15 racers wait at the starting line, each in his vehicle of choice. Some sit confidently in their trucks while others are hoping their bikes will enable them to outmaneuver their rivals. One of the buggy drivers looks around this pack and notices that one of the female motorists is watching him. For a second he thinks that she is admiring his ride, but those thoughts are quickly forgotten when she gives him the finger. Suddenly a signal horn sounds. All the racers get ready, even the Quad biker who was looking at the behind of the cute motorist in front of him. A few seconds pass and the horn sounds again. This time all the racers start revving up engines, ready to drive off when they hear the horn for the third time. The buggy driver manages to look at the motorist once more before the final horn sounds. As a frightened gazelle they all spring into motion and drive off. If nothing goes terribly wrong most of them will be back in a few minutes. Oh, did I mention that the starting line was situated near the top of a desert mesa?

 

MotorStorm has been one of the most anticipated launch titles of Sony’s Playstation 3. Early trailers showed an almost photorealistic driving experience with crashes that rivaled those seen in Burnout, all of it taking place in Monument valley. At that time most of us were already skeptic about such trailers, but nevertheless the game showed promise. With most of the PS3 launch being focused on the hardware itself the release of MotorStorm was not advertised all that much. Still, the game quickly became a hit in Japan where it was exclusively released. While waiting for the Euro/US release which is currently slated for March we decided to take a look at the Japanese version to see what awaits us then.

I like it dirty

As the game intro (which is by the way the best racing intro ever) shows, MotorStorm is a huge racing festival where maniac racers do their best to stay ahead of the competition, even if it means jumping across a 30feet wide chasm or wrecking a wooden house which just happens to be in the way. And believe me - you’ll be doing it just about every race as will the AI opponents. Another thing the AI is quite good at is the art of pushing you out of the way, a tactic every player will have to learn in order to finish the races at all, let alone amongst the first three.

But it won’t be just the other racers that will be causing you trouble during the races. Your biggest adversary will be the tracks themselves. While other racing games are content with the occasional hill here and there, MotorSport thinks you should change your altitude almost every few seconds. This means that you’ll be driving uphill a lot and jumps that end several feet lower are not uncommon either. You can dream about level surfaces as well, as I’m almost sure that there aren’t any. As if all of this wasn’t bad enough all the courses have their share of natural hazards such as deadly falls and the quite common reefs in your path. Regardless of that the authors (the British Evolution Studios) decided to make the tracks quite long, and the 3 laps needed to complete a race will usually take you around 10 minutes and longer.

By now you are probably thinking that I hate the game. You couldn’t be more wrong! While my first 30 minutes or so almost had me throwing the joypad against the wall, things got better soon after that. While I’m not a racing aficionado I’ve played quite a few racing games throughout the years so I half expected to win the first few races without problems. Imagine my surprise when not only was I the last to cross the finish line, but I came in about a minute after the rest of the racers. When the next few races showed almost no improvements on my part I was ready to give the game a score of 20 and say it sucked. Around that time I discovered I had a speed boost at my disposal (which I’d have read about in the manual if it was not in Japanese). Things improved drastically after that, as I quickly learned that the boost is very helpful for those last second direction corrections and for speeding up on those few relatively straight parts of the tracks.

Quality > Quantity

The current trend in racing games dictates that a successful game should have at least 10 or more tracks and 20 or so different cars. MotorStorm ignores that and instead offers fewer tracks and only a few variations of each type of vehicle. So you will only see 3 different motorbikes throughout the entire game (not counting the different “skins”) and the same is true for the rest of the vehicles. When you add them all together you get just around 20 different vehicles though, so unless you just hate driving a buggy or rally car there is quite a wide variety of transportation available.

The tracks themselves are in short supply, but once you realize that each track has about 3 different paths available you begin to understand the low number. Each of the paths is usually intended for a certain type of vehicle, so you’ll often see trucks take a different path than the car drivers. The motorists (regular and quad bikes) will most likely take a third route, which is usually full of jumps and narrow paths. Nothing prevents other vehicle types to follow the same route, but you can be sure that a truck will have trouble navigating the treacherous corners while a motorist will have to avoid wrecked cars and similar obstacles that a truck could easily just push out of its way. Because of that every single game track is a completely different experience depending on your vehicle of choice and since the races take place at different times of the day you’ll be hard pressed to want more diversity.

So how does the racing actually look? If you are in one of the middle-class vehicles (meaning a buggy or rally car) you speed through mud pits, being careful to avoid any obstacles that might lie in your path. The speed boost allows you to force your car into the direction he is facing, as the engine itself will be unable to provide enough power to stop the car from sliding through mud pits or across sloped terrain. The experience is similar when driving a truck, except for being a bit slower and needing more time to turn. The upside is that except for bigger obstacles (rock formations and such) you don’t have anything to fear, plus you can push most of the competition out of the way. The experience is the complete opposite of a biker’s one – when on a bike you have to avoid everything and everyone, but you are extremely fast and are less dependant on the speed boost when you want to change direction at high speed. The speed boost on all vehicles is disabled for the first 15 seconds of a race, and it overheats quite quickly, so you’ll have to be careful if you wish to stay in one piece (the car explodes if you push it too hard).

 

Next gen technology

Being a high budget PS3 title it is only natural that the game looks amazing. The vehicles are full of detail and get dirty gradually through the race. They also display their damage (which is thankfully only esthetic) in a fairly realistic way – by the end of the race you’ll often be missing a door or two and your engine will be out in the open. The tracks themselves are also very pretty to look at, although most of the textures are not even bump mapped (they are high res and photorealistic though). The authors paid special attention to how the tracks are affected by the racers, so not only is almost everything on the track destructible, but the vehicles leave realistic tire marks behind them. This effect is especially pretty too look at in the various mud pits, which turn into a shiny pool of brown after a lap or two (yes, the tire tracks don’t disappear over time). On top of everything there is a well handled motion blur, as well as mud and dirt that stick to the screen – you might think they detract from the enjoyment, but they actually help feel everything more real. Unfortunately the game is locked at 720p, which might bother owners of big HD screens.

Developing for the PS3 grants programmers access to several libraries, amongst which is the famed havoc physics engine. The authors took the opportunity and made everything in the game react realistically (well, kind of) to outside forces. Even the vehicles themselves are governed by the laws of gravity, although some sacrifices were made to make the game more fun and less frustrating. You might occasionally stumble upon a bug where your car will be destroyed when crossing a terrain type transition for unknown reasons, but it happens rarely enough not to be an issue.

The sound in the game is also top notch, with a great soundtrack (Nirvana, Slipknot, etc.) and terrific engine sounds. Raising the volume and closing your eyes makes you feel like you are actually there and all that’s missing to make it perfect is the smell of gasoline in the air.

Conclusion

First-gen titles on a console are usually lacking and unfortunately MotorStorm is no exception. The Japanese version lacks any kind of multiplayer, which would be perfect for a game like this. Fortunately the Euro/US versions will have multiplayer capabilities, which will make this the definitive racing game for the PS3. If you are hungry for adrenalin pumping racing and don’t care much for multiplayer you should get your hands on the Japanese version. Otherwise wait for a few more weeks and buy the translated version. Either way, no one should miss out on this great title.