to get excited about. All of the levels in this game appear pretty bland and there is nothing that jumps out. Some of the turns on these levels can be really tricky making some of the maps avoidable to new players. One thing that was impressive though in blur is that the AI is really smart, They can pull off tricks in this game that you wouldn’t expect to see offline. All in all the gameplay may be an acquired taste for some but a good taste at that. Hough the levels are nothing to jump out of your seat about and the power-ups ineffective most of the time the driving is nice and diverse and represents a great diversion from most of the racing games that are out there today. There are two features of the gameplay here which are really nice and make a very interesting game mechanic. One if which is seeing you opponent or team member’s power-ups they have. If you can tell someone is in front of you with a mine then you know you shouldn’t drive behind them. The other feature is that You can destroy mines or incoming shunts with other power-ups. So not every time you use a power-up does it become effective. I know this is something that kind of lowers the usefulness of the power-ups even more but in this case I actually like this feature. One thing I would have liked is a tutorial rather than explanatory videos spread throughout the career mode. All of these videos are accessible though at the menu. One last thing I want to talk about is the Fan runs and Fan demands. These can be really fun yet really challenging in your race events. A fan run is where you pass through a number of gates that show up on the map if you make it through them all you gain extra fans. The fan demands are similar in the way that they are special things you need to do in a time limit to gain extra fans such as nitro overtakes or drifting bolt hit. These fan demands can be various in each event but are a cool feature. If you can’t tell already this game is JAM PACKED with features.
Let’s talk about the online. Online servers are unstable 25% of the time you play online maybe less as the game continues its life-cycle and gets more servers. 20 vs. 20 can be really hectic and really fun when everyone is using power-ups wrecks happen more often than career mode making the power-ups a little more adamant online. For ranking up online it uses the same fan system you can see in career mode. Ranking up in online in this game isn’t impossible like other games out there it actually feels like it’s a reachable goal when you start ranking up. You will have to unlock a special set of cars for online however that is not a bad thing. I wouldn’t want to be someone who 100% the story and then uses the best cars at rank 1 in online. Another great thing about online is that there are special playlist for lower rank people so you aren’t really thrown into a sh!t-storm when you get online. The online is well balanced where people who are new to the game get a chance but those who have earned their skill at the game are the ones who usually do well. Four player split-screen is a very nice addition to this game however. Split-screen games are also too rare and blur has it for 4 people. The online takes a while to get into but once your there, it will probably be a while before you leave. After getting into online from the menu you chose a playlist (not all of them are unlocked until you rank up) after you chose a playlist you want to do or is right for you. Though you spend a while getting into a good lobby. Once there you are set to be stream-lined to all the online fun you can have. With Host migration in the lobby and map voting (a BIG plus for this game) the online fun can last for hours on end. Another interesting aspect is if you join a lobby in mid race you are still put into the lobby however there is a preview mode that allows you to see what’s going on in the race via a picture of the track with however many tiny dots to represent where the cars are at. This features is kind of laggy but interesting. I would have rather liked to be put in as a spectator though than watch a bunch of dots travel along a line. After winning a race it’s likely that you will have a special title for that race. Titles in this game at the end of races are just things that tell what you did most or least for that race for example squirrel is acquiring the moist power-ups while gladiator is causing the most damage. There are others for things like fastest lap and best accuracy. PSN avatar images are more utilized in this game than others. At the lobby you can see everyone’s PSN avatar and they are seen often through-out online. I like this because it’s something you don’t really see much in games. There are AI bots for split-screen as well which is nice however not really being able to turn them off isn’t fun but I’m not really complaining. The last thing I want to talk about for online multiplayer is the perk load out system. You have 4 perk load outs that you can customize for online the way it works is that each load out has 3 perks or special effect during the race. These can be anything from taking less damage from collisions to gaining an extra fan bonus and even specials for your shield. It’s nice but sometimes you don’t even notice you have it on when your playing online there are lots of mods for your load-outs you can unlock as you progress through the online.
Now let’s talk about the trophies for all of you trophy hunters out there. What I think you will love the most about this game is that there is an trophy tracker. Every time you do something that gets you closer to your goal is shown on your in-game HUD with a little bubble that pops up! This is really useful and even comes in handy when reaching the requirements for each boss. Every time you complete a challenge you get a sticker (and usually a trophy but not every time). These stickers show up in your sticker collection but they don’t really do much. I was hoping for more reward from these stickers. There are a LOT of stickers and a LOT of challenges for this game and the platinum isn’t impossible to get either, it just takes time. With a challenge for every car online you might be spending a lot of time to complete this game to 100%. This is something you achievement guys will really love though: Friend Challenges! The way this works is that if you do really well on a certain event you can challenge your friends to do as good as or better than what you just did. You do need friends with this game to do this but in either case it is still a really fun feature.
Graphics aren't pretty underneath the effects
In conclusion Blur is a game with a lot of good features and though their main attraction might not attract everyone, the amount of special features they have in this game expand it more than enough to earn your respect. In my opinion Blur is a game that will not just blur past your memory rather. It is the full package and the most you can get in a $60 racing game. The good definitely outweigh the bad in this title. As I’ve said, it’s style of racing is an acquired taste but a VERY good one once it’s acquired. Blur will be a game that last for a long time with most that are really into the title and can even be a game that you will come back to later. To beat the main story will take you about 40 hours but the online can last forever and split-screen will also be a delight. A lot of the aspects of this game might require friends for the full experince though the game still is a jam packed title that is worth your money despite it’s short comings. This on game play over performance.
Tags: Activision, Bizarre Creations, Blur, PlayStation 3, Racing, Review