Mon 27 Nov 2006
Of all the first Playstation 3 titles that are being shown late this year, none were as controversial as Killzone 2 and Motorstorm, a good-looking off-road racer. Now with the PS3 released, a demo is available and we are able to experience Motorstorm first hand. The game runs relatively decent with only a few minor issues surrounding its control and graphics. First off, Motorstorm is hands-down the best-looking racing game on the PS3 so far. Dust flies up frantically when you land from turns, scraps of paint peel off when you crash into another racer, and flames fire out your mufflers when you pound the boost button. It’s hard to describe the intensity that wraps around this next-generation title, but the amount of details that go into it clearly blows out other titles in terms of graphics. You’ll just have to take a look at the screenshots or a video of the game to understand what’s being said here.
The only flaw the game is the frame rate, which becomes unpredictably unstable; it sometimes jumps from an awesome 60 frame per second to a mellow 20 frames per second, which adversely affects the gameplay mechanics. Audio-wise, the game sounds pretty good, with the revving giving off a wholesome bass with that screeching chainsaw-like sound. The crashing sounds particularly nice, with the windows cracking and all that. The music featured in the demo is “Slam” by drum and bass group Pendulum (known for Fasten Your Seatbelt and Hold Your Colour) and it fits the chaos that goes on with the fast-paced drumwork, but makes the game feel more like an out-of-place music video when the action goes down to standard driving. We’ll have to see if the track list in the final game is any better. Motorstorm plays surprisingly well for a game that looks this good. Acceleration and braking are bound to the redesigned R2 and L2 triggers, respectively. As unorthodox the buttons may look without a concave curve, you’ll actually have no problem with your finger slipping off the buttons and prompting you to crash. As is with games of this type, you’re able to boost.
The boost mechanics in this game are unique being that instead of charging up boost by drifting, crashing, or picking up power-ups, boost is actually part of your car’s engine itself and is usable 10 seconds after the start of a race. A boost gauge (similar to a speedometer) tells you how hot your engine is—you’re able to boost for as long as you want, but your engine will heat up. Shoot past the critical temperature and you’ll blast yourself into oblivion. Not using boost will cool down the engine some, so the trick is to find a happy medium of boosting and relying on pure driving skill. Of course, boosting usually means the game in question is an arcade-style racer, and this certainly is one. The simplest way to describe the gameplay is “Burnout and Project Gotham Racing 3 meet the Grand Canyon.” It’s a high-speed game, but some sluggish controls, a few framerate problems, and sometimes unpredictable physics will send you flying to bits and pieces on occasion. Thankfully, Motorstorm’s AI is particularly fair, and you’ll usually find yourself scoring in the top 6. It’s not yet a perfect game, but it’s a great one in this state. Hopefully when the game is released the framerate problems are fixed. If you want to try this demo, just go download it from Sony or head over to your local game store and find the Playstation 3 kiosk and pick Motorstorm from the list of games.