Gamers have short attention spans. Especially racing gamers, who don't have time to read long multi-syllabic titles like Test Drive Unlimited, Need for Speed, Eve of Destruction, or Burnout. Hence Dirt, Grid, Fuel, Shift, Blur, Rev, Fast, Sped, and Gone. Only the first four of those words are the titles of actual racing games. So far. At this rate, look for someone to snap up the last five any day now. Wait, this just in:

Activision announces Blur.

This is the next racing game from the developers of Project Gotham Racing. The features sound mostly familiar. And this might sound cool to anyone who hasn't been playing Midnight Club: Los Angeles:

Collect intense power-ups, including the ability to blast other cars out of the way with huge bursts of energy, boost their speed, and more. While controlling photo realistic cars, gamers can use offensive and defensive attacks as they battle for the lead and careen through real-world track locations ranging from L.A. and San Francisco to the streets of Hackney, UK and the treacherous roads of Barcelona, Spain.

The twist to Blur is some sort of online social networking frippery described as:

...innovative new community-based interface, reaching far beyond the game itself. This unique story-driving social network evolves dynamically as players compete in different races, make new friends, rivals and fans, and connect with other racers both in-game and in real life.

Connect with other racers in real life? Um, if that's just a way of saying it'll have real-time voice chat, I'm okay with that. But if they have in mind some sort of thing where I have to go to real-world Blur-meets to trade parts to upgrade my car, I think I'll bow out. It's enough of a hassle having to schlep my Wii friends code around the Internet.

By the way, the above screenshot is what it would look like if a car were to hit the dude from Infamous: a big messy cloud of blue lightning would go everywhere. Eew.