The Average Gamer

Motorstorm Review (PS3)

What is it?

Off-road driving game. Think WRC but with more vehicles.

Is it fun?

Yes, but frequently irritating as hell.

Is it worth the money? £39.99

Yes.

Why?

I have some mixed feeling about this game. At times it makes me feel like “I am a driving God”. Seconds later it turns round and exacts its revenge for my skillful driving by shattering my race position, all because the lady loves milk tray. Sorry, I meant to say, all because I just hit a tiny rock or grazed another competitor’s vehicle resulting in my vehicle hurtling to its doom. Or I get repeatedly splatted by large trucks which all drive like they are auditioning for Duel. Bye, bye race win. Hello last place.

Take last night for example. After 2 perfect laps (if I do say so myself), I’m approaching the final corner of the race in 1st place and then *BAMM* taken out from behind by one of the most evilly-AI-scripted suicidal opponents ever. Cue the pretty (annoying) slow-mo crash sequence and by the time I’m back in the race I’m in 10th place. Race over. Great. I don’t mind losing, but when it happens like this, courtesy of some quiet blatant cheating by the game then I’m not a happy bunny.

If you can deal with the evil AI, which to be honest, is equally bad in all the Mario Kart games anyway, then a pretty accomplished and downright fun game emerges. The Motorstorm experience is very close-quarter racing, resulting total carnage when the big-rigs catch you. Each of the 8 tracks are enormous, with multiple routes. Even better, each route has a major effect on your vehicle – muddy valleys work well with mud pluggers and high-speed roads favour the cars. All this is brought to life by some truly beautiful graphics.

In summary: Motorstorm looks amazing but has a tendency to slow down during big, multi-vehicle crashes [So, hardly at all… haha! – Weefz] It also has mostly crap in-game music and evil, evil opponent AI. But it’s still outrageous fun. Will annoy and amaze in equal doses.

Screenshots:

MotorStorm04-tb.jpg MotorStorm03-tb.jpg MotorStorm02-tb.jpg MotorStorm01-tb.jpg

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