When the beta code found its way into my inbox a couple of days ago it didn’t take too long for the 360 to be fired up and the beta client to find itself in my download queue.

For those perhaps unfamiliar with Blur then simply put it’s a bit like Mario Kart but with real cars, in fact when playing, it definitely feels like a kart racer trying to burst out of its carbon fibre bodywork exterior.

With half a dozen or so weapons to choose from ranging from Nitro Boosts to mines and the obligatory homing missile (it is red for what it matters).

The first thing you notice is just how easy it is to pick up, this is by no means driving akin to PGR or Forza, this is arcade racing to the core. Don’t expect to see cars taking the best line through a corner, breaking at precise moments, instead you’re more than likely to witness cars hurtling around the corner, breaking – sometimes, and bouncing off a wall or more likely another car to direct themselves back on target.

I shouldn’t imagine it would take any experienced gamer more than one race to get to grips with the controls, and even for the gaming uninitiated the learning curve should be easily manageable without any painful experiences of finding yourself alone in a big bag world as you might do if it was perhaps of the FPS genre.

Driving is only one part of the package, and while you will still need to be a good driver to get steady results you’ll also need to factor in any weapon usage. Weapons are easily identified as being scattered around the track, each one in its own brightly coloured box, usually in sets of three or four.

My experience with the weapons was a bit 50/50 and in some cases it can leave you with a rather bitter taste in your mouth as you seemingly get lambasted by attack after attack with little to do other than hope to find a shield or try some fancy manoeuvring. Then on the flip side of the coin there were experiences where I was involved in a classic dog fight, myself and my opponent jostling for the first place finish, trading blows as often as possible, him dropping a strategically placed mine through one of the last turns all but relegating me to a second place finish only to stumble upon a nitro boost which catapulted directly at his side and in a perfect position to use my Barge sending him spinning out leaving me to take home the glory.

It’s experiences like that which are all too common and despite being so simplistic in nature, perhaps a little bit too much at times it just all clicks together and becomes enormously good fun, even more so when you’ve got some friends in the same race as you as it’ll no doubt lead to some quality banter via party chat.

To say it can get hectic at the best of times is a bit of an understatement but when you throw twenty cars onto the same track then hectic turns out full blown pandemonium. There’s nothing like twenty cars hurtling towards that first turn, each one aiming directly at another with the sole intention of using them as some form of four wheeled cushion and then once the first weapon drop off is reached it is full blown carnage.

For me though was left feeling that it could have gone with the less is more approach, as despite as much fun a twenty person race over Live is, it sometimes gets a little too hectic for its own good and can quickly result in you finding yourself in a bit of a stop start situation where you can’t really get going and you’ll be most likely destined for a middle pack battle while the front leaders race ahead.

Fans are the experience points if you will within Blur and as you race you’ll soon start accumulating more, ranking up in the process which in turn unlocks not only new cars but other nifty little features such as different weapon setups.

The weapon setups were quite a nice find when I stumbled across them, and in short they basically allow you to customise your car setup depending on the style of driver you are. There’s no major changes going on, just a selection of smaller ones that just give you that slight variation from your opponent while all the time giving you just enough control under the hood to make it feel beneficial.

It’s not a technically gifted game, in the sense that those with a certain affinity for pixels would like, but despite the environment not looking as good as some of the other games being released this year it still looks aesthetically pleasing. After all, if you are body slamming into another car as you go through a corner, the last thing on your mind shouldn’t be “oh, that draw distance could be slightly better”. Graphically it looks good, it’s nothing special and like a lot of things Blur, it gets the job done.

Being a multiplayer beta there is obviously no single player on offer but if the online modes are anything to go by then Blur could very well fill the gap for gamers who want something a bit more grown up than Mario Kart and a bit more simple than Forza.

It may not have the level of detail we have been spoilt with in the racing genre lately but rest assured that if you fall for its charms then you could end up finding more time tearing around tracks than you perhaps imagined you would.

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