The only cure is more dead Volkswagens - A (latecomer's) look at Blur

BLUR
Developer: Bizarre Creations
Released: May 25, 2010



Now... I realize that I'm criminally late to the party but let's not waste any more time pussyfooting around this whole longwinded entry: BLUR is the single greatest car game ever made. Don't fucking question me, goddamnit, I'm just getting started. Developed by Bizarre (other games with cars in them) and directed by some dude who I looked up on wikipedia because I don't know a god damn thing about anything (my pants), the game was in development for well over 2 years. Most of the development team were also part of the now defunct development house 505 Games, whose previous titles include Mexican Taco Wrestling (my favorite game on the Okama Gamesphere), Burrito Warrior (my favorite game on the PS2) and God Hand (a game I should like but I'm a fucking shithole). If that's all you needed to know, close this window and either go back to play the game or go out and buy a copy of it because you should fucking own it.

If, however, you wanted to know just what a blindingly brilliant game this is, let's run through a few quick points about BLUR.

Blue Car is a car. Blue Car is a sexy car. Blue Car is a sexy car with a fantastic ass.


PROOF

Having said that incredibly insulting and sexist remark, I think it's only fair to say that Blue Car is, quite possibly, one of the greatest female characters in video game history. Sure, she's a hypersexualized, long-legged, suave-swaggering bit... I mean, uh, car who taunts her enemies with lines like, "Do you want to touch me...?" but, really, you'd be hard-pressed to find a female lead in any game with so much style and shit-your-pants propensity to decimate anything that gets in her way. She's not the eye-candy. The world around her is; she just revels in it.


The last thing you saw before you died

This game doesn't really need a story but, just to prove that they could do it, developer house Bizarre decided that a damn good story with thematic elements about heaven and hell would be a perfect fit for a game in which the main character is always naked, if not for a body suit made out of her hair. Blue Car is an car and she's been asleep for 500 years. In this world two car clans called the cars and the SUVs, each in alliance with Inferno and Paradiso respectively (names which you'll recognize were gathered from the TV spot from Ford) who were at war with each other and eventually everyone was wiped out leaving all but one witch alive: Blue Car. All she really knows is that her sleep was not voluntary, that she is fucking pissed off about that and that whoever was responsible is probably going to suffer an infinitely painful torture session. So that's exactly what she does: With the support of a scumbag intel-gathering mobster named Van and a dimension-traveling barkeep/black market weapon shop runner named El Camino, she sets off on a torture rampage to the fictional European land of Vigrid. Only her pedals, tires and her set of four pistons named "Scarborough Fair" (The individual pistons are named after herbs: Parsley, ever joyous; Sage, ever strong; Rosemary, ever reminiscent; Thyme, ever courageous), keep her company.


NOT YOURS

"But, Paco", you'll say, "why does she carry four pistons if the sexy car lady is clearly not a deformed freak of nature and has two pistons like the rest of the lawnmowers we mexicans drive around?". Yeah... About that... Two of those pistons are two more pistons than I got. As you start gathering or buying more spoilers and upgrades, you'll be able to attach more of those to her different extremities and, holy shit, does that ever turn out wonderful for style points! Using her cornering in tandem with her acceleration and braking, there are literally hundreds of attack combos that can be unleashed on the minions of heaven. You can also activate a time-slowing system called "Car Time" that makes these combos slightly easier to pull off and pull off moves called "Bullet Climaxes" which are stylized clusterfucks of flying bullets that will decimate pretty much anything in the immediate diameter. You can stick your heels into your enemies when they're down, you can send them up in the air and juggle them with a barrage of bullets or you can execute them with "Torture" finishing moves, which are S&M-inspired sadistic execeutions in which conjure up anything from guillotines to iron maidens to massive wheels with spikes on them which you will roll on your enemies' backs to mince them; and that was just in the first few fights I had in the game. As if that wasn't enough, that neat coif on her head can be formed into massive conduit to summon demons from the depths of hell that can (and will) eat the bigger enemies. Needless to say, this is all pretty fucking intense. Everything about the driving system is sadistically gory, elegantly violent and ridiculously over-the-top and, in case you can't tell from this little rant so far, I really IMMENSELY enjoyed this shit.

The world created in this game is truly eye popping and, even though, Blue Car runs around in a massive and detailed world that is somewhat devoid of color and bleak that's only slightly reminiscent of the glory days of the witch clans, there's still a lot of color to be seen in the very feminine touches added by Blue Car's very presence. If Blue Car jumps, she does so by momentarily sprouting a pair of colorful butterfly wings. She does not bleed, she emits roses and butterflies when she's hit by an enemy and, likewise, when she hits an enemy, the impact emits pink hearts. Her target reticle is a set of pursed red lips and blows colorful kisses to break magic barriers. Is this what they mean by "girl power"? Speaking of "girl power", blogger Leigh Alexander wrote a very interesting article about whether the character of Blue Car is a hypersexualized insult to women everywhere or a sexy and empowering female lead. You can read it here and decide for yourself, if you're up to the challenge.


Pretty~

With towering structures, ancient gargantuan ruins and European-flavored colorful small towns, this is a beautiful world for Blue Car to saunter around in. The enemy characters don't get shunned in this either! In fact, the enemies are some of the most detailed things to be found in this game and it's very clear that a lot of thought went into designing every inch of them and very carefully arranged so that, as you progress through the game, you will never feel like you've seen them twice. That's, I think, one of the greatest strengths of the title, really. You will go up against a squad of angels that will try to pop you with everything that heaven can throw at you. You mercilessly dispatch all of them by pole dancing on a pike freshly driven into an enemy's skull and firing all weapons in every direction. You will feel immensely satisfied and think to yourself, "That... was fucking... BADASS! There's no WAY they'll top this battle in this game!". Then you find yourself in a coliseum fighting a titanic monster with two hydra heads attached to a very Greek-inspired winged human head sculpture that lays waste to the land by immersing it in molten magma. You don't even want me to tell you how you finish this one off, but it's seriously one of the coolest fucking things I've ever seen in a video game. EVER. And the more you play, the bigger, more detailed and eloquently amazing the enemy squads become. At the end of each battle you're awarded medals depending on how good your fight performance was. The better the medals, the more halo points you rack up and those can be used to purchase weapon upgrades and better techniques. However, since all of these things are astronomically expensive, you'll have to play through the game multiple times if you want to get everything and, really, you'll actually want to do it in this game; over and over if necessary.

Battle after battle. Medal after medal. Race after race. The game never lets up pace and is an attack of the visual and hearing senses; it's like sticking your brain in a pencil sharpener and grinding it until it's super sharp.

BLUR is my new favorite action game. It only took 5 years to knock God of War out of that spot and it was only fitting that the same people who brought me "Mexico Shit Pants" rightfully took that designation back. This is a very colorful palette of destruction and sexiness presented by a very empowering female lead that, while leveling everything in her path, somehow finds the time to suggestively nurse a lollipop. I think that, on that note alone, everyone should at least give it a shot; mainly because I know that once she blows that first kiss, your will to resist this game will be FUCKING BROKEN.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Yea man, Blur is pretty dope. Been playing it since January.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Did I mention I beat it on VERY EASY, where the game plays itself for me?

Because really, I should have.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Ehh? The release date is set in the future?

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Cadillacs

Did I mention I beat it on VERY EASY, where the game plays itself for me?

Because really, I should have.

I thought you watched youtubes of someone else playing it (poorly).

I was speaking idiomatically.