Blur

It all adds up to a visceral, exciting and most importantly fun racing sim. Once players get used to the pace and power-up effects, Blur really comes into its own. There's an undeniable sense of satisfaction in using Shunt to knock an opponent out of pole position or deploying Shield and zooming through oncoming Lightning unscathed.

The long list of licensed vehicles available to the player offers a ton of variation in terms of speed and handling, as do the different race types and tracks. In fact, picking the right car for the right race type on the right circuit is almost as important as one's driving skills and power-up stacks.

It's worth doing a little research on the track you select before you pick a vehicle, as some cars a better suited to some race circuits than others. For example, a muscle car might be great in a Destruction race on a track like San Francisco which has tons of straightline stretches, but in a Race bout set in New York, with its tight corners and short narrow streets, you're better off picking a car with more grip.

The tracks are all set in major cities around the globe such as LA, New York and Barcelona - the UK, strangly enough, is represented by Hackney and Brighton - and they look very much like the sort of circuits which featured in the Project Gotham racers; a mish-mash of enclosed streets, local architecture and landmarks jutting out on the horizon.

Away from the on-track action, the carousal menus are pleasing to the eye and easy to navigate. The game is split between multiplayer and single-player modes. The latter offers Career mode as the meat of the single-player experience; it's your standard 'young racing turk takes on established boss racers' story. In order to beat the mode, players need to dispatch nine bosses in one-on-one races.

On the way to the boss race, players need to earn 'lights' to open up more races and win 'fans' to unlock new vehicles. This is done by placing first - or as close to first as possible - in the three race types available in Career mode: Race, Destruction and Checkpoint.

Race is a straightforward affair. Destruction and Checkpoint offer two variations on the same theme. Both involve beating a countdown and completing a set number of laps, but in Checkpoint time is extended by passing through padlock icons and in Destruction the same effect is brought about by destroying opponents with power-ups.

Each boss also sets a series of challenges for the player to accomplish over a series of races before the one-on-one duel becomes available. These vary depending on the boss; the first level boss, for example, demands that the player lands 80 power-up hits, earns 7000 fans, finishes five races and wins four before they deign to accept a challenge.

Aside from Career mode, players have access to their unlocked vehicles in the Showroom, their Achievements (or Trophies) in their Sticker menu and they can also set Friend Challenges - such as lap-times or cars destroyed - for their friends on Twitter.

The single-player mode is undeniably good, and will keep players occupied for many hours, but Blur really is the sort of game that lends itself to trash-talking multiplayer action, preferably with as many players as possible. The Multiplayer mode offers local, networked or online play. Up to 20 players can take part in any given race, and Blur offers pre-set racing modes with its Playlist option or players can tailor race specifications such as tracks and race types to suit themselves in the Custom games modes.

All told, Blur is very impressive, and its arrival couldn't come at a better time for its publisher, as release-wise it's been a quiet year so far for Activision. After Modern Warfare 2 conquered Christmas, the company almost seemed to retreat from the limelight as nearly every other games publisher scrambled to get its high-end IP out of the gate.

Since December, we've not seen much from Activision and now that every second headline associated with the publisher involves its escalating legal feud with Infinity Ward, you'd almost be forgiven for forgetting its main activity is releasing videogames. Blur's likely to change all that. It certainly deserves to at any rate.