Blur (from Bizarre/Activision) - Does anyone still play?

[AG-wolf]

This game has absorbed the better portion of my last 2.5 years of gaming. I was in the private beta on Xbox Live back in Dec '09 or maybe just after new year's... A friend of mine was the one who got me the invite and introduced me to the game. He knew I loved Wipeout and said I'd probably like it. I fell in love with it immediately, and I was surprised that he actually enjoyed it as well, because he SUCKS at Wipeout and never liked the series :P

The beta eventually went open to the public, tons of people played, Bizarre put finishing touches and tweaks on the game (and broke some other stuff, but it's way too late now), and it launched in May 2010, up against a number of high-profile titles. Activision released it at a really bad time, they barely advertised or marketed it at all, and the game basically flopped.

BUT, it was still an AMAZING game. Far more complex, challenging, and rewarding than it's immediate launch competition (Split/Second), it looked and played BEAUTIFULLY, and every single race is almost literally a 160mph chess game.

I have logged nearly 40 days worth of play time on the Xbox 360 version, and just recently picked up the PS3 version for the hell of it. This game is the most addicting, consistently satisfying gaming experience I have ever encountered.. It's a shame that Activision will probably pull the plug on the servers sometime within the next year or two, so I've just kept on playing. No other game gives me the same sense of excitement EVERY time I play.

There are many different tactics for every course, mode, and vehicle... tons of things you can equip to give yourself an edge... there's an indescribable amount of meticulous planning that you have to do WHILE you're driving, so that you can be prepared for whatever might happen (defend against what the person behind you might be carrying, watch what the people in front of you pick up, decide if you want the shield on the left side of the 4th row of items that you'll hit in 2/3rds of a lap, position yourself on the track so you can weave through lightning if it spawns when you don't have a shield...). I actually wanted to write up a huge, detailed explanation of the game, because I feel like a lot of the people here could appreciate it. It's much more rewarding than Wipeout, at least compared to the newer WO games... the weapons and equips are definitely an integral part of the experience, but the game really forces you to drive well, too. It puts more of a precedent on driving than WO Pulse, HD, or 2048 do on proper piloting.

Here are a couple videos of me unabashedly abusing the Drifter mod... it gives you a nitro for every successful Super Drift you perform:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UCtOgVtIwg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyasCaonm8Y
but Drifter has gotten very cheap, as a lot of people have been chain-drifting down straightaways and through chicanes. Smearing their car against walls, and just disregarding the challenge of actually driving. I don't drift anymore unless I'm just messing around, it's much more fun to win when I've actually been very careful to keep my speed and avoid things... I like the technical aspect of having to fight with weapons WHILE driving, rather than just sitting half a lap in front of everyone else by spamming drifter.

At any rate, if anyone here plays this game, don't hesitate to shoot me a message. The game is a better experience on the 360, due to the nature of its interface and social architecture (plus the graphics are a lot clearer), but it's still the same thing on either machine. I've been on PSN more often recently, just for sake of leveling my profile, but I'll regularly be switching back and forth between the two.

PSN: AG-Wolf
XBL: AG Wolf 2097XL

There's also a small dedicated group of fans on Facebook, the remaining players have become their own sort of small community at around 200 people:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/202775333089676/

AG racing is all well and good, but let's see what some of you can do when you're grounded ;)

[ Stable-Frame | Shielding Efficiency | Master-Mine ]

[dreadofmondays]

I really do like this game. The release time was very disappointing and I don't think this game got the coverage it deserved. A perfect example of bad business.
But the game is fun, looks good, and I haven't yet had a chance to play multiplayer properly. You should hear from me soon ;)

[AG-wolf]

Multiplayer is the only reason to play the game; the single-player is pretty worthless outside of getting acquainted with tracks, cars, and power-ups. Hardly a good representation of how fantastic the online half is.

[Temet]

This game didn't deserve the poor success he had... it's a great game.
Unlike you, I liked the single player, it's challenging in high difficulty.

The drift trick is somehow a bit breaking the game to me.

I don't know if you played against Wotan (tones of vids of Blur on his youtube profile) but he truly is a fantastic player. I think he did the 20 (?) victories with all cars to have the best stats on all cars.
He's crazy ^^

[Colonel]

I bought Blur at launch, but didn't really get into it. I played a bit for a week or so (offline mostly I must say) but it just didn't grab me, so I lent it to andyf53. Since then however I've really fancied trying it again, and the bugger's lost it.

