1621: Requiem for a Dead Game

Pour one out, if you will, for Blur.

Longtime readers may recall that I was rather enthusiastic about Blur when it first came out — largely for what I thought at the time was a good example of how to use “social features” effectively. Of course now, in 2014, “social features” are everywhere in games and have a habit of getting in the way more often than not, so I’m not entirely sure I still feel the same way, but Blur certainly had a lot going for it.

Looking back on my past entries, I realise that I never really waxed lyrical about what a remarkable game Blur truly was, though. I talked a bit about its developer Bizarre Creations — Blur was to be one of its last games — but not about what made Blur special.

For the unfamiliar, Blur was a racing game. Nothing unusual for Bizarre Creations, who had previously given us the wonderful Metropolis Street Racer on Dreamcast, which was succeeded by the Project Gotham Racing series on Xbox platforms. Both Metropolis Street Racer and Project Gotham Racing struck a good balance between the realism of “driving simulator” games such as Gran Turismo and Forza Motorsport, and the more arcadey thrills of titles like Ridge Racer and its ilk. Stuffed full of real-world cars screeching around beautifully depicted real-world locations mapped in what was considered for the time to be almost “photo-realistic” detail, both Metropolis Street Racer and Project Gotham in its various incarnations places a strong focus on driving stylishly in order to gain “kudos”. Powersliding around corners, overtaking your rivals, getting air off the crest of hills — all of it would add to your kudos bank, and there was an extremely addictive high score-chasing thrill to it all.

Blur, meanwhile, took the Project Gotham formula and added a twist that took it further from sim territory and well into the realms of arcade silliness. Although still involving real-life cars screeching around real-world locations, Blur went that extra step and incorporated power-ups too. Powerups that let you shoot homing missiles at your opponents, or rapid-fire bullets, or send out devastating shockwaves, or simply boost past your rivals while flipping them off.

Sound familiar? Sound a bit like Mario Kart? That’s because Blur pretty much was Mario Kart, albeit with much more realistic visuals and less fantastic tracks. It was genuinely something that hadn’t really been done before — there had been automotive combat games, but they tended to focus on destruction derby-style gameplay rather than racing with powerups — and thus it was immediately memorable.

And the multiplayer! My goodness, what a fantastic experience that was. Shamelessly lifting Call of Duty’s system of experience levels and unlocks, Blur’s multiplayer rewarded repeat play by providing you with all manner of ways to customise the way you play, as well as a selection of new cars to enjoy. The game was well-balanced, though, in that having a high rank didn’t necessarily confer you an advantage as such, just more options from which to choose. It was enormously addictive and, for someone like me who generally doesn’t enjoy competitive multiplayer games all that much, enjoyable for a surprisingly long time.

I booted the PC version up today after having a bit of a hankering to play again, and out of curiosity I fired up the multiplayer mode. There were four people online. Not four hundred, not four thousand; four. These people appeared to be actively playing, mind you, but it was certainly a far cry from the hundreds of people who used to populate the game. I admire their dedication to the game, but I also feel a bit sad that here we have an unfortunate aspect of the fast-moving nature of the modern games biz: Blur is unlikely to ever see a great deal of action as a multiplayer game again, making one of its best features now almost worthless. It’s a crying shame; Blur was sent out to die by Activision rather than being promoted properly — conspiracy theories have it that the company wanted an excuse to get rid of Bizarre Creations — and consequently never really had a chance to develop an active, long-life multiplayer community.

If I had a tad more influence, I’d do my best to try and gather people together for one last race around the game’s courses. But given that the PC version no longer appears to be available anywhere and the Xbox version requires an Xbox Live Gold subscription — which I no longer have — that’s something easier said than done.

I guess, then, that the good experiences of playing Blur multiplayer will have to live in my memory. The single-player is good — and still playable — but nothing quite compared to the thrill of taking on human opponents. It’s a pity very few people will have the opportunity to enjoy that, and I’m glad I had the chance to do so when the game was most active.