Live on PSN: Blur Multiplayer Demo

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I love driving fast cars — and destroying them. Ever since the original Twisted Metal in 1995, I have always loved games that give me both wheels and weapons. I’ve never been much of a simulation guy, so while I can appreciate Gran Turismo’s beauty and stunning accuracy, I’m the type of gamer who can’t help but wonder why a rocket launcher doesn’t come standard.

Blur demo for PS3

Today, the PlayStation 3 demo of Blur became available in the PlayStation Store — and you know what comes standard? Pools of lightning bolts, explosive mines, bursts of nitro speed, and big glowing red balls of homing-missile danger. This is the kind of arcade-style combat racing that gets my motor running. Oh, and the mileage is excellent — I’ve been playing Blur for weeks now and I’m still not bored.

The Blur multiplayer demo gives you a pretty sizeable chunk of what the game has to offer. A dozen real-world cars, including I’ll-never-own-it-but-I-can-drool rides like the Lotus Exige Cup 260 and Ford GT; six tracks in two gameplay modes; seven mods that let you tweak the game mechanics to match your style of play; all eight of the chaotic power-ups; and the ability to boast about your skills to friends on the PlayStation Network with a single button press. (The full retail version also lets you brag on Facebook and Twitter.)

Blur demo for PS3Blur demo for PS3


I’ve been pretty vocal about my love of this game over at oneofswords.com. I have hosted PS3 Blur gameplay nights on multiple continents, and have more in the works. I shared some of my personal Blur strategies for success (and people used them against me). I even had Gareth Wilson, lead designer from developer Bizarre Creations, on my podcast to explain some of the choices that went into the game and wound up getting him to reveal a key to success that I’ve been personally milking all the way to the finish line.

Blur demo for PS3: Power-ups

If you haven’t tried Blur yet, it’s understandable – heaven knows there are plenty of options when it comes to quality PS3 racing games. But the demo’s free for the taking as of today, so check it out and let me know if you feel what I feel when you play it – I’m @OneOfSwords on Twitter. And know that I’m serious when I say I will see you on the track…

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124 Comments

24 Author Replies

  • Picked up the game a few weeks back but havent had a lot of time to play. I like the new take on real cars meets mario kart though and I hope we see another in the future.

  • There wasn’t even a beta for Blur on the PS3 and this took way too long to release a demo so I don’t care for this game. Split/Second & ModNation Racers are far better.

  • I bought this game a few weeks back its pretty bad ass online only thing is not a lot of people play it. Hopefully this demo will change that. Its 10 times better then split second its a like a grown mans Mario Kart.

  • Let me get this right.
    You’re from Activision(LMAO) and you are coming on here to promote a multiplayer demo for a game that is selling like snow in the Antarctic, which was released several weeks ago?!
    Marketing fail!

  • <3 Dan Amrich! was nice meeting you & Kat at E3!

    Blur is awesome.

  • Awesome!Im downloading it right now.
    Hope its good.Btw this is online only?

  • great online demo TIME can’t wait till dat codemasterz formula 1 f-1 demo should bee wild im guessin a release date wit gt5 or so but hope sooner

  • Why so late to bring this on PSN? I’ve been looking to try Blur demo for a while now. No wonder the game sold badly as no one know on PS3 knows how this game plays.

    Split Second and ModNation Racers had demos up on PSN for a long time now. Maybe next time you can bring the demo of ur games out early b4 release. I heard the 360 got a demo waaaay b4. So wat happened with the PS3 version???

    PLEASE MAKE a PGR style game for PS3. Blur 2 get rid of the neon lights.

    • Not sure why the PS3 version is not appearing until now. Just glad it’s finally here, especially since the other two games that would appeal to a similar audience did have a try-before-you-buy perk.

      If you’ve been looking forward to it, I definitely want to hear what you think after you get a chance to try it out.

  • Lil late dont you think activision lol
    i already own it since day 1 of release. defenly a fun game to play.

  • TOO LATE for demo.
    XBOX had their hands on demo before the game releases and now we are getting it?
    Why didn’t they release demo at the same time with XBOX?

    I enjoyed Split/Second demo and I bought that game.
    I was actually going to pick up this game and split second but since they didn’t release the demo on PSN, I didn’t even bother to buy it.

