Motorstorm

7.4
Good

Gameplay	7.5	"The crashes: fun. The game: unfulfilling."
Graphics	8.5
Sound	9.0
Value	6.0

By Sam Waldron

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Have you ever seen those Calvin & Hobbes comic strips where Calvin sets up elaborate end-to-end disasters, having planes, trains and automobiles somehow smash into a single spot? That’s a little like Motorstorm, the PlayStation 3’s chaotic off-road racing spectacle. It’s over the top, wild, and immensely fun.

Just not for very long. Because, unfortunately, while a bit of destruction can be fun, the excessive crashes make up the majority quota of enjoyment to be had from Motorstorm – its single player mode, anyway.

The set-up is simple: a crazed festival of no-holds-barred racing, out in the middle of the desert. A wide range of vehicle types compete against one another on rough terrain, with car-wrecks and rave crowds on the sidelines. That means trucks versus dune-buggies versus motorcycles. This may sound like it would never work, but the game is impressively well balanced, considering the variety of vehicles.

The key to making Motorstorm’s gameplay work is the inclusion of alternative routes available in each track. The smaller vehicles, like bikes, are more maneuverable, and can tackle the tight corners, narrow ridges, and clever jumps of the high roads. But if you want to get down and dirty in the mud of the low roads, you’re better off steering something more substantial.

This actually makes Motorstorm quite tactical (and I don’t just mean tactically designed): more so than any other racer I’ve played, Motorstorm requires you to think about which way to go, rather than simply plotting how to take each corner. However, the flipside of this is that much of the fight is taken out of racing, because half your competitors are in a different area for a lot of it – and this is geared up to be a really brutal driving game, so that’s something of a shame.

But it doesn’t mean Motorstorm doesn’t have balls. This game is rough. And the crashes are easily its most enjoyable aspect. Motorstorm looks good generally – as per usual, though, the sans-HD graphics aren’t anything to write home about, and there are still some nasty textures in places – but the crashes are pure, distilled awesomeness. Every time you ram headlong into a wall, careen over a cliff, or otherwise shatter your vehicle (and there are many entertaining ways to achieve this), you are rewarded with a beautiful slow-motion view of the wreck. It’s truly stunning.

…And then you’re back in the race. Because the last thing we’d want here is any kind of realism or consequence for crashing. You may slip back a few places – so it’s clearly not to your advantage to crash – but the penalties are laughably minor. This is necessary, though, as it is (sometimes rather frustratingly) easy to total your vehicle. (Explosive overuse of the boost is a personal favourite.)

So, what have we got so far? Different vehicles racing together; inhospitable terrain; short-cuts; wild crashes. And that’s about it. You race, and by winning earn points to buy tickets to unlock more races. The single player mode is really a barren, featureless desert, not only having few options, but lacking even a ‘quick race’ mode for when you just want to jump straight into the action. (Some quickness would be nice, actually: the speed of the racing really isn’t up to much – and could someone please explain to me why the PS3’s loading times are similar to those experienced with my four-year-old, largely crippled PC?)

Fortunately, Motorstorm delivers significantly more in multiplayer. Curiously enough, there is no option to play split-screen. (Apparently Sony would prefer you stayed alone, indoors, with the shades drawn.) But online play does, I must admit, kick some serious behind. And it has all the features inconveniently lacking in single player: different race styles and everything. …Which is great, but serves to underline (and bold) the question of why exactly we don’t get them in there too.

Even with some exciting multiplayer action, however, Motorstorm remains rather underwhelming. An excellent, hard-rocking soundtrack, featuring past greats such as Nirvana alongside newcomers like Wolfmother (who do quite well for themselves on videogame soundtracks, as I understand it), does its best to prop the game up. And with that kind of backing, manic off-roading and intentional crashing can be made fun for a number of hours.

But at the end of the day, it’s really only about as fun as bashing toys together cataclysmically. And – if you’re buying rather than renting – it’s a lot more expensive.

NZGamer.com - Motorstorm Facebook