Review: Blur

[EvilSpaghetti]

Blur
Mobile Game Review

Title: Blur
Developer: Glu Mobile.
Publisher: Glu Mobile.
Release Date: Out now.
Format: J2ME
Game Features: Race using licensed cars.
Reviewed on: SE K800i

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Summary

Join the underground scene and battle rivals in high speed racing action! Like the console franchise take to the street to barge, shock and shunt your way from being a virtual nobody to an underground racing legend. As you fight for the lead position, snatch devastating power-ups to unleash nitro speed bursts and use powerful weapon attacks to take down rivals. Travel the globe from L.A. and San Francisco to Barcelona, London and more to take on the best the streets have to offer. Win races and earn cash to buy hot new rides and unlock real-world locations. Strap into today's hottest rides including the BMW M3, VW Golf W12 650, Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VI, Dodge Viper or Corvette ZR-1 and get ready for intense arcade-style racing!

Review

Today Blur, another game I have on the 360 and love playing, so when I heard that it was out on mobile I had to give it ago, I stopped playing the mobile version a long time ago, but I felt as if you, my readers deserved a review on it, so my question for today is... Does Blur mobile live up to it's bigger console version?

Now then what is Blur? Well think of is as Mario Kart for grown ups, not that Mario Kart is a kids game, it's just that Blur uses real licensed cars and has an all round mature feel about it.
So how does Blur mobile compare to the bigger console version? Not well I'm afraid, not well at all, if like me you like to think that the title of a game should generally suggest what the game is going to be like, Blur doesn't fail do deliver, on the console version that is, the mobile version however might as well have been called Slow, there's just no sense of speed whatsoever. Now I reviewed GRID a few years ago and well Blur feels and plays exactly the same as GRID, now what does that tell you? A modern game is performing the same, if not worse than a game of three years ago, it's not good, and for some reason Glu have tried to hard with the graphics, in fact they've pretty much ruined the game with them, maybe it was my phone, but the graphics tend to make the game slow at points, and personally I hate playing games that don't run smoothly.
As I said at the beginning of the review Blur is set in the style of Mario Kart, and you guessed it that means power-ups which also means you don't necessary need to have the fastest car to win, it's more of a case of picking up the right power-ups at the right times to win.
Picking up power-ups is a necessity in Blur as you'll find yourself up against seven cars and at the back of the grid every race, so fighting your way to the front is always going to be a bit of a task, not only because there are seven of them but as all cars seem to be racing at the same speed.
As with most racers on mobile these days acceleration is automatic, so really all you have to worry about is steering, breaking and using your power-ups, which are activated by the '5' on your keypad.
Continuing with the theme of power-ups one can't help but feel that they really are the high point of Blur as they give Blur something a little bit different of the arcade racers of today, as with the console version the power-ups are a mix of attack and defence, attack power-ups being shock, barge and shunt whilst defensive power-up are shield, repair and boost.
To be fair you can't really call Blur mobile a true racer as it doesn't really focus all that much on racing, think of it more as a destruction derby type game, okay it adds something different to arcade racing on mobile, but you can't help but feel that it's too different. Things could have been so much different if it wasn't for the fact that the amount of slow down caused by the the graphics ruin the feel of the game, now I'll take you back to a game that got the mix of graphics and gameplay perfect and that game was MotoGP 08, the developers of Blur mobile really should have looked at Moto GP and taken inspiration from it to make a truly great game, but they didn't and what we're left with is a mediocre game that has tried too hard to separate itself from the arcade racers of today.

Conclusion

So I asked the question, Does Blur mobile live up to it's bigger console version? And the simple answer to that is no, which is a shame because it can be done, look at the games I've reviewed in the past the few weeks, Splinter Cell: Conviction, C&C 4 those games have done it, so why couldn't Blur?

Screenshots

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Graphics: 3/10
Car models look good but in the end they ruin the flow of the game.

Sound: 6/10
Not too bad.

Game play:4/10
Let down by the graphics.

Story: 3/10
As with every mobile racer, lacking.

Overall Score: 4 out of 10

Download the game: Here.

[Kalmageddon]

Nice review!!!

[EvilSpaghetti]

Thanks.

[Luter]

the review is great but i cant say the same thing about the game

[Michelle]

Excellent review, Aaron

[EvilSpaghetti]

[Vishay]

Great Review!

[EvilSpaghetti]

Cheers.

[Vivian]

Great review Aaron.

[EvilSpaghetti]

Thanks Vivian.