MotorStorm

Once upon a time, there was nothing. And Sony said, let there be light, and there was light. And Evolution Studios said, let there be high-res hard shadowing, and there was high-res hard shadowing. And then came perfected bump mapping, eye-popping lightning effects, million polygon cars, particle effects that no one had ever seen. And Sony saw that it was good, but on the 6th day Evolution was tired, and It realized that in spite of the beauty of It's creation... there was no life.

I could go on and on, but instead of becoming religious by playing Motorstorm, quite the opposite has happened. I am furious, I give it a mere 4 stars out of 10. How dare I? Behold! The Antichrist! Let's start from scratch with the concept of Motorstorm. In the desert, there are festivals where everything with an engine, from bikes and ATV's to hummers and 18-wheelers, are competing across sand dunes, rocks and mountains. Everything is chaos, since there in theory are no roads. The game runs in full HD, every crash is detailed down to the last engine part flying. Mud clashes on the car and stays there, and when driven into dust... THAT stays on the mud; it's THAT cool. And then you ask, can it get any better? And the answer, I'm afraid, is a resounding yes.

It seems that in the 3 years it took to make this game, no designer ever thought of implying that little ingredient that makes us wanna play... something that's called "Gameplay". You pick a "ticket" (race) and join. You cannot choose the vehicle of your desire for the most part. In game you press the X button or R2 depending on your setup, and go. You smash into others, they smash into you. Fun for about 20 seconds, until you've restarted the race 15 times. See, Motorstorm's AI is designed to drive ANYTHING into the dirt, apparently to make things more challenging. The problem is that it doesn't try to win, if you're driving next to someone, the AI will force you into a rock, and continue to do so while all the other opponents race off in the distance.

While it's a central part of the game to crash constantly (about 10-15 times during each race) it becomes frustrating when you can drive like a princess not hitting anything, and then crash because of a collision error. Even though you're back on track with full boost (yes, you can boost Burnout style) you've still lost your position. Except if you roll over, lies still for 15 seconds, lose your position, then you DON'T get full boost. Why the hell that is, I have no idea. Oh... and it's ONE player only, so forget about inviting your friends over to brag about your new system. Seems that extra controller became pretty expendable, huh?

The online component is great, but sadly suffers from the same glitches, and from the simplicity of this game.

So, what we eventually end up with, is a long game, not because of content (9 tracks) but because of the 14 opponents against YOU. A game that manages to frustrate instead of entertain. It's a Ferrari with no engine, it's a model with no brains (oh wait, who cares about that?) Simply, it's artwork. Do not buy it, LOOK at it. When you've looked, go away. It's already used it's potential.

Sorry Evolution. Restart the race and try again.

First, let me say that I like this game--enough that I'll definitely buy a sequel to it, and I won't need to rent it to try it out first.

However, I'm a sucker for racing games. After Grand Theft Auto-type, large-world, free roam and mission games, racing games are definitely my favorite--I can't remember one I didn't enjoy. But if you're not as enamored with racing games, there are a number of flaws to note with Motorstorm:

* There are only seven tracks. You're going to play them over and over and over. There can be different paths to take within a track, and in theory, the different vehicles you have to use--as different as dirt bikes and big rigs--necessitate taking different paths, but in practice, you'll probably find that mastering a particular path on a particular track will allow you to win regardless of your vehicle, so at about the halfway point, gameplay becomes more "mechanical" as you keep going through the motions.

* To deal with the above problem and make the game a bit more challenging, three tactics are used, with all of them being less than satisfactory to annoying:

• The weather and time of day is varied. This is actually a nice feature; the problem is that it just isn't done enough.

• A regular feature of the game is that dust and mud appear on the "camera". For some races, they're harder because so much mud splashes on your camera that you're effectively blindfolded for a few moments.

• The AI racers become extremely annoying. They're designed just to make the game harder as it goes along. If you imagine their actions being real world behavior, it's more like you're racing against a cadre of institutionalized mental patients:

… The AI will usually perform the same relative to you for each race. If you drive like a grandpa through a couple laps, it will too, and then as you drive like a bat out of hell, using boost all the time for the last lap, it will too.

… You're going to wreck--and explode--your vehicle a lot. For most of the race, it's easy to regain your position. But on the last stretch of the last lap, that doesn't matter, and guess what? (See the following.)

… No matter how well you're doing or how far ahead you think you are, on most races, AI racers will come out of nowhere on the last stretch of the last lap, overtaking you and/or wrecking you so you can't progress. You have to come in first on most races to keep unlocking more.

… Motorstorm often seems more like smash-em-up derby than a race. AI cars can constantly explode all around you, but regardless of how much they do this, even if you drive through the track fast and clean, AI racers will be on your butt in certain sections, especially on the last stretch of the last lap.

… With the AI so focused on smash-em-up derby, higher levels are primarily harder because the AI tries to knock your vehicle into rocks, off of cliffs, etc. It will do this as if its the AI "driver's" sole purpose--as if it couldn't care less if other vehicles are blowing past, and even if you almost come to a complete stop, the AI will match your speed just to knock you into a wall.

* The music becomes repetitive. Of course, with the amount of hours you'll put in to complete this game, that's probably inevitable, even with twenty-one songs, but at times, it seems like the same five songs keep playing over and over. On a game like this, we should be able to load our own music to listen to--shouldn't that be easy on the PS3?

* The load times can be agonizing. Like some others, this is the first game I've played on my PS3. When the first track for the first race was loading, I was worried that my PS3 crashed already. It didn't. That's just how the races load.

* There is no offline multiplayer mode. I don't care much about that feature, but many do. Multiplayer is online only.

So, are there no positives beyond this being a racing game? Of course there are:

* The graphics are beautiful. I don't know if this is going to be unusual for PS3 games, but in comparison, it has actually made normal DVDs on my big-screen HD television look less than stellar to me. If part of the goal was to get consumers to check out BluRay DVDs, the PS3 is doing its job.

* Even though there aren't enough tracks or enough variation on those tracks, those routes are extremely well done. They're a heck of a lot of fun to race on.

* The range of vehicles is great. There are a lot of choices, they look good, and they handle well, with some nice realistic touches.

* The smash-em-up derby approach can actually be fun. The graphics for the wrecks and explosions are fantastic--you'll find yourself wrecking just to watch it. BUT, one of two things should have been done to make this better: either have a smash-em-up derby contest that's a different mode--NOT a race, and/or award points during the races for wrecking other cars than your own. For example, if you cause five other cars to wreck during a race, you get a position bonus (if you need it) at the end, so that if you came in second during the race but caused five wrecks, you get boosted up to first instead (of course, this should apply to all racers), or if you came in third but caused ten wrecks, you get boosted to first, etc. Each time you get wrecked instead would subtract the bonus points from one of the wrecks you caused.

its simple as that, this game is amazing, stunning, and brilliant. One of the greatest next-gen games has been released exclusively for the playstation 3. The crashes are amazing, the detail to literally EVERY single piece of paint that peals off your car, to the mud that comes onto your car is just amazing. This is something that only the Sony playstation 3's 8 processors can handle. The 360's 3, and the wii's 1 processor would never be able to display such graphics as MotorStorm for the PS3.

Now, go out to Wal-Mart, Buy a PS3, Buy MotorStorm, and play this game! 10/10!