We looked at Blur a few months back prior to it’s release, since then we have been playing it you could say, quite a lot!!

The racing genre is one that is heavily saturated. In fact, one could say that it is overly full, with a pack of mediocre games competing with each other while a few float on top of the genre as the cream of the crop. Adding something new to the genre is tough, too, because there really is only so much that can be done with car racing. However, there are developers out there who think outside of the box… one of them being Bizarre Creations, the team behind Blur.

Blur presents the player with what initially seems to be a hybrid between traditional racing games and kart games. Sure, that’s a gross oversimplification, but let’s look at it objectively: Blur combines real world cars and realistic physics with on-track power-ups and abilities. Where a kart game would present the player with a level playing field, Blur introduces varied vehicle performance. Where a racing game would give the player a real-world experience, Blur gives them near-whimsical vehicle-based weaponry and a looser application of physics.

But the game is much more than just that. Blur tasks the player – in single player mode – with working through numerous challenges, presented as sets of races. Each race set has a boss to beat, which only becomes available when the player achieves certain preset goals within the group. There are numerous event types, ranging from frantic races in which twenty vehicles vie for the top spot, trading slams and weapons-fire, through to checkpoint based time trials and destruction events (which pit the player, armed with lots of weapons, against a bunch of drones.)

Each of these races is a visual feast, with high end graphics and well modelled vehicles complemented by stunning visual effects. The sound is excellent too, providing the player with much needed information, as well as audio flavour. The sound of an incoming weapon can help the player dodge at the right time, for example, and each car has a unique and authentic sound signature.

The game is surprisingly strategic, too. Most weapons have a default firing direction, but the player can change that quite easily, and to great effect. A mine fired forward, for example, makes an excellent, powerful short range weapon, while a boost fired in the opposite direction results in massive braking power, rather than breakneck speed. A clever player will be able to use the pickups extremely effectively, but this is no assurance of victory. While each car can carry up to three power-ups at a time, good driving will be essential to placing in the top three.

The AI drivers are extremely aggressive, even at the easiest play levels, and most wins will be skin-of-the-teeth affairs. The player will progress through the game in two ways.
Lights are earned for winning races, and fan numbers are increased by performing well on the track. Lights unlock new events, and fans unlock new vehicles. Vehicles, of which there are more than 55 licensed variants, are classified as either drifty, grippy, or somewhere inbetween.

There are also off-road vehicles, which lose less speed when leaving the track. The player will have to choose the right kind of vehicle to match events and their play style to get far in Blur, and will also have to complete not only overall race challenges, but little ‘Fan Demand’ challenges within the races themselves.

The game is exciting and very fast paced, often even frustrating. The only real issue it has is that it doesn’t lead to the kind of addiction that will have you playing for ages. After a few races, you’ll probably want to take a break, before getting back to it later. That isn’t really the case with the game’s very robust multiplayer, though. With the facility to have up to four competitors playing on split-screen (complemented by 16 AI players for the total of twenty) or up to twenty players per race, either online or via system-link (which is pretty astounding) the game is a multiplayer dream.

In addition to the power-ups that can be found on the track, Blur also allows racers to modify their vehicles with power-up modifiers, leading to a variety of results and further deepening the game’s strategy possibilities. And that’s really what Blur is all about – strategy. Fast-paced thinking while responding to a changing environment. It is, as a result, a challenging racer that, while not superrealistic, is great fun to play… and it is also a nice break from the run-of-the-mill, tired racing genre.

Big negative point for me – Blur is NOT compatible with the Logitech G25 steering wheel.

 

Review Based On Xbox 360 Version – Also available on the Wii and PS3

Codemasters’ latest racing title, Dirt 2, is an offroad racer that pits you against some of today’s top drivers. As a relative unknown, you don’t start with much but do well in a few races and you’ll find yourself with some sweet new rides. There are nearly forty vehicles in the game and each one is defined by it’s handling, acceleration, and top speed. Upgrades kits become available as you progress and although there is not a lot of vehicle customization and tuning available, there is some and it’s very straightforward even for beginners to tweak their rides to be more in line with their driving style.

