Activision: Blur 'to do for racing what Call of Duty did for shooters'

by David Hinkle { May 8th 2009 at 6:00PM }

Activision has big hopes for Bizarre Creations' upcoming racer, Blur. Following the company's revenue report yesterday, CEO Michael Griffith said that Blur "brings real innovation to the racing category and is looking very strong." According to MCV, he noted that Activision would be "targeting Blur to do for racing what Call of Duty did for shooters," which, in layman's terms, means selling a lot of copies.

Griffith says to expect Blur at next month's E3, and you can believe that we'll get our hands on it the first chance we get.

Tags: activision, bizarre-creations, blur, e3, e3-2009, racing

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

Kermad @ May 8th 2009 6:03PM

Cars with guns... another innovative game from Activision

Max @ May 8th 2009 6:05PM

I think most racing games miss the point of actually being fun.

BUGz @ May 8th 2009 6:48PM

Burnout Paradise? Wasn't that fun? and the only racing game im targeting right now is Codebreakers's Fuel.

Lunastra78 (PSN: lunastra78) @ May 8th 2009 7:21PM

You clearly haven't tried Motorstorm Pacific Rift yet... If you have 360 only then GRID is the way to go, the demolition derby races are amazing. :)

DBuck_Eye @ May 8th 2009 9:44PM

God forbid you play either of the Excite games on the Wii. Those games were way too realistic.

nick @ May 8th 2009 6:11PM

wait wait wait... what did cod ever do for shooters. Not saying COD, COD:UO, COD2, and COD4 were bad more like great but really there have been better FPS games out there that have truly pushed the genre forward.

But like said above it pretty much means they are going to sell a lot of copies or hope to.

Max @ May 8th 2009 6:06PM

I'm feeling something very death race.

Adrian @ May 8th 2009 6:08PM

Then I wont buy it.

Insight (Fatass Defense Force) @ May 8th 2009 6:08PM

Terrible, awful example. Just makes me think that Blur will do for racing what every single Activision series ever, including Call of Duty (sans 4) has done for their respective genres - It'll drive 'em into the ground with churned-out sequels that don't really do anything for the series and prove to other developers that, yeah, you don't really need to improve on your product for it to sell millions as long as you market it so that it becomes a household name.

THE Ezio Auditore de Firenze (PSN slycooper_rocker) @ May 8th 2009 6:11PM

call of duty is really the product from activision that i would support now. their relentless whoring makes paris hilton look like a nun.

Insight (Fatass Defense Force) @ May 8th 2009 6:16PM

I mean, jesus christ, how many 'Hero' games have they announced and pumped out this year? I think it's six or more, which is INSANE.

THE Ezio Auditore de Firenze (PSN slycooper_rocker) @ May 8th 2009 6:19PM

they announced like 4 this week, it's unreal.

THE Ezio Auditore de Firenze (PSN slycooper_rocker) @ May 8th 2009 6:20PM

*really the only product

my bad

Insight (Fatass Defense Force) @ May 8th 2009 6:22PM

It's really a shame that the public 'voting with their dollar' is a public that is perfectly fine with buying the same game six times a year, supporting a dev that probably knows they don't have to do jack shit to get people to buy their product.

THE Ezio Auditore de Firenze (PSN slycooper_rocker) @ May 8th 2009 6:40PM

by dev, i think you mean publisher. i doubt neversoft has a say in the matter, just like treyarch.

Rentaro @ May 8th 2009 6:12PM

What exactly did Call of Duty do? I just recall them being fun without any real innovations. Incredibly fun granted

CJLopez @ May 8th 2009 6:13PM

And what exactly did Call of Duty did for FPS????

As far as I know, I never gave shit for CoD till modern Warfare. I always been "Why play another WW2 fps when Medal of Honor has been doing everything for me". Then modern warfare came and because i liked how it played y started to take notice, but still, WaW once again didn't do anything except for returning nades. In the meantime, for me MoH:H2 > CoD:WaW

As for Blur..... bouth NFS Nitro and Shift are looking pretty good

FraGNeM @ May 8th 2009 7:04PM

If you were a PC FPS enthusiast, you'd know that the Call of Duty games developed by Infinity Ward (CoD, CoD2, CoD4) are all best-in-class FPS games.

The first CoD broke new ground for just how well executed it was compared to its competition in the oversaturated WWII FPS genre.

CoD4 is not a lucky fluke. Infinity Ward has been putting out that level of quality since the beginning.

CJLopez @ May 8th 2009 8:45PM

Medal of Honor catched my eyes first, and when i saw CoD, i just though "MoH rip off"

And reall, downloaded CoD, play it for about an hour just now, i don't see the big deal. I still prefer MoH, and specially, Allied Assault. That scene, were you get to the french shores, simply awesome!!!!

Rescue Private Rian FTW!!!!

WiredKnight @ May 8th 2009 6:14PM

Wow did you guys all forget the perks and multiplayer class systems that quickly?

How about a top-down driving game with Geometry Wars controls XD

Insight (Fatass Defense Force) @ May 8th 2009 6:23PM

I said (sans 4)

oh and games have had multiplayer class systems since uh forever

WiredKnight @ May 8th 2009 8:34PM

Aw that's cute, you thought I was only referring to you.

