Beta be fast, Gone in a Blur

After hearing murmurings that Bizarre Creations’ upcoming Blur is like Mario Kart for grown ups, I jumped at the chance to get into the Multiplayer Beta. 1.44 gigabytes later, I was soaking in the presentation that IS Blur…

The menus are bold and simple [read BIG!], and I easily found myself in my first race. The transition from lobby to track is a bit of cinematic genius. Each track has a thumbnail image that displays as you wait. Once the track is loaded, this thumbnail expands almost seamlessly into the track flyby introduction.

With a dramatic rolling start (A brief moment of silence, please, for any Daytona USA fans in the room…), you know that this isn’t Project Gotham Racing in sheep’s clothing. Bizarre has stripped away sim aspects, such as the starting grid and manual transmissions, leveling the playing field and making Blur instantly accessible.

While Blur does feature vehicular combat akin to Mario Kart, the cars handle with realistic physics. No unrealistic power-slide boosts here, although there are nitro pickups to be found, along with various electrical weapons. Overall the game feels more like Kart of Duty: Modern Carfare. This is due to the publisher Activision’s influence.  Project Gotham’s Kudos system has been scrapped in favor of an experience point system, similar to the last three Call of Duty titles.

The XP unit in Blur is the fan. The more style you race with, and the higher your position, the more fans you earn per race. As you level up your fan-base, you unlock better vehicles to race with, and new customizable perks. Just like Call of Duty, there are three different perk categories, each with their own pool of benefits to choose from.

The Blur Beta gives you a taste of four of the game’s multiplayer tracks, in four different modes (there are several other game modes, currently locked in the beta). We gave out some codes late last week, keep your eyes peeled here in case we get any more. If you’ve already tried the beta (public beta started today, March 8th, 2010) let us know what you think!

Activision provided a Beta access code, upon which my impressions are based.

Popularity: 21% [?]