Drivers of all skill level can play all the way through the career mode and have a blast doing it. With over 100 events, Dirt 2 will feed you hours upon hours of adrenaline pumping high-speed action before you finally reach the pinnacle of your offroad racing career, and that’s not even counting the superb multiplayer game. Wherever you race, you’ll be staging out of your RV which acts as a first-person interactive menu keeping you immersed in the game world. It also serves to display trophies and souvenirs you collect from the different races and locations you visit.

You can adjust difficulty settings prior to each race so if you’ve just started driving a new vehicle or your last run went a little more offroad than you would have liked you can tune it down for the next race. Conversely, if you were playing it safe but a few races in you feel like you’ve really got the hang of it and want to up the challenge you can, any time mid-career. There is also a flashback feature that allows you to undo driving mistakes mid-race. How many flashbacks you get is determined by what difficulty level you are currently playing at.

The AI is pretty good. Your opponents drive strategically and are not pushovers to beat, and when they do make mistakes they can be even more dangerous if you happen to be behind them. An odd little feature Codemasters added in is other (computer controlled) drivers will change their opinions of you over time depending on how well you do and your racing history. This is seen primarily by things they say to you during the race. It’s an interesting idea and certainly adds a bit more to the illusion that you’re really a part of their community and eventually they see you as one of their peers.

Multiplayer, while lacking a split-screen option, is otherwise fantastic. There is little-to-no lag and every experience from the single-player game is available in multiplayer: All game modes, all vehicles, all tracks. The vehicles and tracks, by the way, look amazing. They are somewhat stylized so people who crave ultra-realism may not be thrilled but if you’re at all flexible on that then you will be impressed by the way this game looks. Of course, a major complaint often tied to great looking games is that the framerate suffers when there’s too much going on at once. This doesn’t seem to be the case at all with Dirt 2, which had the occasional screen jitter but for the most part ran perfectly.

Overall, Dirt 2 is both an accessible racer anyone can and will enjoy, and a thrilling challenge for experienced veterans. If you love offroad racing, or if you just think you might “like” it, you will love this game.

Review Based On PS3 Version – Also available on the Xbox360

The Midnight Club racing game franchise’s entry into the PS3 market is visually stunning and difficult to master. Clearly the developers were keen to take advantage of the Playstation 3′s graphical capabilities and they did so very well. The cars look fantastic, the backdrops are jaw-dropping, and the sometimes grimy-looking streets make you really feel like you are speeding through the city of angels.

With a few cut-scenes and some brief back-story, the game manages to ease you into the game world quickly and doesn’t waste too much time before you find yourself behind the wheel. Not long after that you’ll begin to notice the dynamic environment: Time marches on and day turns into night, which eventually becomes day again. Sun is blocked out by clouds, which occasionally turn dark and pour sheets of glistening rain down onto the pavement, only to clear up a bit later and let the sun shine through again. It’s street racing gone-virtual-reality and it is one of the most immersive experiences ever offered for racing game fans. You’ll even see familiar brands like Pizza Hut and Holiday Inn while driving around the city.

 

Immersion can sometimes conflict with the ultimate purpose of a game though, and to some extent that happens with the map system in Midnight Club: Los Angeles. You have a minimap on your screen while racing but you can also zoom out seamlessly to an overhead view like a blimp camera or satellite photo of the area. It’s a gorgeous system but it completely lacks one thing: route information. You can set waypoints, but there is no easy way to keep track of which streets you need to take in order to get to each waypoint. It’s like having a fantastic GPS mounted to your dashboard that does everything except give you directions. This can mean making wrong turns during a race, and that wouldn’t be so bad except for the fact that the drivers you are up against (the AI ones at least) don’t make those mistakes.

