PS3 Informer

MotorStorm

There was a lot of hype with Motorstorm, and why shouldn't there have been? The game played fantastic. Graphics aside. all the promises made with this title were fulfilled. But what brings this title down a notch is something we should've asked for but never bothered to.

Gameplay: Flat out fun. It's simple yet addicting. You pretty much only need three buttons: boost, brake and accelerate. Your vehicle has a heat gauged and if you boost for too long, you’ll explode (which is awesome!) so you need to be cautious yet liberal with your boost gauges to win. Also, each vehicle type gives you some personal preference. Bikes are light yet tend to go flying when you hit a bump, cars are in the middle while big rigs take a while to get up to speed but can also go through mud without slowing down. There’s a few more vehicle types on between but you need to read the manual to figure out what the difference is between all those. Seriously, who does that?

Graphics: Near on par from the E3 render. Mud's been toned down a bit ("to make it more fun") but it's still a pretty thing to look at. I’m using a regular TV (reviewing video games isn’t the glamorous career I thought it would be) but the visuals are still nice. Go to your local game store where they have a PS3 hooked up with an HDMI cable and see this game for all its glory. Vehicles are well rendered and you can literally rip up the track.

Online: Load times are somewhat lengthy (though not a pain) and the developers should've cached more memory into the hard drive. (they only put around 700 KB in there) but playing and trash talking with your friends is a blast. If you don’t have any friends, there’s no better time to make some online than now.

Final Thoughts: What brings this game down? Gameplay? Nope. Graphics? Try again. Online? Ehh! Wrong! So what was it? Tracks. If any game was lacking in available tracks it's this one. with only 8 available, it feels like the game is only half done. More tracks will probably be added in the future but you shouldn’t have to wait or be charged for something that should’ve been in the final build to begin with.