Blur multi-player beta impressions...

I'm going to be honest here, the first time I heard about this game was right before Bizarre Creations announced the beta.
Either I was living under a rock, playing too much Modern Warfare 2 or this game was just not big news. I'll let you guys decide.
But, once I read up on it I was intrigued, it actually sounded pretty good.
I signed up for the beta and on march 8th started playing and realised that the game is pretty easy to sum up..

This game is Geometry Wars, Burnout, Mario Kart and neon lights rolled up into one game.

Anyway, to my thoughts...

First off, I can be a little picky about power-up style racing games, they are fantastic and accessible when done right, but terrible and frustrating when not. So the first thing I really wanted to test out was the balance of the power-ups and found that, although they tend to favour a defensive play style if you're in the lead, they are reasonably balanced. It's also worth noting that there are no "Blue Shell" style power-ups.

One thing that has been included which i think all games should have is a ranking system, which allows you to unlock new "perks" (ill explain those next), new cars and new multi-player modes.

The "perks" consist of lots of different driving aids that allow you to play in whatever style you like to more effectively. You can equip three of these at once, one from each category. An example of how these help would be how I play. I'm good at this game, and tend to be out in front a fair bit, so most of the time I'm playing defensively. The "perks" I use let me start with a power-up so that i can get the lead as early as possible, heal me when an opponents power-up hits me whilst shielded and allows me to do more damage in a collision with another car so that when they try and barge past me, they don't.
That is just one use of them, there are a few other ways you can use them to your advantage and there will be many more once the game is released.

Something that tends to put me off these types of games is a "catch up" system. For some games it's needed, such as Mario Kart where driver skill isn't always going to win you a race. Thankfully, this game has taken a tip from Burnout and rather then include a catch up system and make the driving simple, they've focused more on a drift mechanic and basic racing lines. So to catch up to that bugger in first place who's constantly using the damn shield, you're going to have to drive your arse off.

Another thing I should point out is the use of licensed vehicles. This pretty much means that you shouldn't expect Burnout levels of damage to cars as the manufactures wont allow it, something to do with implying that the cars arn't safe or some stupid crap like that.

I did come across a few glitches whilst playing it. One such glitch will disconnect you from the rest of the players in your group and put you in a race by yourself, the race will start and instantly finish, declaring you the winner. This happens quite a lot and is a serious pain when you're on a good winning streak.
The other glitch is not so wide spread, but what it does is reset all your stats, ranks and unlocks. I imagine for players who like to get high up on the leaderboards this would be stupidly frustrating but it wasn't that much of an inconvenience for me as it only takes a few hours to reach the max rank available in the beta.
Also, i should highlight that if a player is lagging, his car will appear to the other players to be bouncing all over the place, which makes it very hard to hit with power-ups, I will admit that I've won a few races purely because I was lagging.

Overall I am very impressed with this beta, there are a few things that need to be sorted such as glitches and the minor balancing issues but then again, that's what a beta is for right? to find these types of problems and fix them. I'm very confident that it'll all be fixed, fine tuned and polished for its released on the 28th of May, and I'm looking forward to it.