Race like a big boy.
Released in May 2010, Blur is the first racing game from Bizarre Creations since their takeover by Activision in 2007 (and their second overall, following Geometry Wars Retro Evolved 2). The best way to describe it is a Mascot Racer with the look of a standard racing game (sort of Project Gotham Racing meets Mario Kart). Up to 20 real-life cars at once engage in weapons-based combat.
For the Brit rock band, see here.
Blur has examples of
- Cap: The fan level maxes out at level 25 in single player, level 50 in multiplayer.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Remember that hippy chick that served as your very first boss in the main game, Shannon? Turns out she's both the announcer, your coach and the final boss. She also happens to be driving the Infinity+1 Car.
- Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: The powerups are colored so you can tell from a distance what to aim for. Nitro is green, Repair is gold, Shield is white, Shunt is red, Bolt is pink, Mine is orange, Barge is purple, Shock is light blue.
- Competing Product Potshot: The ad campaign
mocks Mario Kart and other cutesy Mascot Racers with a Toad Expy named Brock Lee expressing a desire to "race like a big boy".
- Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Every car has a health bar, and if you lose all your health, you respawn but lose valuable seconds.
- Lethal Joke Character: Each car class has some cars that are viewed by almost all players as completely terrible (notably, the Corvette C3 (Race) in class A, the Audi TT in class C, and the Renault Megane in class D), yet with skilled enough driving and use of the powerups, one can quite handily win a race in any of these vehicles. What someone started out using as a joke becomes their favorite car in the game.
- Shout-Out: Surprisingly, to its biggest rival, Mario Kart. At the end of the round several awards are given out. One of these is for the most Shunt hits called Crimson Carapace followed by a shell icon. May count as a Take That!.
- Wacky Racing: Between the arcade-inspired driving physics, the improbable challenges, and the use of powerups, the game can best be described as Mario Kart but with real-life vehicles.
