MotorStorm: Pacific Rift follows the same receipt used by the first MotorStorm, delivering a high-octane arcade off-road gameplay with many vehicles and luxurious tracks. This time Evolution Studios changed the environment and decided to go for a more tropical location. Automatically this change requested a high demand of new graphical effects only possible to be reproduced by a modified version of the original graphical engine. In this way the physics system, almost unnoticed in the first game (except the rag-doll effects), becomes much more complex, the developers introducing also destroyable objects and dynamic vegetation. Still the game cannot achieve the spectacular dynamics present in FlatOut Ultimate Carnage. Improvements have been made also to the damage system. The vehicles have even more impact zones, so the visual experience after each incident becomes much more spectacular. Still there are no handling changes while crashing your car. A simple respawn will put you back on the track without a single scratch.

The demo present on Playstation Network consists of a single-player race with three different vehicles classes, and a 2-player split-screen race with other five new vehicles. Both racing modes use the Rain God Spires track, a track very similar to ones in the former MotorStorm. Although as already mentioned, the biggest change in this sequel is the new location, Rain God Spires cannot show what exactly can the graphical engine do, and many of the physics engine are not very easy deductible here. The terrain in general is a rocky and dusty one, with a huge jump that remembers me of PURE. Although Sony announced that water will have a big impact in the gameplay, cooling the engine while using too much nitro, not a single drop is present in the demo.

Besides water, new terrains are confirmed: volcanic mountain sides, beaches surfaces, jungle full of vegetation, caves, etc. The total of 8 vehicles are: a bike, a monster truck, two buggys, two racing trucks (one of which can be selected in both modes) and two rally cars, try somehow to balance the lack of playability of the demo.

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Another new addition is the new vehicle class: Monster Trucks. These type of vehicles make the link between Big Rigs and Racing Trucks, and are definitely the most powerful ones. With any of the monster trucks you will be able to drive over cars (except big rigs), break most vegetation, and destroy structures. The bad thing is that these cars roll-over pretty easy because of their high positioned gravity center. The good thing is that all the previous vehicles from the original MotorStorm will be present here along with the new models. Again the new models can be found as downloadable content. These packages can be acquired now much easier by the presence of the new online service included in the game's interface similar to what SingStore service had to offer in SingStar.

Besides the online mode, the game will feature also a split-screen mode with two or four players playing offline. In online mode the game will support 16-player, already a classic number for all the consoles games.

The game will feature a 45 licensed songs playlist featuring known artists like: Nirvana, Queens of the Stone Age, David Bowie, etc. If you think that this is not enough, you can use the custom music playlist made out of tracks stored in the PS3 harddrive.

At a first look Pacific Rift will offer enough for any fan of this series. But its a subjective conclusion, because the demo doesn't offer too many details of what this game can offer in full version. Definitely Pacific Rift will cause mayhem on online races, especially with the new option of kicking the opponents with your fists while riding the bike. Road Rash baby! Of course this goes only for other bikers, while for the cars there is a tilt option which can push the other opponent hard enough to lose control.