Blur - The Online Experience.

Two pound for two months of Xbox Live? I couldn't resist, it's a world I haven't entered since the summer. But at first I was so happy with my purchase after I discovered practically a whole new game on Blur's online mode. Then I was reminded why I haven't had XBL since last summer... enjoy!

For whatever reason, there is much more of an incentive to come first online. I guess it is that natural competitive instinct, that when you are against human players, you just have to win. And this is where Blur quickly goes from being an exciting, fun experience, to one of controller throwing frustration.

There is no denying that when first booting up the Live portion of Blur, it is thrilling as hell. You're fighting tooth and nail with players around the world. Most of the game is blocked off to you, just asking you to keep fighting, keep levelling up, get that content just out of your reach. You notice yourself getting better quickly, notice yourself levelling up fast, twenty five or so levels in however and things take a drastic turn...

The main problem with Blur Online is that it is imbalanced. You can be level 50, have the best cars, the best mods and then a level 8 can fire a well placed Shunt and take your first position in the last few seconds of a race. This within theory is great, it means that, rather than say COD where if you're a level one with your shitty level one guns you have no chance against the level 50's, you actually always have a genuine chance to come first here.

In practice though, if I've fought my way up to level 50 (I'm not there yet, I'm level 34 - I'm just using fifty as like the big one, because it well, is) I like to feel I have gotten somewhere. I like to see it was worth me putting in all these hours into the game. I mean I don't mean I wanna have some gamebreaking mod that means no one can beat me now I have gotten there, but there is nothing more frustrating than getting through all those levels, applying all those mods, not just out driving everyone on the track but out classing them and realising that none of that matters, because if you Shunt or Bolt someone at the right moment, all of their hardwork vanishes in one bright, neon flash. And even worse than that, to say 'the right moment' would imply that people do it on purpose the reality is that Blur is such a clusterfuck of chaos, it reduces 95% of the game to chance.

That isn't to say there aren't preventative methods, there are mods and at least some skill involved that allow you to defend yourself. There are thrilling moments when you just manage to save yourself from that Shunt at the last moment or find a Powerup that really changes how you deal with Bolts or whatever else, but it rarely makes enough difference to allow me to say anything other than Blur Online is broken.

There are other problems too. Mods for example are three modifiers to your car, split into three categories. The problem then is, you find a loadout that works pretty well for you and so any new Mod you unlock, well it may be good, but if you have found one that works for you already it's unlikely you'll wanna try out a whole new system. They attempt to get around this by allowing you to create four custom sets of loadouts, but I really don't see who'd want to keep swapping their loadouts after every other race.

The same thing goes for cars, I have found little logic to the cars on Blur. I can race in a car, do well, love the car give it to someone else and they hate it. I can unlock a new car with improved stats in every area and still do worse than my 'shittier' car I was using before. To make unlocking new cars even more pointless they give your car upgrades as a reward for completing races with it, unless the new car is drastically better than the one I was already using, I'd rather keep the one that has plussed health, fan boosting and speed, thanks.

Plus, there is just the general dirtiness of online play too. Although there is nothing 'illegal' about say, causing a guy to spin out, it's still something you have to deliberately go out of your way to do. I can't count the amount of times a snobby level 50 caused me to spin out just because I was outracing him and he got frustrated.

Not to mention as well, there are barely any players online - you unlock gamemodes as you go but most of them I found to be empty, obviously this isn't really the games fault but I'm not surprised most gamemodes are a wasteland.

So do I recommend it? Blurs online is pointless. Once you have a cars and loadout you're comfortable with, there is rarely an unlock that makes it worth changing. And since it's a driving game where driving actually doesn't really matter, it's really just a game of chance, there is little reason to play - to get better at the game -because it really makes no difference. Blur basically makes itself unplayable online. 

Think About It!

-Locke