I had no idea it didn't do well commercially, I always assumed it was huge, so that's a surprise.

[Hellfire_WZ]

The actual racing side of things I actually quite liked, but it was the other things like the fan system that felt too distracting. I was more of a fan of Split/Second to be honest. I don't know, I may give it another go further down the line.

[AG-wolf]

well the "fan system" was actually adopted from Bizarre's other series, Project Gotham Racing, a very well-known and successful racing series on the Xbox and 360. I believe the old system referred to points as "Kudos" instead of "Fans," and it would reward you for different maneuvers and skillful driving. It seems like a nuisance at first, but when you're playing online, it adds an extra layer of fun to the game because you find yourself always pushing for a higher score... chaining your driving and attacks/defense, keeping your combo multiplier going, etc etc.

But really, the single player is nowhere near as enticing as the online half of the game. Its complexity really shines when you're pitted against 10-20 other people who are all living, breathing, thinking human beings, trying to gauge what they're going to do and adapt to their driving personality. Head games, risks, foresight, surprise.... When you get into a lobby with people who really know the game well, it becomes one of the most intense experiences you'll have with a game.

the scene on PS3 is a little different than the 360 side of things, actually. On 360, most of the remaining players are more methodical and, on the surface, more "civil," but they know when to hold back and when to make a break for things. On the PS3, it seems like everyone is always about to burst, attacking and ramming without reason, so you have to be a lot more focused on your immediate threats rather than planning ahead. I think the PS3 has connectivity with the PC version, too, and the PC version has a fair amount of cheaters... so I don't know how much that factors into things, but since I've been on the PS3 version I've been able to tell people where to go and how to get there, so even if anyone I've raced has been cheating, it apparently hasn't helped them much lol

[ExaltedR3V3NG3]

It's a shame that Activision will probably pull the plug on the servers sometime within the next year or two, so I've just kept on playing. No other game gives me the same sense of excitement EVERY time I play.


Don't worry if the servers are shut down, fortunately Bizarre has the LAN mode so maybe people would be able to play it using Xlink Kai or something similar :)

I played it quite a lot during 2010 (from the March beta) until a d*****bag ruined the experience (He was a loser at this game though), but I'd like to get to Blur again. In my case I've seen lots of people on SuperGrip vehicles (Astra, Megane, Scirocco) as they could go around corners too fast, but the car that brought me most wins was the Mustang GT-R Concept: unbelievable handling for a drift car! Actually it's the only car I have with candy paint xD

Also this was one of my achievements done in that Destruction Derby mode: 17000 fans in a single race http://i45.tinypic.com/105vbxt.jpg

Damn Activision, why they had to close Bizarre and more studios just to focus in a money-printing shooter...

[vincoof]

I didn't buy the game because I didn't have an XBOX when the game launched but I played it a couple of times and it's probably the best non-WipEout yet WipEout-like game I've played for years.

The multiplayer mode is very fun and I even had the chance to play it old-school multiplayer (split-screen - everyone in the same room to yell at us!) with 4 players on a ~80" screen which left 40" for every player which is more than enough. Lots of good memories from this game but definitely not enough considering we will probably never see a sequel.

[chalovak]

Love this game. I even call it WipEout with wheels.
Unfortunately haven't played it for awhile (became a "handheld" gamer, somehow). Anyway, wishing it to be released on Vita, though I realize the chance is very slim.

[AG-wolf]

Blur has about as much hope of seeing a sequel as Quantum Redshift :I Of course, if I won the lottery, I don't know which project I would fund lol :P Mr. Burcombe needs to come back to the forefront of this genre of gaming XD

at any rate, I just hope people here give the game an opportunity before it fades away into obscurity. I honestly think it's a better execution of the "driving & fighting" concept of gameplay than ANY Wipeout game in the last 10 years, at least as far as multiplayer goes... when you're in a room with 8-18 other human beings, all of whom you need to constantly be paying attention to and adapting to, it's the most exciting gaming experience available. And, aside from people abusing the drifter mod, every part of the game is completely balanced, so even if you're in last or the middle of the pack for 3/4ths of a race, you can still take first if you focus and pull your head out of your @ss.

so much fun.

[stin]

Blur????? huh!, seriously I do love this game, used to play for hours on end. I was hoping they will make another game and I just can`t see it`s happening. :(

That`s how, I picked MotorStorm Pacific Rift and MotorStorm Apocalypse to keep me going. :)

stevie:)

[Rapier Racer]

Blur is an awesome game I play from time to time. Sadly I would say there is almost definately no chance at all of a sequal seeing as Activision shut down Bizarre Creations because the game didn't sell 12 million copies...or it didn't find a commercial audience one of the two.

