MotorStorm: Massive Hands-On Preview

It's simply the best game on PlayStation 3, and we've been playing a recent build like mad to deliver you this detailed hands-on preview ahead of its offline Japan release next month and full launch next year.

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When a PS3 turned up at Kikizo recently, we were pleased to find a decent selection of games included with the package, including some of the key titles that would launch with the system. But MotorStorm was the first, and most recent game we played, and the one that's spun inside the console most.

Simply put, there's no next-gen racing game as cool as this.

Although different demos of the game have been doing the rounds via download onto owners' systems, and at demo kiosks at stores in Japan and America, some of the feedback has been mixed and it's abundantly clear to us that the near-final product we've played benefits from a lot of perfecting. After all, the game is set to ship in just a couple of weeks in Japan, albeit without the online play and additional features it will boast with the full western release. This build is slick and polished, and even more final builds now fix the remaining issues such as slowdown and loading time.

Take the mayhem of Daytona's oval circuit pile-up carnage, the addictive off-road gameplay of a Rallisport and the brilliance of Burnout's speed and crashes, then multiply it all loads and you have merely the foundation of what MotorStorm is. It's a game that comes together so effectively, you have to say 'wow'. It's possibly even better looking that the infamous, stunning target video trailer shown 18 months ago and it plays even better than it looks.

It's an off-road racer with a choice of seven vehicle types going up against each other, with between eight and fifteen vehicles in any one race. The variety in vehicles on offer, and the dynamic play created by having them all fight for the win together, is a big part of the fun in MotorStorm; get on a bike for a light, speedy but demanding ride, crush everything and everyone in sight inside a big rig or a racing truck, or really get into the spirit of things in a buggy or a rally car.

It's instantly enjoyable, highly addictive and wonderfully unpretentious throughout. And most importantly, it feels like a proper next-gen gaming experience.

But the killer ingredient is the physics engine. Not in a stuffy, simulator way where you have to worry about what your tyres are made out of or what petrol you're using. But full-on environment, vehicle, driver and crash physics that add an unprecedented feeling of depth to the gameplay. As you bounce around the wildly undulating terrain in a buggy, go flying off your bike into a rocky wall, or smash through anything in your way in a truck, this is pure fun as you fight to keep control of the race and master a track.

The physics are everywhere. If you're hurtling along and just clip a small bit of tyre on the edge of an unfortunately positioned rock, get ready for a rough landing after a brilliant crash; you'll never just bump off a wall and carry on. Hit some barrels or a spare heavyweight tyre left laying around in the vast, object-rich environments, and they'll keep tear down the track for a hundred metres, believably and intimately bouncing on every part of rocky wall and uneven track, while the rag doll driver animation is the real deal here - watching in slow motion as a driver is thrown into a cliff before his own bike lands and crushes back onto his body, or as hundreds of vehicle parts explode into different directions, is spellbinding stuff.

"It's instantly enjoyable, highly addictive and wonderfully unpretentious throughout."

Crashes are as diverse as the tiniest differences in their causes; they're not pre-animated but properly calculated based on the weight, momentum, density and strength of everything involved. Every crash is as enthralling as it is punishing, whether it's a rear-wheel skid out of control, a stomach-wrenching hurtling down several storeys' worth of rocky terrain, or just full head-on explosions of incompetence that are too spectacular to describe, the crashes are just plain awesome but they lead to time penalty before you respawn onto the track. The fact that all major crashes trigger slow-motion close-up action means you can really appreciate the effect of the crash, and even if you just lost pole position you can't help but smile. Although the respawn time delay is relatively lenient, you'll usually lose a few places in the race, and you can always skip past the crash proceedings if you prefer.

This superb attention to detail really flexes Cell's muscles. But for all this tangible feeling to things, it's ultimately an arcade-like experience; it makes driving fun for the sake of driving, and it was a good few races before we started putting actual effort into winning races and progressing through the game's 'ticket'-based system.

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Video Coverage (Latest Videos & Video FAQ)
PLEASE DO NOT DIRECT LINK TO ANY MEDIA FILE ON KIKIZO
Description	Dur.	Size	Details
Newly Added
MotorStorm Latest Trailer, HD Quality	1:20	45MB	DF, HD, 16:9 1280x720p30 8Mbps
MotorStorm Latest Trailer, SD	1:20	9MB	DF, SD, 16:9 640x360p30 2Mbps
Previous Videos
MotorStorm GC2006 Trailer, HD Quality	1:08	50MB	DF, HD, 16:9 1280x720p30 7.0Mbps
MotorStorm HD In-Game Engine Trailer (HD quality)	1:08	57MB	DF, SD, 16:9 1280x720p30 8Mbps
MotorStorm E3 2005 Trailer SD	1.31m	34MB	DF, SD, 60 640x480 3.5Mbps
MotorStorm E3 2005 Trailer SD	1.31m	20MB	DF, SD, 30 640x480 2Mbps
MotorStorm E3 2005 Trailer ED, CAM with DFA alternative, this cam version is worth a download due to extra detail captured better than in feeds. Also doesn't have the ludicrous Vsync issue that plagued Sony's 2005 live feed. Not that it matters anymore.	1.24m	29MB	CAM, ED, 60 720x576 3Mbps