Have you ever played Project Gotham Racing and thought to yourself, this would be awesome if I could get powerups and kill the other cars. Well so did Bizarre Creations and that's why they created Blur.

I got a closed door meeting with Bizarre Creations' newest racing title, Blur. Incorporating real cars and locations with arcade power ups, Blur does just that, blurs the line between Project Gotham Racing's realistic physics with Mario Kart's arcade style powerups, Blur is an all new kind of racer. I got to play two tracks, a simple oval style racetrack laden with powerups and wide roadways, and a more urban track (Hackney area of England) with twisty turns and narrow avenues.

Several car manufacturers, including Ford, GM, Renault, BMW, and Koeniggsegg (sp) all made appearances and we got assurance from Bizarre Creations's that there would be many more cars added. He said that although companies like Ferrari pulled out because, "they don't like to see their cars battling other cars or being damaged", that there would be around 80 cars, from various manufacturer's.

The tracks spanned more than 6 different areas including LA River, Hollywood, London, Japan, all with different racers, cars, and tracks. One of the ways the game creates suspension of disbelief is the community aspect of the game, which features a twitter/facebook/myspace style community that is updated by it's "members" (other AI races) after every race or during a big event. After a race in which you crashed into somebody or took them down, they would send a message saying that they would get me back the next time round.

One of the biggest selling points of the game is the 20 player multiplayer that is available. While it wasn't known whether it would be available on all the tracks, it was clear that they wanted it to be. The demo I played with 20 cars was excellent. There was no frame-rate droppage while all 19 cars were ahead of me, even when they were all fighting and using powerups. I did find, however, that I would be so intent on smashing another car that I took my eyes off the road, something that didn't happen in Mario Kart, hopefully they are able to remedy the situation by it's release in Q4 of this year.

While the game we saw and played was only a pre-alpha copy, I think that the game looks great and can only get better.