MotorStorm Review

Feb 28, 2007

Outside of existing franchises like Metal Gear Solid, Killzone and Final Fantasy, perhaps the biggest and most anticipated game coming to the PlayStation 3 has been MotorStorm. After the extremely impressive, but fully CG, trailer that was shown at E3 during the system's first unveiling, PlayStation fans worldwide have been waiting to see if the final product could live up to the target render. The downloadable PlayStation Store demo gave gamers a taste of what was to come, but the full release is finally upon us.

So the question is, does the game live up to and properly recreate what we saw in the target video? Yes and no. The game doesn't look quite as good (though it is certainly a system showpiece), but it does come extremely close to bringing the chaos that we saw in the video to the PlayStation 3. MotorStorm lives and thrives on the moments when you're right in the middle of a pack of vehicles, everyone pushing each other towards the cliff sides and you're doing all you can just to survive. There are more "Oh $#@&" moments in MotorStorm than any other game around, and no matter how many laps around the same track you've made, you'll constantly see new crashes and vehicles careening to their death.

Really, there are very, very few racing titles (or even games in general) around that deliver as engaging an experience as MotorStorm. There's really no better way to put it than that.

The game lets you choose from a number of different vehicle types, each of which have their own strengths and weaknesses. For example, motorcycles are very quick and agile, but can't stand toe-to-toe with bigger rides and slide in the mud like a hound dog on ice. On the flip side, the large trucks can plow through hazards and other rides, and the changes in environment types barely affect their handling. But, they're not very quick and must stick to the slower and wider sections of the tracks.

The variety in handling and inherent play styles between each of the vehicles is fantastic, and you'll find that you'll play the game a little differently with each one of them. Regardless of which vehicle you're driving, you'll be whipping around corners, launching off of ramps, hopping over chasms and more, and the vast differences in each of the vehicles' handling, braking and acceleration abilities mean that you'll always take a different approach to each race.

While most of the vehicles are great fun to drive, this isn't the case for all of them. While hopping over jumps in a motorcycle, whipping around corners in a rally car or sliding through the dirt in a buggy is simply awesome, the biggest and slowest vehicles can be a little boring to drive. The big rigs are the biggest culprit here, their hulking masses forcing you to take the most boring routes on the tracks and generally limping along to the finish line. That's not to say that they can't win a race, as their ability to plow through the other vehicles is a great asset, but they're just too slow and sluggish to be much fun.

One of the coolest parts of the target movie was some of the in-car camera work that we saw. MotorStorm will allow you to race from a first-person perspective in some of the vehicles, but not all of them, like the motorcycles. This means that if you're a fan of first-person racing, you'll have to swap between first and third-person views depending upon which vehicle you're in. It's also a little unfortunate that the only first-person view available is an over-the-hood camera. It does work extremely well to heighten the sense of speed and chaos, but an in-the-car view would have been nice.

On a similar topic, it's quite clear that MotorStorm is a beautiful game and one that really shows what the PlayStation 3 is capable of. One of the reasons that it's so engaging is because of just how brutal the crashes can look, or how imposing the other vehicles can appear when you're racing tire-to-tire. When a computer driver misses a jump and smashes into a cavern wall and its vehicle smashes into a hundred flailing bits, a smile will cross your face. The game's terrain rendering system really lets you know what sort of surface you're driving on, and tires will cut through encrusted layers of dirt to reveal the slick and dirty mud below it.

The game's lighting system is extremely nice for the most part, though it isn't perfect. The canyon walls and vehicles are beautifully rendered, with a great blend between direct sunlight and shadowed areas. Some of the projected shadows are a little low-res however, with pixilated edges that flicker as you move about. You never notice this while racing, but it's very apparent in some of the crashes. It's not terrible per se, but it does stand out as everything else looks so good.

MotorStorm's track designs are generally fantastic. Each course features a number of different pathways that you can take, with the quicker, higher routes geared for bikes and ATVs more risky than the ground-level paths straight through the mud. There are shortcuts everywhere, and a large part of your racing strategy will be based on which paths you take. In many courses there are so many options that half of your entire race can be unique, even after three laps.

One of the best design choices that Evolution Studios made with MotorStorm's development was to make each and every track very punishing for the racers. If you're not careful, you'll crash into wall after wall or repeatedly plunge to your death. This helps ensure that the game will be as chaotic as possible, with the computer racers crashing just as often as you do. The harder you have the gas pedal slammed on the floor, the more afraid of destroying your ride you need to be.

While the tracks are excellently designed, the game's biggest drawback is that there simply aren't enough of them. With fewer than ten tracks at your disposal, you'll quickly find that you're taking part in the same races over and over again. The tracks were designed in a forward manner, so you aren't able to race any of them in reverse, further limiting the variety. Again, there are a whole lot of different paths and such to take in each track, but the overall count leaves a lot to be desired.

Along the same lines and just as detrimental to the overall experience, the only gameplay option you have is the main career mode, which is simply made up of race after race. There aren't any separate challenges, elimination races, one-on-one duels or anything of that sort. There isn't even a quick race option, so if you want to play a single race on a specific course with a certain field of vehicles, you need to dig through the tickets in the career mode to find a race that suits your mood. It's rather easy to unlock a large number of them so you won't be stuck with only a few for very long, but we're still scratching our heads as to why the same options that a host sees for an online game couldn't have been applied to the singleplayer game as well.

Speaking of online, MotorStorm happily delivers here in spades. The game can be extremely fun online, especially when you're talking trash with a bunch of your friends and cursing at them when they run you off a cliff. Again, you can only take part in straight-up races, but you do have options for things like turning on or off catch-up assist, what vehicles you want to be made available and what time of day you want to race.

Helping to keep people glued to their seats, the game includes a ranking feature that allows you to increase your title. One small issue that we have here is that your overall record is dictated solely by how many wins you've attained. If you're always playing in 12 player races and constantly finish in the top three, but don't actually win all that often, other players should be able to see that you finish well in large competitions. Two friends who only ever race each other and split the wins will look incredible compared to the full-field racer.