[Colonel]

Well I'm pleased to say andyf53 kindly bought me a new copy of Blur, so I'll try and get online this weekend for a bash. Might need a bit of practice first though, I imagine I'll get my arse kicked anyway.

[AG-wolf]

Understatement... the game's easy enough to just pick up and play, but there are so many little intricacies about the way cars handle, the way mods effect your vehicle or powerups... tracks take a long time to memorize for the best driving lines, best offensive and/or defensive strategies (what corners to anticipate incoming attacks or a strategically placed mine, where to trap people, the next two or three rows of powerups).

The single-player mode isn't really representative of the chaos and intensity of a good online race... it's fun in a relative sense, and can kind of get you familiar with cars, tracks, and powerups, as well as the points (read: Fans) system for leveling-up, but once you're done with the offline half of the game (if you bother completing it at all), there's little to keep you going back to it.

Good luck online, watch your rear view and pay close attention to all of the game's sound-effects... it's actually better to race without any music.

[AG-wolf]

Some good races with Wotan today; disappointed to see he's a bit of a shameless drifter, but at least he wasn't doing it EVERY SINGLE RACE like some people lol

He and I were clearly the two best drivers in the lobby we were in.

[Lithium007]

Last time I played this there were barely 20 names in the rooms. Shame as it was a great game. It's going for a fiver or less most everywhere just now so I thought it would've lasted longer

[Wotan]

Some good races with Wotan today; disappointed to see he's a bit of a shameless drifter, but at least he wasn't doing it EVERY SINGLE RACE like some people lol

He and I were clearly the two best drivers in the lobby we were in.


Yeah , i remember those races ;) . In my mind drifter isn't shameless but i can use front runner as well . If you are on blur mania's facebook page , we schedule some front runner lobbies sometimes . Usually i drift everywhere on main lobbies (everybody drifting these days) . But if i haven't the mood , i like putting my drifter off .
Well see you on tracks (without drifter ^^) :)

[UB3R~JKP]

This game was fantastic. Do kinda miss it.

[AG-wolf]

In my mind drifter isn't shameless but i can use front runner as well . If you are on blur mania's facebook page , we schedule some front runner lobbies sometimes . Usually i drift everywhere on main lobbies (everybody drifting these days) . But if i haven't the mood , i like putting my drifter off . The problem is Drifter will always be faster than anything else, if the person knows how to exploit it. It takes skill, but it's cheap when everyone else actually has to drive properly and pay attention to their racing lines, their throttle, their braking, etc etc. I'd say Front-Runner is lame, too, because you're getting extra Boosts, but it doesn't offer any other benefit. I use Stable-Frame 90% of the time because it gives you more road presence, protects you from battering-ram, you don't lose as much speed when you drive over rough terrain in an unsuited car (dirt/grass/etc), and you maintain an overall higher average top-speed... I think it's better than Front-Runner in the long run (or maybe I just never remember to keep an open slot for my power-ups at the end of each lap lol)

Once someone hits rank 50, regardless of legend (some people sit at Legend 0, Rank 50), you shouldn't need to rely on Drifter to win. It's fun every now and then, but the people who do it chronically are just cheap. I'd like to see them win without 20 extra Boosts each race.



This game has also ruined Wipeout HD online for me... WOHD literally can't hold my interest for more than ten minutes, it feels cheap, broken, and completely unbalanced. I try to go back to it every once in a while to justify owning a PS3, but it's mediocre and disappointing every time. Some of my complaints are things I haven't liked since the game came out, other things have simply come to light after seeing how much better Blur executes stuff or the type of challenge it offers in comparison to WOHD's brief, twitchy, over-before-you-know-it clusterf***. In contrast to WOHD, I can spend consecutive hours with Blur and not even realize it.

[GekkoP]

Interesting. Could you elaborate more on that comparison with Wipeout HD? I don't know Blur, and everytime I read about this I always see it compared to Split/Second. In fact, I want to buy one of these two soon, but I can't decide which one.

Are they any similar? Which one is better?

[UB3R~JKP]

Blur is like WipEout HD Fury but with cars pretty much. That is because it's a combat racer with a Neon'y glow to it. The weapons are very similiar, startingly similiar to be honest. It's a really good game but in my opinion the handling leaves much to be desired, having logged in about 150 hours+ of gametime.

