MotorStorm [PlayStation 3]

"MotorStorm is an off-road racing game that lets you choose between bikes, ATVs, buggy's, rally cars, racing trucks, "mud pluggers" and big rigs. According to the "story" all races take place during the MotorStorm Rock Festival in Monument Valley, Arizona. This means that all tracks go through muddy valleys, over narrow mountain paths and over rocky mesas. In the background you will hear groovy music from Nirvana, Queens of the Stone Age, Monster Magnet and many others.

The graphics
MotorStorm was the first game I slid into my fresh PlayStation 3. I thought Excite Truck looked okay, but after starting MotorStorm you will notice that the PS3 has quite a bit more pixel pushing power.
The details are unbelievable. The bikes cars and trucks all look very real. The environments are superbly detailed, even up close. The realistic light effects, the dust and the mud splashes complete the picture. And all this in HD quality (720p resolution only, no 1080p) and with a steady framerate. I thought the Xbox 360 was doing alright in the graphics department, but it looks like the PS3 is a little ahead.

The controls
In the default setup the steering is done with the left analog stick, the braking and accelerating with the left and right analog triggers (new on the PS3 controller). There's a boost button too (X). I had no problems with this setup, though it would have been cool to be able to use the Gran Turismo style controls (braking and accelerating with the right analog stick).
Good news for Excite Truck fans: in MotorStorm you can choose to steer by tilting your controller. Following Nintendo, Sony has decided to include motion sensors in the PS3 controller. But unfortunately this doesn't work as well as in Excite Truck. The controller is much too sensitive, a few degrees of tilting and you car is facing the wrong way. They even had to leave out the controller's rumble features to make this possible, a giant mistake in my opinion. A rumbling controller can provide good extra feedback, especially in race games.

The racing
The way all vehicles respond to bumps in the track and different types of surface (mud, sand, rocks, etc...) is impressive. At higher speeds you never feel like you are in total control, you are constantly making small steering corrections and anticipating changes in the terrain. But you have to keep your speed up, because otherwise you won't win any races. As Mario Andretti said: "If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough". This is very valid here, difficult and very exciting.
The various vehicles all respond completely different. The bikes accelerate faster and are more flexible, it's easier to change directions. The cars and truck are a bit slower, but more stable. This enables you to push your opponents or, in case of a biker, just run them over. The bikes are more at home on the mountain paths higher up the tracks, the trucks are better suited for the wider and muddier valleys. The buggy's are the hardest to control, their suspension is so flexible that you are launched into the air each time you accidentally hit a piece of rock.
The track design is brilliant, they have all been set up to enable multiple routes, giving each type of vehicle the same chance of winning. It's up to you to discover which route fits your vehicle best. If you happen to end up on a mountail trail in a rally car then chances are high that you will miss a jump, with fatal results.

Which brings me to another cool feature of MotorStorm, the damage model. All vehicles have been modelled in all details, not only graphically but physically too. They really consist of many parts that can get dirty, get dented or even fall off. You will often find yourself driving around without a hood, with waving open doors or even with just a frame, after you have lost all platework.
A crash is even more spectacular, as your vehicle explodes, wheels, doors and other parts flying everywhere. For bikes and ATVs this includes the driver, who is flying from his/her seat and crashing into ground, the limbs moving so lifelike that it hurts just watching it.

Multiplayer
Amazingly, MotorStorm doesn't have a splitscreen multiplayer feature.
However, this omission is made up for by the excellent online multiplayer feature. On the PS3 playing online is free (as opposed to Xbox Live) and it works perfectly too. Finding an online game is quick and easy. I had one game with lag, but that was on the night of the PS3 launch, maybe servers were too busy?
Playing MotorStorm online is a blast, as on the left and right you can see your opponents bouncing on the rocky surface, jumping off ramps, exploding into parts or flying off their bikes. Fights are fierce, there's a lot of pushing and shoving. In online games the AI of the opponents is better too, isn't that great?

Soooo, MotorStorm is perfect then?
Sounds quite enthusiastic, doesn't it? But still, this game is missing something, especially in single player mode. After playing for a few hours you will have gotten used to the visual feast and then is the time that a game will have to motivate you to play on, to make progress, to get better. And that's what's missing here. The single player game consists of working through a list of 21 championships. Each of them consisting of one or more races, using different combinations of eight tracks in total. Initially, two of the championships are accessible, the rest must be unlocked by winning races.
But that's it then. There's no upgrade system, no earning faster cars, no challenges or achievements. Yes, every now and then you will unlock a new vehicle but their added value is unclear. There's no discernible difference between the different choices within a vehicle class anyway, they just look different. The only variation in the game is in having to race the same track using a different vehicle class, for example using a bike first and a rally car later.

On top of that it quickly gets harder to win races. Nothing wrong with that of course, but in this game the following scenario happens too often: you have been driving way ahead of the rest for almost three laps and just before the finish one of your opponents appears out of nowhere, overtakes you and finishes first. A typical example of rubber-banding, a lazy form of AI programming which just gives a bit more speed to opponents that have fallen behind. This technique is applied more often, e.g. in Mario Kart, but here it has been applied too rigorously. Causing annoyance and frustration in the later races.
Luckily you will encounter none of that in online races, which makes those a lot more enjoyable.

So... MotorStorm is very spectacular and a fine PS3 lauch game too. But after a week of intensive play you will probably be done with the single player game. Not much of a problem for me personally, I like short games, as long as they're fun. Moreover, you can still enjoy many hours of fun online, racing real (and honest) opponents."