MotorStorm Pacific Rift Hands-On Preview

We've toured Hawaii in a fresh build of Evolution's sequel.

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The new Monster Trucks, on the other hand, are little put off by mud and shrubbery. These Goliaths make up in unmatchable grip and sturdiness what they lack in speed, cheerily stomping competitors flat, and are thus a good fit for beginners.

Of the courses we sampled, Cascade Falls was probably the standout. Its two main routes loop over and under one another early on, affording plenty of opportunities for spectacular 90 degree collisions. A keyhole gap in a trackside billboard allows smaller racers to access the heights, safe from the mud-pluggers and trucks churning up the rivers and rickety bridges of the lower levels. As they enter the gargantuan half-pipe round to the finish line, daredevils will want to steal a few places by riding up on the inside curve - just make sure you're on the level when you exit the tube.

Rain God Spires, meanwhile, is a homage to Motorstorm's Rain God Mesa, offering a mix of hair-raising cliff-side curves and generous inland dust basins. As mentioned, Wildfire is pretty heavy on the old liquid igneous, which not only lurks under every jump but also abuts directly onto the course at intervals, making the penalty for going out-of-bounds particularly steep.

The frame-rate's pretty steep too, the odd dip during thronged waterfall sections notwithstanding. Pacific Rift isn't quite the technological showcase its predecessor was - Race Driver: GRID narrowly pips it - but still ranks among the most opulent cars on the shop. Evolution's mastery of high dynamic range lighting and motion blur routinely takes your breath away, while riders and vehicles animate with tremendous aplomb - especially when they crash, bodywork accordioning against a boulder or tearing away to collide with oncoming racers (though plunging into lava is a rather disappointing experience). There's a smidgeon of pop-up here, a sprinkle of aliasing there, but nothing a little intensive optimisation couldn't iron out.

16-player online races are back, but Evolution has worked in some four-player local modes for those who prefer to keep their rivals within arm's reach. The game handles split-screen racing without a hitch: play a couple of bouts on a fifty-inch LCD and you could be forgiven for thinking you had two PS3s running the same race side by side on separate monitors. We only hope the action will fare as well over a four way split.

Motorstorm: Pacific Rift is unlikely to leave any paradigms in smoking fragments - as with many other titles due out this winter, the emphasis is on developing a formula rather than tearing videogame orthodoxy a new one. That might be an issue if there were any real opposition on the horizon, but arcade off-roadsters are a rare breed nowadays - the nearest comparison we can think of is Black Isle Studios' Pure, which is more of a trick-driven experience. Looks like Evolution Studios has another multi-million seller on its hands.

MotorStorm Pacific Rift is released October 28 in North America and November 14 in Europe. Watch out for our killer interview with the game's creators coming very shortly.

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