Although the 2005 and 2006 editions of E3 showed the work in progress Motorstorm, there were some skeptics throughout the game business industry that saw this as part of the "next gen" post processed people-fouling bunch of trailers. Year 2007 followed up, and the actual release of Motorstorm proved the game had all what it took since the day it had tagged to it "Motorstorm trailer", to become the best selling PS 3 game and one of the top next-generation racing games.

What differentiates this game from the similar titles, is the way physics are taken care off. It simply has the cleanest and most real damage, driving, handling, jumping physics than any other game released on consoles to date.The way in which tracks are built, look and feel, at turn have no match to any corresponding title we struggle to seek out for comparison. It's pretty much possible to follow up any route/shortcut you want ( only the imagination being the limiter here). Fair to say all premises are there to assure unboring, unrepetitive and high replayability of the game, facts that all gamers desperately want from the gameplay point of view.

The storyline in Motorstorm is pretty shallow; race drivers from all across the world gather at Monument Valley in pursue of one goal. That is to win a series of off-road races and to be the overall winner of MotorStorm Festival. The races that you must win to be proclaimed the champion of the festival comprise a number of 21 tickets (only 3 are unlocked initially), with each ticket having between one to four races to be contested. There are four levels of difficulty that you'll come across when progressing through the 21 tickets. As a bonus (if you perform more than OK) you will unlock all sorts of vehicles, tracks and new contests.

To complete one ticket, you must earn sufficient respect points. This can be done by winning gold, silver or bronze pinion at each race. There are also some special races in which more than usual respect points are awarded, or some races in which for example you are forced to win or take at least a silver pinion. What's a bit disturbing, is the fact that only this ticket race system is available for players to race on the tracks Motorstorm offers. No quick race or any other mode is present, and since new cars and tracks are unlocked progressively as you race, there will be few racing material and tracks at the beginning.

Motorstorm has a complete fleet of off-road vehicles from which the player can select its suitable racer. Bikes, ATVs, buggies, rally cars, racing trucks, mudpluggers and big rigs are all present.

Bikes have good acceleration, average speed and can pass through narrow corridors, but they are vulnerable to damage. ATVs on the other hand are much more stable and bulkier, but with lesser agility than the bikes.

Buggies are custom built and offer a good compromise of speed and ability to cross rough terrain, while rally cars represent the fastest category among the 7 types of vehicles, although they have limited terrain coping capabilities.

Racing trucks are the most powerful and heaviest from the cars category. Good at crossing rough terrain, they are a bit weaker on acceleration and handling than the previous lighter vehicles. Mudpluggers are the ultimate vehicles, they can cope with the worst possible terrain, although speed is not their strongest point. But if you think and wanna act big, "Big rigs" are the tools to sweep around your opponents off the track. They are large, powerful, unstoppable machines .

This artificial equilibrium between the seven categories produces some pretty competitive races. For example; if you are at the wheel of a sluggish big rig you will be able to smash into the competition and respawn them (which takes a couple of seconds), enough for you to pull away from them with a burst of nitrous. This doesn't work perfectly all the time though; at times some very unbalanced races come your way making you do all sorts of neurotic outbursts. Put on top of this one of the most aggressive A.I. racing games ever witnessed and you'll surely end up restarting a few times per race ( in pursue of the golden pinion).

But what's nice to this multitude of dust raisers; is the different driving style each vehicle category comes with and the consequences this has on the routes the player will follow when he is on race mode, (whether it has to do with the grip characteristics of a track or the road ability of vehicles ). For example the big rigs and the mudpluggers will find better traction in muddy areas in contradiction with dirt bikes and ATVs, which will struggle there due to their lightweight build. Perhaps the developers went to far with this differentiation between specific types of surface and what vehicle is suited best for them. On the downside to this complex physics and very elaborate visual representation of damage; it's very unpleasant to see that roadability of vehicles it is not affected at all, when damage is taken. It's a bit more than an arcade game, but nowhere near a true off-road simulator.

The rag doll physics (present in slow-motion crashes) are between the best we have seen so far in any game. Likewise, the possibility of rotating the camera around the captured vehicle when pause button is pressed, is good looking but useless. Motorstorm has certainly put a high price on this crashing/ destroying/ damaging aggressive driving style. And this is not bad at all, we surely missed a carnage to the degree of perfection this title offers.

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Gameplay:88

Although Motorstorm is more like an arcade game than an off-road simulator, it simply offers way too much realistic features and gameplay to be tagged an ordinary arcade racing game. The aggressiveness and chaotic trajectories the A.I. competitors show and take; the way the races unfold (A.I. riders crash pretty much as often as you do) worths every hour spent playing.

Real time deformation to the track and the vehicles; very spectacular gameplay ( tracks are filled with bumps, cliffs, jumps, ledges, mud pits and various obstacles); very real race experience from first person view completes the A.I. successful part of the game.

The lack of detailed information about the tracks and cars present in the game, or the absence of mid race info such as: map display, speed and so on... is pretty weird. Besides these minor shortcomings, there are more important ones that mildly affect the gameplay. Things like huge load times, lack of racing modes or tracks (only eight) are a few of them. The last drawback is solved partially by the ambiance feature, which can change drastically the appearance of tracks. The Sixaxis gyroscopic feature is pretty clumsy implemented ( 'if you wanna win that is' interpretation).

Graphics:86

Motorstorm supports a maximum resolution of 720p, which is under the capabilities of Playstation 3 console. The minuses are: some insufficient textures in the sky reproduction and some drops in the frame rate ( mostly when simultaneous crashes happen near you). Otherwise all shines and looks extremely well. The mud and dust spray produced by the car in front of you feels very real, (especially from first person view). Desert terrain is superbly captured, the wastelands are so varied and diversified, it makes you wonder how much time was spent just studying real environments. The crashes, the over-boost destruction, the mud sections of tracks, the way drivers/riders/vehicles dirty up, the menu movies are damn well made.

Multiplayer:87

Motorstorm highly populated online servers (especially in US) are a solid proof that interest & popularity among gamers is at high levels. Players are able to set up the online part, through options like: game name, track/vehicle selection, number of laps, ambiance, handicap, friends only, filters. While the ranking, is done by according points between 0-10 for every online race a player competes in . Nine different fame rankings result from this system: zero, grunt, rookie, up-and-coming, pro, veteran, hero, legend, god. The lack of splitscreen racing mode may annoy some folks without a internet connection.

Sound:80

The rocky soundtrack induces that required aggressive off-road driving style. Indie, grunge, new metal, alternative, pop rock, rock'n'roll, techno, thrash genres are all here. Also the sounds from each of the seven categories of racers are well individualized and pretty descriptive regarding the phases the off-road vehicles pass through while in racing.