    Anyway, it was BAD move to release demo for only one console.

  • SWEET BLUR!! Wait what’s this logo….. crap activision *puts box back on shelf*

  • If you like this game check out the old pc game rollcage… this sounds like it is just a more present age version of that game gonna try this for sure

    • Rollcage — another fave of mine, though I remember playing it on the original PlayStation — had very different physics in comparison to Blur; I wouldn’t draw a direct line between the two games. I mean, I hope you have fun with it, but I wouldn’t say one’s based on the other.

  • Really wish you guys had released this demo back when the game launched almost 2 MONTHS ago. There was money spent on the development of the game on both the PS3 and 360 yet only the 360 got a demo on release. Why? Why would you spend money developing a game on the PS3 and then NOT ADVERTISE for it on the console? Why do this as an afterthought? You only cost yourself a bunch of sales, this only hurt you in the long run and really doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.

  • Wow, you are catching h3!! dan. Anyways, I didnt know anything about this game honestly, I will give it a try though.

  • haha this game must of flop on PS3, lets see Activision gave Microsoft’s 360 a Beta and a Demo. Screw Blur buy ModNation Racer.

  • activision – wait will DLC only be available for the other system —- wait then again makes no diffrence, i wont buy / another game from you guys.

    I bet your demo was on the other one first because a contract right??? might as well become a $-B#$ only company – dont really want or need you here

  • Yeah… no I hated it. neonlights everywhere pathetic carhandeling… I’ll stay with GT. It’s made for four years old’s,

    • GT is a sim. This is an arcade-style racer. Nothing wrong with either, but they’re not meant to appeal to the same audience.

  • @Kaze

    Kind of a dumb reason not to play an awesome game isn’t it? If Activision did a complete 180 from where the are now, what would you want them to be?

    I don’t know about you, but I’d want them to do what EA did to win me back…Put out some great original games. That’s what Blur is. It’s easily the best online racer I’ve ever played, and that’s coming from a huge arcade racing fan. The way I see it, if you’re not going to encourage some originality, you’re just re-enforcing their idea that all people want are Call of Duty and Guitar Hero sequels.

  • Blur is REALLY good. It was a really stupid decision though to let Split/Second come out with a demo on all systems while you have a beta on the Xbox.

    And that’s the reason why there’s like 900 players online at peak times on Blur.

    It’s really too bad. Grown-up version of Mario Kart with an awesome online with a COD style perk system? Yeah, it works.

    GET IT guys!

  • Argh, now I feel bad. I didn’t mean to sound like a jerk in my previous post but I had SO much fun playing Blur online w/ my friend and to see the incredible low number of people online just sucks. I wish you guys had done so much more back on launch to promote this game on the PS3. :(

  • its about time

  • The reason they’re offering a demo now is because the game flopped miserably. It sold 31000 across both platforms going by NPD results and didn’t even make the top 30.

    Since Activision seem content treating PS3 owners as second best I recommend returning the favour by not buying Blur and getting ModNation Racers instead. Maybe next time Activision will get a beta and demo out on PS3 the same time as other consoles.

  • Me needs GT5.

  • It’s weird seeing the guy from OXM on the PS Blog.

  • The game is alright, bought it a while ago and it is fun but also sorta shallow. Also the graphics are pretty jagged for some reason but anyway I really loved the Project Gotham games. There is probably zero chance of a PGR game coming to the Playstation huh?

    I think you guys should start a new multiplatform series that could be kind of a spiritual successor to PGR. You know, a new pseudo sim/arcade racing game and don’t give it a 4 letter title so people don’t get confused with the millions of other 4 letter racing games.

    Anyway I think Activison really f***ed you guys over on this one, they did a real crappy job of promoting the game and honestly don’t seem to care about anything other than COD.

  • OMG i download the beta caused the split second demo suck so i gave it a try and what happens i get SIGNED OUT OF PSN and its been a hour so psn better be down for maintenance or some upgrade or something .

    THIS IS BS I CAN”T LOG IN AFTER BLUR SIGNED ME OUT

  • Too little, too late, as far as I’m concerned. This should’ve been released weeks ago.