If you are choosing between S/S and Blur it's important to note the games are often compared because these 2 and Modnation racers all came out within a month of each other, it's not difficult to see why both Blackrock and Bizzare where let go. Why try and fracture an already dwindling genre? Anyway, S/S suffers the same problem regarding handling, 'tank like' comes to mind but S/S is one of those games I recommend anyone to pick up.

In my opinion.
Blur - 8.8/10
S/S - 8.7/10

Whatever you choose, you are gonna have fun.

[AG-wolf]

Bleh Blur and Wipeout HD are only similar in the fact that they're a combat racing game. The intricacies and dynamics involved in either make them as different as Apples and Oranges.

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Wipeout HD is all about piloting. I'll admit, I'm not the best HD pilot out there, but I'm competent enough to usually hold my own. The problems with WOHD online stem from the unforgiving nature of the game's physics and weapons systems. A lot of pilots out there are INSANELY good, and I'd be okay with repeatedly losing to them, if it were the result of something I did as a pilot when racing. But that's not how the game works... it punishes you SO BADLY for taking a hit from even one SINGLE weapon, that you're basically screwed for the rest of the race.

--- With any attack, your ship comes to nearly a dead stop, you lose control of the craft for like three seconds (in races where a single lap might be 22 seconds, 3 seconds is an ETERNITY), and half the time you slide off the track entirely or sit at the wall while something else comes and blasts you while you're vulnerable.
--- sure, a shield could block any incoming/upcoming attack, but you're shooting yourself in the foot if you hold onto a shield for an entire race. You can't barrel-roll if you're not absorbing items to regain health, and you forgo potentially picking up a Boost or a Quake if your item slot isn't empty... and I say "potentially" because you're never even guaranteed one specific item over another
--- As far as bombs and mines are concerned, someone might say "just learn to avoid them," but in many places it's literally impossible to avoid a strip of mines... and half the time a Bomb will explode and hit you even if you're on the entire other side of the track! Your only chance is if you were lucky enough to get a shield from your most recent 1 or 2 weapons pads
--- Sure, you can deflect/block some weapons with others, but your item pick-up is such a crapshoot all the time that there's no way to be certain that you'll have a chance or not.
--- while you're juggling all this other bulls***, you're stuck with laps that are ritually 20-30 seconds long, leaving you with nearly no margin of error to make up for any indiscretions.

Wipeout HD online does require good piloting skill, but that's only about half of the equation, the other half is just stupid luck. One person could get half a dozen boosts in a race while someone else gets nothing. Or someone behind you could fire four quakes and keep you from ever having any opportunity at all. Add one or two elite pilots, and you'll never even have the luxury of seeing their ion-trail. It's all just frustrating and obnoxious... you could turn weapons off and leave it up to pure piloting, but then every race against a better pilot is a slap in the face, you might as well just sit in offline Time Trial at that point and avoid disappointing yourself. My entire experience with playing Wipeout online has been a nuisance, and it's unfortunate since I know the team worked really hard to make the game
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(I'm disregarding the single-player campaign of Blur because it's... it's alright, but pales in comparison to the online experience. This is primarily an online game, there's almost no point to play it without the challenge of a lobby of other human beings.)
Blur, is a complex matrix of driving ability, weapons skill, and intuitive human perception. The game was built by the people responsible for Metropolis Street Racer on Dreamcast, and the Project Gotham Racing series; they had an intelligent and capable team in charge of creating a game engine that was a fair balance between simulation and arcade gameplay physics...

