With only Colin McRae: Dirt anywhere close on the horizon there is only very minor competition in the Dirt racing genre. Motorstorm is one of the highly anticipated titles that’ll be out this year and it isn’t a cheap port unlike many other games available on the platform. Will Motorstorm excel in its genre or is it just a desperate attempt by Sony to try and bring something original to the table?

When you boot up the game, it’s very tempting not to watch the introduction cinematic every time. It’s shot in gorgeous HD resolution and while flying over Monument Valley, a voice-over explains the basic idea of the game to you. This voice-over immediately reminds you of one of the zillion movie trailers out there which have the same narrating guy in it, with the best bits being shown to you before anything else. The supposedly ingame graphics used in the intro are a little polished up, and they look slightly worse when racing around yourself, but that’s what intros are for and thus it will be forgiven. Without even playing the game up until this point, the mood is set and it already scored some points.

Unfortunately it’ll lose some points as well in this paragraph since there are only 2 game modes available in Motorstorm, a ‘Campaign’ and Multiplayer. This is a major disappointment if you’re one of those people who just want to play a fun, quick race and go do something else afterwards. The game is set up in 21 tiers, and each tier has 2 to 4 races in which you can score points to unlock other tiers or new skins for cars. It’s also disappointing that in order to access all the tracks and races you’ll have to acquire a humongous shitload of points which will probably take even a skilled player at least a week of nonstop playing. In order to score points, you’ll have to finish at least 3rd, and that’ll unlock only a few tiers. To unlock the last 50 percent of the game you’ll have to score a gold medal in every race in the first 5 or so tiers. This might sound like a challenge, but it feel more like a gameplay mechanic from a decade ago.

If you’re an avid racing fan and can keep doing round after round until there are only gold medals shining the shelf, the campaign isn’t so bad. As said before, all the races take place around Monument Valley, but it’s not an exact replica of the place. The developers have created a series of tracks with Monument Valley in mind, but in fact the only thing that resembles Monument Valley are the large rocks you see in the background. Basically you’ll be driving around on dirt, rock and mud with some added ramps to make jumps. All these different kinds of terrain have different characteristics and affect each vehicle class differently. A truck can plough through mud without any effort whilst a dirt bike has trouble making a tight corner on the same terrain. The tracks get slightly more difficult as you progress and you’ll have to memorize them in order to win or you’ll end up in a pit and be reset onto the track.

Motorstorm was advertised as a game that would have lots of freedom, but this has been slightly exaggerated. In reality there are only a few different routes you can take on each track. For example you can take a route with many ramps, which is suitable for bikes, or go through a muddy valley which is more suitable for heavy trucks. They managed to balance this pretty well and none of the routes have a major advantage over other routes and in theory you should be able to finish a lap in the same time. It’s pretty disappointing that in most tiers you’re limited to 1 class on each track which cuts back on the feeling that you’re in this chaotic ’storm’ of vehicles.

There are 7 different vehicle classes, ranging from dirt bikes to heavy trucks, and just like the tracks, they all have different characteristics. A truck doesn’t really take ramps very well but it’s pretty good at ramming small bikes off the road. In contrary to the tracks, you don’t need to unlock any of the vehicle classes, they’re all available right from the start, although not in every track. You can however unlock different skins for each vehicle, but this doesn’t alter the way it behaves, it’s purely cosmetic. To speed up your vehicle, you can use boost, but this overheats your motor very quickly and if you’re not careful it will explode. The boost meter replenishes itself automatically if you’re not using it.

The racing itself is a very fun experience, especially if you’re getting more and more familiar with the tracks. You can take more risks and try out some of the crazy stunts on each track. However, catch-up is enabled in the single player part of the game which means that if you’re driving in pole position, they can always catch up to you because they’re a tad faster. While this gives other players a better chance of catching up, the guy in front has to struggle the entire race to keep that front position. One small mistake just before the finish line can result in a major crash which can make you finish last. The Sixaxis controller allows you to control your vehicle by just tilting the controller in the right direction. It’s obvious that Sony forced Evolution studios to implement this feature since it’s disabled by default and it really plays like utter crap. It’s very hard to even keep your vehicle going in a straight line, let alone not finishing the round in last position.

The multiplayer part of the game is lacking in game modes as well, there’s not even a splitscreen option available which would fit perfectly in this game. But despite the lack of splitscreen, you can always go online and play against other people in your region. The developers apparently chose to limit the regions and this would make sense if they were trying to reduce lag, but since European players can choose between Europe and Australia it really doesn’t. Once online, you can choose your language and host a game or join one, even the ones in progress. While you’re waiting in the lobby to start racing you can chat to other people since a head set is supported in this game. Luckily once you start, it doesn’t really suffer from much lag, even when playing with 12 people in the game. No in-depth stats are recorded, but it does keep track of your wins and losses, and based on that you get a rank which everyone can see in the lobby.

Visually the game looks very good, the tracks respond how they should to vehicles driving on them, and the vehicles themselves are animated the way they should be. This is without a doubt one of the best looking Playstation 3 titles so far. The tracks might seem a little boring at first, but there’s plenty of variation and the fact that you’re driving around in a desert justifies the repetitive scenery. If you crash your vehicle, you’ll be presented with an explosion where particles fly around in slow-motion, but this cinematic takes way too long and can’t be skipped unfortunately. The soundtrack is put together brilliantly, but if you’re not into rock music you might want to turn the volume down a little. Nirvana, Queens of the Stone Age, Wolfmother, it’s all there and it really sets the mood and makes you want to crash and burn your way through the track.

All in all Motorstorm is a solid dirt racer with good looking graphics and exciting gameplay, but it falls short in a few areas. The single player campaign will keep most people occupied for a while, however the lack of a quick race option is a major letdown. Along with that, the fact that the multiplayer is also very limited means this game can become tiresome quickly. The time you do have though is fun, but you will be left knowing that this game could have been so much more.

Final Score: 7 out of 10 - Above Average (How do we rate games?)