    I’d recommend buying the game used, as a developer and publisher that can’t support both platforms a game is being released on equally, doesn’t deserve your dollars.

    • I would disagree; by your logic, everyone (including PS3 owners) should not buy Medal of Honor because, by running a beta only on one platform, they are not supporting both platforms equally. And I don’t think that’s fair to Medal of Honor.

  • maybe cuz miscrosoft payed too get da blur exclusive beta dumb fukz datz da reason WHY RR UU CRYIN BOUT IT microsoft payz out da ass too get crap N snap sony got da goodz THO so stfu

  • 28… english is a must for most people. trolls not so much.

  • Dan, I’m lovin the game! You rock and yes, this is the guy from @LBPodcast that was loving it! Go away haters!!!

  • I haven’t played Blur yet but certainly looking to give it try. Glad to know there’s a demo available now rather than never. Nice to see you here, Dan. I’ve been following you on Twitter. :P

  • Thanks for the reply. I did try out the online demo.

    -Its seems to be solid racers.
    -The turning seems a little hard. Everyone I raced with hit the sides of the fence when turning a corner.
    -Its hard to see the road ahead in the distance.
    -There seems to be an annoying filter effect on the screen.
    -I did not notice a mini map? Is there one in the game? Well if there is one and I missed it then and its BC GUI guy’s fault. I raced 3 times.
    -It should have been a single player demo.
    -Should not have come so close with SSec and MNRacers. SSec has better graphics and racing. MNR has the style and load times.
    -Blur name sucks.
    -Stick to PGR style game.
    -Slightly confusing in figuring out where to go to race 1st time.

    Also, wat do u mean “not sure why the PS3 version is not appearing until now.” You r the “Social Media Manager” for Activision!! You better know. I think Big M and Acti had a few handshakes on this.

    • There are some hard corners, and all I can say is this: brakes are your friends when powersliding isn’t. In the full version of the game there are some nasty 90-degree turns that skilled drivers have really been able to use to their advantage. Just takes time to learn them.

      It’s a multiplayer demo because the game was really built around that mode. Single has some different gameplay types, but the core of what makes Blur Blur is the multiplayer racing.

      And for the record? The Social Media Manager for Activision is not, like, this all-seeing, all-powerful entity. I blog and tweet and podcast about what Activision is doing, but like you, I am not omniscient!

  • XScreamingEagleX

    this is a big file for a demo!

    is it like timed demo? say i can only play for 30 mins?

    or there are actually a lot of content to to play this demo??

    • It’s big because there’s actually quite a bit of stuff in it, and there is no time limit. You rank up as you race, and the rank is capped at 10, but you can keep racing in the demo as long as you like at rank 10.

  • jeez give the guy a break… hes actually replying here… i for one think the game is GREAT! i`ve been having lots of fun getting trophies (i love them) and just enjoying the entire racing in general… the online is GREAT as well… lots of variety in modes available and the best part is that everyone who plays this game is really friendly and adult and i`ve made quite a few friends with this game who are mature gamers… this game has a 82 on metacritic for both systems and that score does the game justice… any place we can give suggestions for blur dan? i know theres a blur forum but it doesn’t seem too active… hard difficulty for checkpoints and destruction is kind of a longshot :P patch please? :D

  • I’ve played blur demo on Xbox 360 fakin 3 month ago.

    Anyway, I never buy this boring racing.

  • I respect you, Dan Amrich, for responding to the haters. It’s refreshing to get feedback from people in the industry.

    That being said… I kinda have to side with the haters. In your blog about the poor sales, you mentioned that the release of 3 similar titles in a span of 2 weeks hurt them all. Failing to release a demo on PS3 (when the other two did) basically dug your own grave on this platform. I realize that Activision clearly has some sort of partnership with Microsoft (COD map packs released months earlier), but this was really unforgivable.

    I’ll try the demo later this week.. because, its free… but like many PS3 owners its gonna be pretty tough for me to part with my cash to a company that clearly doesn’t consider us very important

    • If you check some of the links in that article, you’ll see that even the games with the demos didn’t do gangbuster numbers. I think the demo aspect was less important than the simple fact that three games aimed at the same type of gamer came out so close to each other.