--- the weight and momentum of your vehicle affects how it drives and how it responds to input and environment, wheels individually recognize traction and power, terrain influences grip/speed/accel/etc (asphalt vs dirt vs gravel vs grass vs water vs bush). Each of the +50 vehicles handle differently; compact coupe, bloated sedan, sleek sports car, lumbering truck or SUV... their center of gravity, their drivetrain, turning radius, etc all have different applications for the over TWO DOZEN tracks
--- the power-ups are all straightforward and balanced (single mine, 3 bolts, homing shunt attack, barge, lightning, shield, health, nitro). YOU CAN HOLD UP TO 3 AT A TIME, AND SWITCH BETWEEN THEM
-----You can use a barge to block/negate bolts, shunts, and mines
-----you can use a mine to block/absorb 2 bolts, shunts, and destroy other mines
-----you can use a shunt to block/absorb 2 bolts, a shunt, and destroy a mine
-----you can use bolts to destroy shunts and mines (requires two bolt hits), and one bolt will negate another bolt... if your aim is that good ;) lol
-----Barges are an immediate-range attack which emanate from your vehicle, they can't be negated without a shield, but they require that you be close to your victim
-----Bolts, shunts, mines, and nitro can all be fired forward OR reverse; reverse shunts don't have homing properties, forward mines only travel a finite distance before stopping, reverse nitro causes a shockwave/wall which stuns other vehicles and then gives you a lesser burst of speed than if you had fired it normally (forward/normal boost has no shockwave)
-----lightning spawns 3 large domes of electricity in front of first place (can you say "Blue Shell?")
-----health gives you health
-----shield blocks everything for its duration, but only absorbs one lightning dome (unless you have the Shielding Efficiency modifier applied to your vehicle...)
--- The power-ups are laid-out in a line spanning the width of the track, each line is always in the same spot on the course, and there are multiple lines of items at intervals over the distance of the track. THE WEAPONS ARE ALL VISIBLE, YOU KNOW WHAT ITEM YOU WILL BE PICKING UP AS YOU APPROACH THE NEXT LINE OF ITEMS. On some tracks, a few lines of items change between two or three combinations, but it's on a per-race basis, and you learn which ones are always static vs which ones might be different.
--- The item that another racer currently has selected is shown above their vehicle (unless it was something they received from a modifier like Bribe, Drifter, or Adaptive Shielding... I'll get to those)
--- Items can be dropped/discarded back onto the track if you don't want them, or if you're cooperating with someone whom you wish to help
--- Every sound in the game informs you of your surroundings, you can anticipate certain attacks or what another person is doing just by listening to every little thing; they spent a long time building the environment of the game, both visually and audibly, and it pays off very well (I don't even listen to music when I race, it's all just the gameplay sounds)
--- Races last typically between 2.5 and 5 minutes long, with 2, 3, or 4 laps depending on the location and class

-- > here's a 1minute video of one of the in-game tutorials to explain some of this stuff: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDKantywKQA < --

And this is where a lot of the game's strategy starts coming into play... After you're familiar with the layout of a track and where each item line is, you can map out a plan of attack... You may choose to grab a shield, thinking ahead to get a boost for a nasty corner after that; this lets you shield any incoming attack and boost through the corner safely. Or maybe you'll grab a shunt or bolts and the boost; taking your chances so you can boost out of the corner and fire backwards for some unwitting sap to round the corner and take your attack to the face. Maybe you'll grab a mine and leave it on top of a nitro, so that someone else can't pick it up, but that's only useful if they don't have something to block/destroy it so maybe you shouldn't do it if they might have just picked up a barge or a shield? What if you're carrying two or three benign items like a health and a barge, you can drop both of them right in front of a boost- that way, if the next person doesn't have enough empty slots or isn't prepared to quickly drop something, you've effectively just blocked them from getting the boost...

There are SO MANY variables to take into consideration when you know the possible order of weapons, but being able to carry 3 items for any length of time, firing/dropping them at whatever order and point you choose, means you also have to really focus on how other people are playing. Watch what racing lines they take, watch how aggressive they are- do they fire immediately or hold onto things and wait til an opportune shot? Do they race civil or smash into you? Do they fire first or wait to see what you do? What risks do they take? Do they disregard certain weapons in favor of something else? It forces you to be cognizant of so many different little intricate things, to the point that every race is like a 160mph chess match... You know that making a certain decision or taking a particular risk at the beginning of Lap 2 might cost you the race by the end of the 3rd lap if you don't stay on top of things; one too many shunts might traipse their way up to you, a bunch of people at the back of the pack might all dive for lightning and leave you screwed if you didn't bother picking up a couple shields.

you spend as much time looking in front of you as watching your track radar and rear-view mirror to see who is where. You can press a button which brings up a list of everyone in the race, their position, their player rank, and the Mods they're using; this way you know if you have to worry about a more skilled veteran or some trigger-happy noob, or you can tell if some low-rank is doing unusually well then they might be a problem. If someone is using a certain batch of mods, you know whether you have to be more defensive against certain attacks, you have a better strategy for fighting more challenging opponents, etc etc.