Drive around for a bit and it won’t be long before you run into other drivers who are spoiling for a race. Flash your lights and pull up to the starting line to get going, earn respect and cold hard cash for doing well. There are several racing modes to keep things interesting and earning respect unlocks new vehicles and customization options. Unfortunately, while cash doesn’t often become a problem in this game you may find gaining enough respect to unlock your next intended purchase can sometimes be a frustrating endeavor.

This is in part due to the fact that Midnight Club: Los Angeles has some of the most flawless AI drivers you’ve ever been up against. The programmers did a great job teaching their computer drivers how to maneuver each hairpin turn but seemingly forgot to teach the computer to drop the ball every once in a while so you have a fighting chance. Ultimately this means a single error can cost you any given race. Although races are rated for difficulty, those ratings seem to be based on the course and not the AI drivers — so a course that’s easier for you is also easier for your competitor, making it not-easier-at-all to win.

Multiplayer is where this game really shines, primarily because you’re not racing against the computer anymore. There are several racing modes and the game supports up to 16 players at once, either on the internet or by system link. Midnight Club: Los Angeles is a very good game overall, but the one major flaw (flawless AI drivers) ends up making the single-player game less fun than it could have been. Still, you’ll have a blast and if you’re the type of racer who loves a challenge then this might become your new favorite game.

Review Based On Xbox 360 Version – Also available on the PS3 and Wii

Nearly twenty years after Nintendo sent some of their most famous characters onto the racetrack, Sega has decided it’s their turn. Granted a good chunk of Sega’s popular icons come directly from the Sonic franchise itself, which the title of this kart racer makes no secret of, and you may not even recognize or remember half the other racers Sega decided to include but don’t let that fool you. Cartoon celebrities do not a-great-kart-racer make. At least not not on their own. Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing has strong gameplay and excellent visuals that will quickly win you over.

The game offers 24 exquisitely animated race courses that include everything you’d expect from a kart racer, from power ups to shortcuts. They range in difficulty from challenging enough to keep your interest, to challenging enough to demand your full attention and some serious kart racing skills. Every detail of the tracks seems to have been considered by the design team. Brilliantly re-conceived, yet familiar landscapes based on your favorite Sega games fly by at high speed as you speed through the tracks. Twists and turns keep you barely able to maintain control on courses narrow enough to make the other racers a serious hazard to anyone trying to get to the front of the pack. From form to function this game doesn’t disappoint.

Where the game fails to impress is in the power-ups and character specific abilities. In short, there’s nothing new. You can snag missiles to fire at drivers ahead of you and bombs to drop in the path of karts coming up behind, and that’s certainly fun but it’s standard fare for a kart racer and almost requisite to the genre. Each character does have their own unique power that can be used once per race but while the animations are creative, relevant to the character (Sonic turns into Super-Sonic, etc), and fun to watch, the actual in-game effect each character’s power has is identical: you get to go really, really fast for a few seconds.

It would have been nice if Sega made these different abilities actually DO different things, like one character can get a super-weapon, but another creates an earthquake that knocks all the other drivers off the course briefly. It doesn’t take much imagination to figure how they might have really knocked it out of the park with these unique (looking) powers each character has. Thankfully, it doesn’t detract from the game at all, it’s just a sore point because it could have made this excellent kart racer something altogether magnificent.

The single player missions are well done and break up the the action nicely. You’re not always competing against a fleet of other racers for first place, much of the time you are tasked to collect certain items or perform specific maneuvers on course, which helps keep the game from getting monotonous. A plethora of unlockables also keeps the gameplay fresh and players will want to keep coming back for more. There is also a very strong multiplayer component that offers standard racing online, and a few more advanced options (such as battle mode) in split-screen. The split-screen mode with some friends is likely to be this game’s most popular because it is a straight-up blast.

Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing has smooth controls, great courses, beautiful graphics, and all wrapped in a shell that is stylistically and unmistakeably Sega. As a kart racer it doesn’t bring anything particularly new to the table, but it is definitely a game worth playing for both kart racing fanatics weary of continually replaying their classics, and also new players who have never jumped behind the wheel of a kart racer before.