It’s been awhile since I posted an article here. Hopefully the wait was worth it because I’ve been planning to talk about this game for almost a year now. Blur is an arcade racing game developed by Bizarre Creations, who are probably best known for their Xbox-exclusive Project Gotham Racing franchise. It’s one of my all-time favorite games (top 30, at least) and will officially be 10 years old as of the day this article is published.
I’ve chosen to highlight Blur because It’s a game that’s stuck with me over the years, but that no one else seems to remember. I guess that shouldn’t come as a surprise given that Blur was kneecapped by a lackluster advertising campaign and a horrible launch window. It only sold 31,000 copies across all platforms, worldwide. For comparison, Xbox 360 games at the time had to sell 30,000 copies on Xbox, in a single region, to qualify for a Platinum Hits re-release. The commercial failure of Blur ultimately spelled the death of Bizarre Creations and Activation’s interest in publishing arcade racers.
I’ve spent the past two months putting to together a massive retrospective video on Blur, which is embedded above. This is my largest and most ambitious video project to date. I encourage you to give it a watch, because Blur is a game that deserves to be remembered.