  • Downloaded the demo today, it’s fun, though I was a bit disappointed in it visually, I expected the graphics to be much better. It reminds of wipeout fusion with cars & not as awesome graphics. It’s a good game, don’t know if I’ll but it though. As my 15 year old son said, it reminds of most other games of the same genre, nothing stands out about it!

  • can u guys add avatars like nba teams, mlb teams, nhl teams, and nfl teams, i mean u guys have team from the world cup so y not make sports team avatars im sure lots people will buy them

  • Blur is on my to buy list I do love some arcade racing. I love Bizarre Creations work and racing games in general. I was a fan of the PGR series on 360 (my 360 RRoD and am no longer supporting that console) so I’m glad they’re multi-platform now I will be downloading the demo tonight.

    If I hadn’t left ATVI due to severe illness I would’ve gotten the game for $15 :\

    Troll alert. @Liamario

    BTW Sony please fix the Invalid Credit Card information error that many people are receiving including me…it’s preventing us from making purchases. :(

  • Theres no need for the DEMO. This game is AWSOME and Online is a BLAST!!!!! I Recomeded 100% and I’m not into car racing games. I’m into Fighters and adventures.

  • Late or not demo’s are always welcome. I don’t know who’s fault this is (Sony or game devs) but PS3 needs to handle 1st party game demo’s better… aka faster.

    Anyways, now that it’s here I’ll be trying it out. Thanks for the update!

  • Loved the down-to-Earth, factual post, Dan. I’d say at least a few of the ‘haters’ are just trolling. Ultimately, I’ve heard very little negative press at all about this game, and the release of the demo might just be enough motivation to get me to go buy a bigger hard drive to install it. :P

    All the best with the game and your future endeavours.

  • I bought Blur…I couldn’t never log into the multiplayer.

    Did Activision or Blizzard give me my money back? No…so if I had the power to delete your demo from PSN, I would do it in an instant.

    Activision blew it on this game and Blizzard blew it.

    There’s a ton of people like me who never could connect to multiplayer through a router. Maybe you guys should have spent more time resolving these issues instead of working on a demo….

    Sickening…

    • The game has been updated a few times, and I believe that issue was addressed — I do not work in customer service, but I know some of the folks in CS were actually on the Blur QA team and have been helping people with their issues. Did you contact them, did you try it post-patch, and are you still having issues with it?

  • This is a shout out to third party developers. Stop using only MS Xbox360 as a first console. Sony and PS has a far more reach World wide. Blur is a great game. If the demo did not show up today i would not remember that the game was still out. You guys got to be careful GT5 is around the corner. Game companies seem to be closing if they do not reach there financial mark. Anyway Blur is great.

  • Gaara_Of_TheFunk

    I’ve Been Playing Since I Finished The Download. The Game Is Sick! I Like That You Can Unlock Cars & Multiplayer Modes. One Question Though; Will Your Rankings & Unlocks Transfer Over To The Full Game?

  • Activision have no respect for PS3 owners based on all their favoritism to the other consoles. Activision continue to give PS3 owners the middle finger when it comes to demo, beta, and DLC contents. Activision shows no support for the PS3 when it comes to promoting their game on TV or other medium used to promote games. Their recent announcement of time exclusive DLC for their games on the other console shows how much they respect the PS3 owners.
    I for one will never again buy any Activision game new, but will purchase it second handed. Screw us over and we will screw you over right back.

  • @45 who cares its business… i suggest this game to anyone who loves racers i got it cheap on amazon and i absolutely love it and the ranking system they have its a great game good job.

  • I can’t log into the multiplayer demo :/ it keeps telling me the servers are unavailable. What’s up? I really want to try this game out @_@

  • I’ll stay with Split/Second.
    One i have a hatred for Activision and two people keep calling this “Mario Kart for older people”…Yeah…Licensed cars doensn’t make it a grown game gents it just makes it more “realistic” in a way. If you want a game for grown ups do pickup Split/Second because that’s where you’ll get that rush of intensity and sadly to say not in Blur.
    Well i guess Bizarre should have looked for an alternative to Activision. Anything that gets picked by them usually fails if it doesn’t have the letters COD in it

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