And no shit we've had class systems forever. But not to the level of CoD4, not with that kind of variety.

But then I guess most people don't understand the kind of innovation they're talking about. People only see "innovation" if it's written on a brick that's thrown at their head.

Insight (Fatass Defense Force) @ May 8th 2009 9:27PM

I agree with you, dude, no reason to get feisty. So many games that offer new ideas are written off as 'generic' these days based simply upon their genre or subject matter.

JamboGT @ May 11th 2009 1:14PM

Battlefield 2 did that first.

False @ May 8th 2009 8:18PM

Call of Duty introduced the leveling-up prestige system. I'm guessing Blur will introduce something similar. Sounds good to me.

kizzeo @ May 8th 2009 6:21PM

So, new WipEout clone anyone?

helghast102 (Valkyria Chronicles and the anime OWN!) @ May 8th 2009 6:23PM

ORLY?

i mean...

so?

jcar302 @ May 8th 2009 6:25PM

While i don't love the call of duty series, it obviously does something right. Not sure why all you guys bash it. It sells millions of games and map packs, and is consistantly in the top 5 played games on xbox live, with not one, but 2 different editions of the game.
You don't have to like the game, to respect it.

I could really use a good racing game, and if blur is just the new name for pgr5, that would make me happy.

Insight (Fatass Defense Force) @ May 8th 2009 6:51PM

Millions of people tune into American Idol and Survivor every week. Does that mean they're respectable shows? I mean, they're doing something right obviously, but at the same time they've been leading television into the realms of schlockitude for the last few years. Quality original programming? Fuck that, Survivor 24'll get twice as many viewers with half the creative effort/budget.

Petebot330 @ May 8th 2009 6:31PM

Well, this is going to make Oasis very angry.

THE Ezio Auditore de Firenze (PSN slycooper_rocker) @ May 8th 2009 6:42PM

Well, this is going to make Blur very angry.

fixed. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSbBvKaM6sk

Tyler @ May 8th 2009 6:45PM

huh?

Lunastra78 (PSN: lunastra78) @ May 8th 2009 7:25PM

Oasis actually has their own game already, so this is only fair.

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/oasis/index.html?tag=result;title;0

Riley @ May 8th 2009 7:25PM

I loled

Nicholas Muldoon @ May 8th 2009 8:14PM

I thought that's what them headlining Glasto was for

..and can't wait, one month away

Tyler @ May 8th 2009 6:46PM

Cutty @ May 8th 2009 6:57PM

I know it's cool to hate on Activision these days but Call of Duty 4 is amazing. If Blur is the racing equivalent then I expect a great game.

Manly Mcbeefington (Mr. ESC) @ May 8th 2009 7:38PM

The people behind this created PGR3 and 4 which are more true to the original Need for Speed games that were all around awesome and not like the current NfS games that Ea has so joyfully bastardized by making NfS games like the Fast & Furious movies.

Hopefully NfS Shift will change all that.

In the meanwhile this should give every fan of PRG,Need for Spped and OutRun a run for its money but I'll miss the Geometry wars demos that PGR 3 and 4 had.

Jordan @ May 8th 2009 7:08PM

What a silly comment to make. What did CoD do for shooters? Nothing. It basically overshadowed every other game on the Market. And for what reason? Perks. Ooh, wow!

marcod @ May 8th 2009 9:46PM

Perks for people that are winning is not fair at all, too. It makes things unbalanced.

Manly Mcbeefington (Mr. ESC) @ May 8th 2009 7:08PM

"Activision: Blur 'to do for racing what Call of Duty did for shooters".

Make everyone hate on Treyarch for no particular reason?

Well good thing they said Call Of duty instead of Guitar Hero.

TrojanGuy @ May 8th 2009 7:16PM

Bizarre Creations has made some very good racing games on the 360 (and Dreamcast, and Xbox), so I don't doubt that Blur will be fun. Right now, though, I'm more interested in Split/Second. I'm curious to find out more about both games during E3 week, though.

mikemaj82 @ May 8th 2009 7:20PM

nobody likes to play racing games lol

mr mobius @ May 8th 2009 7:28PM

Get me something ala Burnout but you must include a massively extended version of Trackmaster's stunt levels as well.

I want to have races such as the SSS stages in world rallies (where they are on separate tracks but racing each other) as well.

Most importantly, make the damn thing fun.

Fun > realism if realism !=fun

Manly Mcbeefington (Mr. ESC) @ May 8th 2009 7:40PM

PRG was a lot of fun I doubt they'll change that.

BFBeast666 @ May 8th 2009 7:45PM

I wonder how you could innovate the racing genre? I mean, racing with weapons - has been done. Über-Realism - been there, driven GTR Legends. Track Editors from Hell - go view Trackmania and sequels, not that they did anything that 4D Driving could do about 10 years earlier. At the moment, the only thing differentiating racing games is the amount of realism and the list of licensed cars. OK, and maybe the setting (Street, Offroad, GT/race stuff). But apart from that?

Now, what would be seriously intriguing? A persistent online world, where players could dynamically arrange races on the fly. Think Midnight Club LA's Multiplayer, but with n number of players AT THE SAME TIME.