MotorStorm [PS3]

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.