To say the very least, EA Games Europe senior VP Patrick Soderlund is very confident in his brand"s products. At E3 last week, he made his views on the competition -- namely, Activision"s Blur and Microsoft"s Forza Motorsport 3 -- abundantly clear. "Let me tell you this. I think Split/Second looks great," Soderlund told VideoGamer.com. "I"m going to have a good time playing that. Blur to me is completely underwhelming. I don"t understand what"s up with that game to be honest. That"s an official statement."

Forza was spared a direct attack by Soderlund, but he did say it"s "clear" that Forza is inferior to Need for Speed: Shift. He added, "Forza, I"m very confident we have a better game than them to be honest. Talking to the press, looking at the nominations, that"s clear. So, I"m glad that they"re confident but I"m as confident as they are." Shift may have been nominated, but Forza came out the winner in the "Best Racing Game" category in 1UP"s Best of E3 2009 awards -- and we weren"t the only ones who thought it was the best racing game of the show.

All this mud-slinging comes just days after Forza director Dan Greenawalt was quoted as saying that Gran Turismo creator Kazunori Yamauchi "hasn"t done anything for me in years." With yesterday"s news that Burnout developer Criterion is now working on a new Need for Speed game, things are become quite interesting in the racing game genre.