blur

[Neil]

Anyone playing this?  Been on the multiplayer demo for most of today, it's great, like a cross between Super Mario Kart, and the ranking/unlock system of Call Of Duty.  Will likely be grabbing the full game, but I'm curious to know if it's any good.

EDIT:  Cheaper at play.com it seems - £25 Xbox 360, PS3 and £30 on PC

[Helvetica Scenario]

Yes, buy it! One of the best online games I've played for a while. I haven't struggled to find a full room yet either, which would happen quite a bit on the demo.

[chocky909]

I Mentioned this a while ago. The 360 version is £25 at play.com and I've just ordered it. I enjoyed the demo and online reviews seem largely favourable. I hope the online matchmaking is better than the demo though. It was a pain finding a game sometimes despite plenty of players online - I usually had to look in my recently played list and join via a previous competitor.

[rudi]

Can I join via PC?

[chocky909]

Doesn't look like it. I think there was a bit of confusion over the ability to send challenges to people using other platforms linked via Twitter and your PC but you can't actually play multiplayer with other consoles.

Get a 360 you tart.

[rudi]

: + (

[thr0b]

Blur is fantastic; it was the first demo I downloaded when I bought my 360 a few months ago - nothing wrong with being half a decade late to the party - and I loved the multiplayer. What the demo doesn't show you is the single player, which is also great fun, and through set challenges even makes the Mario Kart-like battle modes fun in single player.

In short - buy it.

[Neomod]

Just got this as it's now £9.99 on Play.

http://playcom.at/cookdandbombd?DURL=http://www.play.com/Games/Xbox360/4-/9925491/Blur/Product.html?searchstring=blur&searchtype=allproducts&searchsource=0&urlrefer=search

Looks fun.

[Big Jack McBastard]

Yeah Blur is cool, easy to get wrapped up in the online games

[Jim Jarmusch]

It's £9.98 on shopto.net and will arrive the next day. I'm still waiting on games from Play.com, they're so slow these days.

[Neomod]

I'm in no hurry. Still working through Arkham Asylum, Assassin's Creed 2, Bad Company 2, Just Cause 2, Bioshock and Fallout 3. I haven't even started Bioshock 2 yet.

I think the only game I've ever completed all of the achievements on is Battlefield 1943.

[Famous Mortimer]

I tried it and didn't care for it at all, but I'm more a Need For Speed / Burnout type of chappie.

[Pinckle Wicker]

am hooked since i got it just before Crimbo! Its great fun even though am getting panned online games. If you like Wipeout or Mario Cart then definetly get it and for a tenner its a total bargain.   

[chocky909]

I tried it and didn't care for it at all, but I'm more a Need For Speed / Burnout type of chappie.

Have you played Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit yet? It's basically Burnout: Chase HQ and plays beautifully, being more focussed on the driving than the weapons. I've yet to play it online though whereas with Blur it is the other way round.

[Neomod]

Only played it a couple of times and not online yet but this is excellent fun.

Good to see my old home town of Brighton in a game. Are the developers from there or something as it seems a bit of a random choice?

The only Burnout game I've played is Burnout paradise. It all got a bit samey after a while.

[Famous Mortimer]

Have you played Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit yet? It's basically Burnout: Chase HQ and plays beautifully, being more focussed on the driving than the weapons. I've yet to play it online though whereas with Blur it is the other way round.

I keep meaning to, but I'm always a little too skint (and don't have XBoxLive Gold).

Paradise is a bit samey, and those open-ended races only have one good route anyway, making the open-endedness just a way for your car to accidentally take a wrong turn every now and again and lose.

[Benjie Trufflesnort]

I'm obsessed with Legending up now. Halfway to Legend II. It's amazing how far I've come - from thinking the game was impossibly hard and everyone else must be cheating*, I now usually finish in the top three, with about 1 in 10 times coming in 1st - and that's with the basic level cars now I've chosen to Legend up (it resets your fan count to zero, so you have to build up again). Towards level 50 previously I was winning about 1 in 3.

The only slightly frustrating thing is the choice of courses online is limited to what mode you're in. I much prefer skirmish to extreme as if you fall behind early on with 20 people thrashing away, you're probably going to get shunted about 19 times a lap and you're stuffed for catching up. But that means you get fewer tracks to play on.

Not a massive problem, but it would be cool to get the same selection.

Also, not enough people play the team and hardcore modes, making it hard to get those achievements.

Anyway - I've now clocked up around 30 hours play on it - which was great for a game a paid 12 quid for.

[Neomod]

Having not read the manual what is this "legending up" of which you speak Benjie?

[Benjie Trufflesnort]

Once you reach Level 50 by collecting increasingly large numbers of fans, you can opt to get Legend status.

It sets your fan level back down to 1, so you need to collect up to 50 again - and resets all the challenges.

For this though, you start to get access to the Legendary cars - which are tighter, faster and more resilient than the others.

Only a couple at first, but then as you rank up the legend level, more and more.

I fyou are playing on line and are still relatively low, this will be why some people seemingly can finish 30 seconds ahead of everyone else, every time - they're probably on legend level 5 or above - where you start getting cars which are a real challenge to take on.

That's of course only if there are no other legends in the session - as they will have equally powerful cars and so it's much tighter at the top end.

I realised - I forgot to expand on my * before on cheating.

Talking to people during races it seems there is extensive cheating going on in the Blur world - but what use it is is questionable.

Firstly, it apparently very easy with a couple of pieces of software to max out your fan count and therefore legend up very quickly without any effort - and you don't need to chip your Xbox or anything - just have access to the save files by putting them on a USB drive.

However, as has been pointed out many times on line - the way to get great at Blur is to know the courses inside out - and you get that knowledge by racing them over and over. You might have an amazing car - but if you crash it in to every corner then you're still going to lose - so that level of cheating is pretty pointless.

The second, and more annoying cheat is one for people who've cracked their Xbox and are using some homebrew.

You'll see it a lot if you play a lot on line. It's basically something which scrambles your position to other players - making your car appear to jump randomly around - sometimes it's in the air, other times it leaping from the left to the right hand side of the track - all of this without effecting your play. It makes it impossible to target people with forward mines and bolts - or backward shunts, bolts and mines - which is key to getting ahead and staying ahead.

You'll notice if you're enjoying a session and then one of these cars appears, pretty quickly the session will empty - which is frustrating if you're doing well on the session scoreboard.

Quite why people feel the need to cheat on line baffles me - but there you go.

[Neomod]

I might hold off on the online for a bit then.