Darji
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- 11 Aug 2006
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erstes westliches Review der japanischen "DEmo"^^
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=152972
Und das ist erst die japanische Version. ^^
When you win a race in Motorstorm, you know you've exercised some pretty admirable restraint. At first, you'll think, "Ooh! Look! Mad crashes, pretty explosions, open desert! I'm going to drive like a twat!" After a while, though, you'll realise that joyriding gets you nowhere. It's all about not crashing - it's the anti-Burnout.
You begin with a selection of three tickets, which act as passes to kerrazy dirt racing festivals in the American desertside. Each ticket gives you access to a series of races, and most races limit your vehicle selection options to the types allowed by the festivals' organisers - some races pit seven bikes against eight trucks, others offer a choice between rally cars and big rigs, and so on.
Win a festival to unlock a new one, and repeat. With the number of available tracks and vehicles increasing all the time, it's a simple format that's perfectly tuned to keep you playing.
A lot's been made of Motorstorm's visuals, in light of how they compare (or rather, can't compare) with the original E3 demo footage. Play the final product, though, and the whole debate becomes irrelevant. Motorstorm is here and it's a spectacularly good-looking game.
Effects are everywhere: dust, mud, smoke, water, flora and fauna. Little birdies fluttering about desert shrubs. Vehicles that change throughout the course of a race: from clean-cut metal shimmering in the noontime sun to dusty, door-less wrecks powersliding through the mud to a broken finish. Motorstorm is the kind of game that isn't merely fun to play - it's also fun to watch.
To get the most out of Motorstorm's attention to detail, we recommend playing from the game's in-car/in-truck perspective. Largely because most of the vehicles here are oversized off-road monsters, the first-person view is pitched slightly higher than in most other racing games, rendering it both perfectly playable and involving to a butterflies-in-the-stomach degree.
Unfortunately, Motorstorm's bikes don't offer a first-person viewpoint - instead, they have a completely useless close-up third-person alternative. Shame.
Motorstorm's frame-rate is generally rock-solid, only momentarily dropping in 'To The Max!' instances of fifteen-truck pile-ups and such. And even then, you'll be grateful for the breather. In practice, the solid frame-rate assists Motorstorm's gameplay. The sensation of speed here is phenomenal, especially when turboing through narrow and winding gullies.
The default control setup assigns a turbo feature to the X button, leaving the analogue L2 and R2 triggers for braking and accelerating. The SixAxis' motion sensor is also supported, which in effect transforms the controller into a wireless steering wheel (or handlebars). It's novel but we still opt for the analogue stick because it feels more precise. Either way, its inclusion is bound to please some and it's better to have a choice than it is to have... none.
Course design is a highlight of the show. Most tracks make for lap times in the region of three minutes. They're long. They're also very broad.
And there are multiple paths through each course. You get the feeling that you haven't merely landed on a circuit that exists suspended somewhere in the game universe, and that you really are in the middle of a vast desert without boundaries.
Of course, there are boundaries but Motorstorm hides them in a thoroughly convincing way. Racing in fields of as many as fifteen competitors just enhances the game's Cannonball Run flavour. And yet Burt Reynolds, we can assure you, is nowhere to be seen. So that's good.
One of Motorstorm's big successes is that it demands of you things that other racers don't even bother to ask. You'll have to learn every nook and cranny of the terrain before you can drive around courses with confidence.
Occasionally, the topography (look it up, it's in the dictionary - honest) can be a source of frustration - when you clip a boulder that sends your motor spiralling to oblivion and the finish line is one corner away, for example. But you can't really complain. You did hit that rock. Motorstorm is not unfair but it may try your patience at times. Just stick with it.
Clever use of the turbo is also demanded. It can be used at any time but comes with a caveat of potential overheating: the turbo increases your vehicle's engine temperature, so it's vital that you stop boosting before your motor explodes.
When you mess up and it does explode, though, Motorstorm treats you to a satisfyingly punchy explosion routine. Not that you'll care much for it at the time.
But there are plenty of things to smile about. The range of vehicles: legendary rally motors such as the Lancia Delta (masquerading as the Italia Gagliano, which we thought was a kind of linguini) race roll-cage to body with fire engines and classic motorbikes that are worthy of Steve McQueen. Motorstorm's audio selection, too, makes us grin with approval.
It's an unusual-yet-somehow-appropriate mash-up of things like Primal Scream's most deeply American cuts (Dolls and The 99th Floor), Kings of Leon, and Spiritualized (Rugby's finest). Someone at Sony Europe has pretty fine taste in music.
The only thing about Motorstorm that makes us really frown, it being the Japanese version and all, is its lack of multiplayer. There's no split-screen, no online multiplayer. Nowt.
Still, while we wait for those options to turn up in the final UK release, we're more than happy to get dirty alone. Motorstorm is, along with Ridge Racer 7, one of the definitive first-generation PS3 racers.
Overview
Verdict
Although it'll frustrate your pants off from time to time, Motorstorm ultimately is an absurdly enjoyable driving game. Now just give us the online UK version and we'll bump the score up even higher.
Uppers
- Probably the prettiest racer you've ever seen
- Spectacular crashes
- Solid gameplay and physics
- Wide variety of courses and vehicles; long life
- Soundtrack matches the game perfectly
Downers
- No online multiplayer just yet
- Not out in the UK yet, because PS3 isn't
SCORE: 8.0/10
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=152972
Und das ist erst die japanische Version. ^^


), aber DAMN RIGHT, man!