Mods are another element to the game; there are three banks of 8 different mods that you can equip to your vehicle (you get to pick one of each bank)... some are offensive, some are defensive, some amplify or reduce the effectiveness of your own items or incoming attacks, some change the handling characteristics of your vehicle or the payout of points for different maneuvers, sometimes two mods will work in tandem, sometimes one mod will counteract two mods. For the most part, every mod has another mod to counterbalance it; one might deal extra damage when smashing into a vehicle while its opposite negates the added damage and makes your car more stable. One turns every power-up you discard on the track into a damaging decoy while another allows you to pick them up like a normal item... The diversity of these adds an exponential layer to the strategy involved with finishing on the podium. I literally can't explain how every one of them affects things in the game if you're not already a little familiar with it, because they all have a sort of spider-web like connection with different aspects of what goes on. Just know that it really asks you to learn everything that happens in the game lol :P
I typically use a specific combination of mods which compliment the way I play and how attentive I am of my surroundings in the game, but you can't always rely on the same mods for every track/class/event, though.

All of these things combine into an experience that is almost consistently intense every race. I, personally, have never encountered a more engaging and addictive game than Blur; I've already logged at least 45 days of playtime across my primary and secondary accounts on Xbox and my account on PS3 (and I wouldn't hesitate to say the total might be pushing nearly 60 days if you include the time I spent with the private beta on the Xbox before the game was finalized)... I don't know what kind of a challenge or experience other people are looking for in a game, but something about Blur just pushes all the right buttons for me. I was furious at how Activision fumbled the launch of the game; bad timing, bad support, didn't give the developers any opportunity to iron out some issues, didn't give them a chance to set up ANY of the online stat-tracking and social-networking functions they originally planned... Activision basically dumped the game on the market and then immediately ignored it and pushed Bizarre Creations onto their next project. Within three months of the game's launch, Activision said the genre (battle racing, etc) wasn't worth any further pursuit and they completely disregarded it. Blur was essentially a +2 year effort to revitalize the genre as a whole and build an entirely new IP, and after all the money and time that Activision poured into Bizarre to craft this masterpiece, they shot themselves in the foot by completely mismanaging everything about the game from the moment it hit store shelves. To add insult to injury, Activision killed-off Bizarre like 6 months later (for all you Wipeout-exclusive die-hards, that's akin to Sony disolving Studio Liverpool and previously Psygnosis.)

Unfortunately, now Blur suffers from a significantly low user base... it's not that you can't often find (usually) full 10-man or 20-man lobbies, but sometimes you're stuck with thin competition. A lot of people who still play the game now (after nearly 3 years) have played it so much that they're going to be a strong challenge until you get acquainted with it, so it might feel discouraging. And nobody knows when the servers will finally be taken off-line; every online game has a finite lifespan before the producers disable its online infrastructure... that day might be around the corner, or it may still have another couple years. But for a game that was projected to consistently have thousands of players (sometimes in the tens of thousands) at any given moment, yet you might only see 200 - 300 on a good day, I ca't imagine Activision will nurse its bast**d lovechild for much longer :(

if you want a few more examples of the insanity, here are a couple more video links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VL4t__1aozI - relatively casual race
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RnTiL40mlo - very intense/difficult race against other veterans. Low-res webcam, but you can see what's happening. WARNING: I rage, turn your volume down lol
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgN2MFNslI4 - 1080p recording of a lobby of veteran racers, no Drifter or Front-Runner mods allowed. This isn't my recording, but I do finish 2nd place :3
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And as far as split/Second goes, it gets old quick. The CPU vehicles have bad rubber-banding (can always catch up no matter what, like the 2005 NFS: Most Wanted) in single-player, the destructible areas on the courses are the same all the time and once you've learned where each spot is, it's easy to prepare for and avoid... it takes a lot of the dynamic human-competition aspects out of the race when you can be like "I'll just go over here to avoid X and watch out that someone doesn't bash into me and I'm good." The game is flashy and initially attractive but gets redundant quickly, its racing engine is too generic and doesn't offer a good sense of the track, the weight and momentum of the vehicles, or the speed you're traveling. I appreciate that Disney was trying for something kinda new/different for the racing genre, but it just felt kinda shallow. It wasn't enticing enough for me at least.

[GekkoP]

Though you did not convince me about Wipeout HD issues, you sure got my attention on Blur with that in-depth description. Videos look pretty good, I'll go with it as soon as I find it at a good price.

[chalovak]

Do not forget that there IS still a connection (one at least), that makes people compare WO and Blur and say that there is some WipEout vibe in Blur. This connection is Karl Jones, art director of Fury and lead designer of 2048, who was working on Blur at Bizzare Creations for awhile.

PS. Blur is a crazy game, love every bit of it.