Enemy Down

Speed on Toast!

Pin your eye balls back as Dekko straps in to the seat of Motorstorm 2.

Posted by SmellyMoss on Jan 6th 2009 19:00

By RT Dekko

Now is the winter of our discontent, for the PS3 controller is cumbersome and awkward to use when playing a racing game, with the button layout of Motorstorm: Pacific Drift being about as fluent and well mapped as a blind Romanian tourist in downtown L.A.

OK, so maybe my Elvin 360 controller shaped hands aren’t the best to judge such matters but even so, we ask Evolution Studios; couldn’t we have the choice to customise our button layout? Anyway, that’s a gripe with what is really a rather fine arcade racer whose main aim is to make you think you’re never going to survive a lap on any of its 16 tracks. You nearly don’t.

For those vast majority of PS3 players who have played the first Motorstorm this gut wrenching feeling will be all too familiar but, with the release of the Dual Shock 3 controller you do feel that little closer to the road with all of that sexy vibrating going on between your pinkies and the game (and system) is so much better for it.

I’ve been trying to think how best to describe a game that needs to be played up close and personal, with surround sound blaring, so you can get a taste, it’s like trying to tell your mate about the ‘G-Loc 360’ arcade cabinet you went on in the Trocadero, well it’s like ‘Nam; you just weren’t there man! And you have to be to get it.

The best I could come up with was this; a brief snippet of game play: Start the race….ohh nice, bright graphics…. hmm better concentrate here….volcanic rock….sheer drop….scream….boost….survive (maybe)….thank God…. realise you’re heading for the smallest of gaps and make it (probably)….liberally apply boost….admire the foliage for a split second….hit a straight and check your position….oh sweet I’m in fourth….jump through the waterfall…power slide to avoid the tipping big rig....slush, bang and rattle across the finish line….lathe, rinse, repeat. For the game is a cute puppy, a hot chocolate sundae, or an old lady falling down an icy slope; a pleasure to be savoured.

I enjoyed the first Motorstorm quite a bit and it was my favourite game of the PS3’s release batch (and for a good while after) but this sequel really has out shone it’s older sibling and like the favoured child it sits proud, preening and pretty in your fatherly PS3 with vastly superior graphics, mainly down to the location shifts where one minute you surf the volcanic rocks and lava, next you’re on a tropical coast and skidding through a semi-jungle canopy where as the next minute it’s all rock and waterfalls, all rendered beautifully and with impressive tracks that see your ATV, bike, buggy, rally car, racing car, the uhm ‘mud plugger’ and big rigs all vying for room and for first place, that coveted rosette that sways even the most hardened of hearts.

I find with Motorstorm that the crashing is far less annoying than in many other racers, where instead of the expected ‘controller into wife’s face syndrome’ you tend to hear a faint ‘oh’ emit the instant before you hit as the realisation of the crash spreads across your cranium. Motorstorm 2 is no different and with the improved visuals crashing even gives you a chance to look around.

This game is 1080p all over and if you don’t have a HDTV then you’d never be one of us, singing ‘Rebel Yell’ with Billy Idol on top of the BT Tower, eating egg vol-au-vonts. Talking of Billy Idol, the game boasts a sterling soundtrack which, sadly, doesn’t include any Monsieur Idol but does boast a plethora, Heffe, of luminous artists such as ‘Queens of the Stone Age’, the still alive ‘David Bowie’ and the last ever great band ‘Nirvana’.

As I said earlier, the control system seems to be a bit of an issue at first but I think that’s just where I’m used to racers on the 360, however being able to map accelerate to the R1 button would be a gift from those good chaps the developers (please note Evolution, you da man and everything, colloquial euphemisms included but please allow this option in the future!). It's odd going from the nippy speed of the ATV to the tumble and power of a big rig and each vehicle has its own handling characteristics and, once you grasp them, you can cope well with each course using a specific vehicle. Of course, each track has multiple routes, some best suited to certain vehicles and it's a skill to master the best route with the appropriate vehicle while boosting in the exact right spots, including the areas where water affects your boost.

Oh yes, good old H2O comes into play when boosting as it cools your engines, hot shot. Drive through a shallow river or under a waterfall and your boost meter will turn a shimmering, watery blue accordingly and, I assume, allow you a short extension on your boost although I have to say it must be very short as I can’t see it having much affect, other than the shimmery boost meter. Who cares though as monster trucks are great fun as you can run over cars and, even more exciting; you can squish those pesky bikers like bugs on a windshield.

Road rage is alive and well in Motorstorm and is one of the games main aims as taunting the other drivers is one of the perks and even has its own button (as in 1) but now you also have the L1 and L2 buttons to contend with which come into play as you near an opponent and they allow you to perform a limited attack, such as a grab if you’re on a bike or a barge in a car, nicely done there. Oh deary my, such roughness and violence, you’ll need the pretty scenery to calm yourself (unless of course the scenery just happens to be a lake of molten fire from Beelzebub’s open tongue sore).

The problem I found with the original Motorstorm was that I only ever played it in ten minute bursts and then it felt time to move on to something else, whatever that racer malaise was (maybe the lack of rumble or the same, desert scenery?) has evaporated into exhaust fumes for numero two seems to whet the appetite for far longer. I doubt the unlocking of new vehicle and driver skins is the incentive. It must be the lure of seeing new tracks, which are really quite cool with their ramps and half-coils (is that a term?) lying strewn about the world ready for trucks to race on. Great stuff.

If you own a PS3 (and I know some of you do) then you really shouldn’t be without Motorstorm: Pacific Drift, so don’t be a peasant there Tiny Tim, hobble on your rickety, worn crutch down to GAME and buy yourself a copy out of the Farthing you got off of old Uncle Scrooge for Christmas.

First Impressions: Ooh, pretty!

An Hour In: Still not bored…………I won’t make that jump!

Long Term: Motorstorm 2 is a game that will sit snugly in your collection and will be one you dip into regularly, it’ll be the game you get out to impress your friends with when you want to show off your shiny, new fangled Bluish-Raymond and High Deaf technologies. Until the next big release comes out that is.

Overall: 8 out of 10

*Please note; the line ‘semi-jungle canopy’ was bought to you by the estate of Freddie Mercury*